Seventy competitors made their way to Neil McDougall Park in Como to experience the festivities of the last event of 2025, but had their heads sent spinning when the Grinch (Joseph) started to steal the controls up to number 25 as the time went on. The weather was ideal for the event, reaching just 25°C and was sunny for most of the day. A lucky contrast to that of Christmas Day.
It was not just speed and navigational skill, but luck that helped participants to score highly, as many competitors visited all 31 of the controls out on course, some resorting to manually punching in vain once seeing that the Grinch had beaten them to the brick. A vaguely clockwise loop and keeping ahead of the Grinch was required to collect maximum points, whether or not the pattern was determined early or not.
Archie Brownlie was both the fastest junior male and the overall winner, collecting 23 of a possible 26 controls, and was awarded a special Grinch mug for his effort. In the other age classes, Neve Lommers took out the junior female with 20 (the most for anyone in the female classes), Lachlan Braid won the open male with 22 and Anastasiia Maksymova got 17 to win the open female. Graham Braid was victorious in the senior male with 22, Ceri Pass took out the senior female with 18, Robert Graieg won the veteran male with 17, Christine Howitt found 18 to take out the veteran female and Geo Constable et al beat the other teams to win the group class with 18. A complete list of results is available on Eventor.
So whether you steered clear of the Grinch or had multiple controls snagged from under your nose, we hope you enjoyed yourself. See you all next year! And thank you very much to Kate and Joseph for making the event happen.
You can follow the Grinch's journey here, starting from the car and following white, black, green, pink and finally blue to steal controls 6-25 in the 75 minute time limit.
Photos: Kate (left) and the Grinch (right), taken by Richard.
Ngalak kaaditj nidja Noongar Boodjar. Koora-Yeyi-Kalyakool.