Welcome to Lindfield Life’s Denmans Lane Dash event page. Here you will find our most recent information for the exciting Boxing Day race.
Denmans Lane Dash is a Boxing Day beer race, racing the length of Denmans Lane and back for charity.
See also, Denmans Lane Dash Facebook page
All photos © Mark Tampion (Click to enlarge)
2024’s Dash complete
By Ray Gower
Another Boxing Day Denmans Lane Dash has passed and what a brilliant day we had! This year’s Dash was the best supported yet. The weather stayed kind to us again which encouraged many more people to come out and watch the competitors, adorned in their various festive and fancy dress costumes.
As usual the ladies set off first at a sensible pace. We had a couple of former champions including last year’s winner Sophie Grimaldi defending her crown. But this year saw another name added to the illustrious winners list – Emily Phillips.
Emily was closely followed by Mae Robinson – a member of the formidable Robinson family. Competing in her first Dash, Mae was just edged out by Emily.
The men raced off up Denmans Lane at a rate of knots and included not just one, but two Dinosaurs who bravely tackled the race in what must be very awkward costumes to run. The race would not be the same without our resident dinosaurs taking part.
Still racing hard across the line, the men’s race was won by Charlie Payne competing in his first Dash, followed closely by Ben Rebeiro and former champion Lio Robinson, another member of the lovely Robinson family.
This year’s Fancy Dress winner, judged by Mark and Sarah Tampion Lacey, went to Rob Watts who wrapped himself up as a Christmas present.
I was blown away by the amount of support we had this year. The Dash has grown to become such a wonderful fun community event, giving everyone a bit of relief from the normal Boxing Day festivities and the chance to grab a bit of fresh air.
It also gives us an opportunity to raise money for deserving charities and this year I wanted to do something for the ladies. This year’s charity was Breast Cancer Now - a fantastic charity that supports not just women suffering from the awful disease, but a number of men and families who have relatives with the disease.
We all know someone who has had breast cancer or has had a friend or family member with it. It touches all our lives, so for me it was the charity I wanted to support this year. A total of £2,193.96 was raised for this great charity and I can’t thank all donators enough. It just shows how generous and kind our community is.
As always, I want to thank the community for their support and the competitors for taking part and making a huge effort with their fancy dress costumes. A massive thanks goes to all those who help me put this event on each year - I couldn’t do it without them.
Andi Frost and the team at the Stand Up were fantastic, as always. A special thanks goes to Andi for supplying the bottles of bubbly for the winners and my wonderful supportive friends from Lindfield Bonfire Society who manage the marshalling of the event for me. This year was the smoothest ever!
Thanks also to my dear friends Ian and Lorna Towner who managed the registration brilliantly, our fabulous Denmans Lane resident Roger Seymour for his traffic management and Mark Tampion Lacey who took so many wonderful photographs.
To conclude, I just want to thank our fabulous, kind and supportive community for the support shown in good times and not such good times. Lindfield.... you are the best! See you next year when the Dash will be ten years old!