4x4 Adventures Ltd Taunton, Somerset
(6034521)
OEC International Winch Challenge
Bampton, 6th Jan 07
The first challenge event of 20007 was the OEC Intl Winch Challenge at a site near Bampton, Tiverton. A good turn out on a very dark and damp Saturday in January. The site is approx 70 acres of pine forest plantation with a heavy clay base, there is a good gully running East-West complete with small stream, whilst the top end of the woods is typically interspersed with smaller gulleys and rivers leading from some nice swampy ground!

The entrants were primarily Land Rover based vehicles along there were strong competitors from Challenge South West, with Russell and Lewis, in their Suzuki's and a few competitors from J33P - Mike Cuff and Steve Gittins.

The punches were laid out with the aim to cater for most types of vehicle and crew ability. There were 40 punches in total. Approximately 12 were driveable, the next 15-20 were achievable with a little thought and prior planning with the remaining 8-10 set as the hardest to find and achieve punches. All the punches were achieved over the course of the day, but no one vehicle achieved all the punches.

A unique scoring system, devised by a contributor to www.LR4x4.com forum (Chris Watts) is used. Each punch starts at a set value, the more vehicles that correctly achieve that punch, the less that punch is worth. This therefore means it becomes a thinking competition as well as an all out maximum effort competition. It may just be worth getting that single punch if its worth maximum points and you are the only vehicle to get it!

Prizes for first in each of the three classes were kindly provided by Anton, Paul and team from OEC Intl along with competitors vehicle nos.

Winners were:

Std: Russell Lowton and Lewis Alderson, in a Suzuki
Std +1: Neville Hudd and Kevin Bailey
Modified: Jason Farr and Paul Milsom in a tray back 90

Each team received a tree strop with hook and loop, OEC Intl baseball hat and set of quick fits. Thank you OEC.

As ever thanks goes to the marshals for the successful running of the event Simon Raffety, Tim Jones, Matt Neal, Chris Watts, David Bowyer and Chris Watts.


Some pictures from the event