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Posted on 10.05.17

Gorilla delivers biggest Dirty Weekend for Rat Race Events

Event production specialist, Gorilla Marketing & Events, has just delivered the largest ‘Dirty Weekend’ mud-run obstacle course to-date, for event organiser Rat Race Events, at Burghley House, Lincolnshire. This year’s event featured competitor numbers up by 800 to a new high of 6500, and the tallest structure built by Gorilla at a Dirty Weekend to-date, the fearsome Final Furlong obstacle.

The course, built within the grounds and woodland of Burghley House. is 20 miles long and consists of 200 obstacles for the competitors to negotiate, including the standard fare of obstacles through to the treetop runs, massive haystacks and very large water jumps.

Rat Race Events, MD Jim Mee, commented, “We like to add new challenges each year to keep the event fresh and exciting for participants, adding bigger and better obstacles. This year’s additions, the caravan, the ‘Salt & Pepper’ towers, and the much larger final obstacle The Final Furlong, have combined gruelling difficulty with plenty of fun-factor, especially the water slide that I simply had to test personally!”

The Final Furlong scaffolding tower was the final obstacle, and at 12m in height, it towered over the course. Competitors were, however, rewarded with a huge waterslide to end the race on the other side. First man down the slide was Mee, wearing nothing but a sock to protect his modesty, and having given it his seal of approval the race began.

New for 2017 were two huge towers that straddled last year’s Ewok Village from 2016, sending runners ten metres up into the forest canopy. Also in the woodland was the rollercoaster, a series of high-level aerial walkways whilst in open ground there was the new addition ‘The Disco Caravan’, which saw competitors clambering in and out through an old caravan to continue their way on the course.

Andy Gregorek, MD of Gorilla Marketing & Events commented, “It’s great working with Rat Race Events, their enthusiasm to make this the biggest and best event of its kind allows us to constantly push the size, scale and complexity of the course. We also get to add in some fun elements like the caravan which adds a little bit of humour to the race. Planning for 2018 will be starting soon.”

Parry, A. (2017). Gorilla delivers biggest Dirty Weekend for Rat Race Events. Available: https://www.eventindustrynews.com/gorilla-delivers-biggest-dirty-weekend-rat-race-events/