4x4 Adventures Ltd Taunton, Somerset
(6034521)
4x4 Adventures Winch Challenge Series Rounds 5 and 6
Wellington, 25th/26th Oct 08
In association with OEC International and X-Eng we ran our first series two day event at the popular Wellington venue over the period 25-26 Oct 08.

Now not only does it get dark early but it is also cold and wet in October, so with this in mind Paul and Anton from OEC combined with Simon from X-Eng decided that the competitors should not go wanting. Two large marquees were erected with a free constant supply of hot drinks for marshalls/competitors and spectators alike. In addition Jim Pugh was called upon to cook along with Liz for one and all with a BBQ Saturday night courtesy of the sponsors followed by a very reasonable breakfast Sunday morning.

With the food and welfare now in place it was time to find something to do to keep the teams occupied! So with two days to play with and competitors traveling a long way we wanted to keep them busy and make it worth the trip!!!

Saturday consisted of 8 specical stages and 30 punches. Of the specical stages 6 of them were to count giving the competitors the option of doing all 8 and having the best scores taken; or going for 6 and spending more time on the 30 punches – this made it more of a tactical game and meant competitors had to think through their best course of attack and time allocation.

Saturday night post the BBQ was the Night specical stage. A 60 minute cut off time was given along with some tulip diagrams and some interesting terrain to test the trucks and competitors that little bit more. For the majority of competitors this was to be their first night stage.

Sunday was back to punch collecting with 40 harder punches having been set along with two special stages.

All the specical stages were optional with a maximum of 500 points available. Each one was driving orientated against the clock. Two stages that proved very popular were based on a trials theme with 10 gates to be driven. The remaining 8 stages had 2 punches in each and a predetermined route to drive. Each stage was scored per class and the times for each stage were only counted if the whole route was driven and both punches were collected. To give everyone the incentive to have ago, there was no cut off time.

Saturday was to prove a thinking man’s game. With the option taken by some to walk the course the evening prior there was plenty of planning being done. Which specical stages would improve with use and which ones should be done early, “Do we do the specical stage with a potential 500 points up for grabs or go for the punches at 300 each and hope not many others pick up the punches?”. The punches outside of the specical stages decrease in points depending how many vehicles achieve them. Lots of decisions and limited time to make them!

Luckily the weather held out for Saturday making the special stages all achievable with varying degrees of success and style being displayed as teams tackled them throughout the day.

Team Gigglepin and Team OEC were having a good day and managed to clear all the specical stages plus all 30 punches in good times. Shaun Harris, from Cheddar signs, with Paul Milsom kept them on their toes though chasing them throughout the day, putting in some good times on the specical stages, giving them a creditable 3rd place for Saturday which despite their less fortunate luck on Sunday with drive train issues secured them a sound 3rd overall for the weekend.

Some excellent driving from Tim Jones with his new co driver Ian Stokes spotting for him on special stage 2 saw them drive clear. One of the few cars to do so and with a good time that held as fastest time almost to the end! Unfortunately Tim and Ian were not without a few problems on Saturday snapping ropes and getting caught out more than once or twice with misfortune – At least Ian had a good run out. Tim and Ian had even more bad luck on Sunday with the winch packing up on their first punch after an early specical stage. This coupled with losing a tyre on the night stage spelled the end of the day for them and an early shower!

Kris Murphy with Bryony Passmore crewing for him put in a sound effort on Saturday with a good steady approach to both punches and special stages throughout the day. Kris and Bryony maintained this on Sunday and again kept themselves high in the field scoring a creditable 3rd place series score for Sunday.

Martin Stainer with Graeme Mitchell were back with Martins newly adapted tray backed td5, they had a good day but missed out on some sections, as did Alen Cousins. This took their scores down a fair chunk. However Martin certainly made up for it on Sunday with an excellent punch count taking him from 7th upto 4th equal place on each day score.

Dan and Bert Smith were definitely having a hard time on Saturday with no lockers and winch trouble but they kept going and were smiling throughout! After a wrong turn on the night stage they disappeared off into a little bog for 45 minutes and still came out of the end laughing and mentioning they thought they may be a little lost! Sunday was a whole different day for them though with some sound driving and a good punch selection they secured 4th = place with Martin Stainer.

Ian Moulsdale was to be troubled with problems for the weekend. Looking for a good run of it in the std + 1 class he succumbed to a broken diff under 3hrs into the event on Saturday and spent a good proportion of the rest of the day getting back to the pits and changing the diff. Sunday was to be a different ball game though with Tom back in the co-drivers seat they were off with a good steady approach securing some good punches bringing them in 2nd on the day.

The Std + 1 class was certainly hit by problems over the weekend, Paul Radford had a good day Saturday to then spend most of Sunday fixing his truck. Shaun Houghton again was troubled with firstly diff lock problems before finally retiring with winch motor trouble. Meanwhile David Webber and Mark Walford probably wished they hadn’t got out of bed Saturday morning with their winch motor giving up very early in the day, a motor was soon found but as David has an old 8274 with a key way it took some time to source the correct gear to enable it to be fitted - a big thank you goes to Team OEC (Jason Farr) plus David Bowyer from Goodwinch for resolving both issues. At least they could make up for it on Sunday!

In standard class we had only 2 entries from the normal 5. We did however have a first from Devon 4x4 with Tim and Jake coming along to compete in their first competition with us. Simon Parsons and Chris Solway gave them a good run for their money and Sunday they both came in with the same punch count, despite Chris picking up a nice little haematoma on his knee – ouch! Tim and Jake had a good overall win with better scoring on the specical stages in particular the night stage where they beat quite a few of the modified vehicles collecting the correct ‘markers’. They certainly worked hard on the punches and were justifiably rewarded.

With our first night stage for the series and with navigation playing a key role all the competitors were certainly tested. Tim Jones with Ian Stokes along with Team X-Eng in the guise of Nick Watts and Guy Radford in Rogue Vogue were the only two vehicles to complete the whole course with all the correct marker boards showing that slow and steady does work – as does having the co-driver out finding the route! Unfortunately Tim as previously mentioned lost a tyre and went over the time limit for the stage. Overall 8 vehicles managed to get around the whole route although unfortunately the other 6 failed to collect all the markers in the correct order!!!

Our thanks goes to all the marshalls who helped over the course of the weekend, most of the time stood in the rain attending specical stages waiting for competitors to show up! A thankless task but without you our events could not run. As already mentioned a special thanks must go to our sponsors Anton and Paul from OEC along with Simon from X-Eng for not only the prizes but their continued support and help to everyone over the weekend. David Bowyer is kindly thanked for providing not only on site winch diagnostics and spares at show prices but also for his kind donation towards the BBQ.

The results for the whole weekend and each day are shown below. For the purpose of the series each day was scored individually.

Overall Weekend Results

Modified
1st Jason Farr and Rich Sims (Team OEC)
2nd Steve Gittins and Mark Morgan (Team Gigglepin)
3rd Shaun Harris and Paul Milsom
4th Nick Watts and Guy Radford (Team X-Eng/Goodwinch)
5th Kris Murphy and Bryony Passmore
6th Martin Stainer and Graeme Mitchell
7th Tim Jones and Ian Stokes
8th Bert and Dan Smith
9th Alen Cousins and Matt Weeks

Std + 1 (Slightly Modified) - two aids (eg 2 winches, 2 lockers or 1 winch and 1 locker)
1st Paul Radford and Kerryn
2nd Bob and Dawn Smith
3rd Shaun Houghton and Stu Guard
4th David Webber and Mark Walford
5th Ian Moulsdale & Tom

Std - 1 aid (eg 1 winch, or 1 locker)
1st Tim and Jake (Team Devon 4x4)
2nd Simon Parsons and Chris Solway

Saturday Series Scores (Excluding night stage)

Modified
1st Jason Farr and Rich Sims (Team OEC) - 4294 pts
2nd Steve Gittins and Mark Morgan (Team Gigglepin) - 4268 pts
3rd Shaun Harris and Paul Milsom - 3987 pts
4th Nick Watts and Guy Radford (Team X-Eng/Goodwinch) - 2988 pts
5th Kris Murphy and Bryony Passmore - 2596 pts
6th Tim Jones and Ian Stokes - 2393 pts
7th Martin Stainer and Graeme Mitchell - 2013 pts
8th Bert and Dan Smith - 1541 pts
9th Alen Cousins and Matt Weeks - 440 pts

Std + 1 (Slightly Modified) - two aids (eg 2 winches, 2 lockers or 1 winch and 1 locker)
1st Paul Radford and Kerryn - 4719 pts
2nd Shaun Houghton and Stu Guard - 3482 pts
3rd Bob and Dawn Smith - 2704 pts
4th David Webber and Mark Walford - 1290 pts (retired early)
5th Ian Moulsdale and Tom - 1125 pts (retired early)

Std - 1 aid (eg 1 winch, or 1 locker)
1st Tim and Jake (Team Devon 4x4) - 2250 pts
2nd Simon Parsons and Chris Solway - 1950 pts

Sunday Series Scores

Modified
1st Jason Farr and Rich Sims (Team OEC) - 3939 pts
2nd Steve Gittins and Mark Morgan (Team Gigglepin) - 3485 pts
3rd Kris Murphy and Bryony Passmore - 1352 pts
4th = Bert and Dan Smith - 1285 pts
4th = Martin Stainer and Graeme Mitchell - 1285 pts
6th Shaun Harris and Paul Milsom - 1143 pts
7th Nick Watts and Guy Radford (Team X-Eng/Goodwinch) - 846 pts (retired early)
8th Tim Jones and Ian Stokes 351(retired early)

Std + 1 (Slightly Modified) - two aids (eg 2 winches, 2 lockers or 1 winch and 1 locker)
1st David Webber and Mark Walford - 2250 pts
2nd Ian Moulsdale & Tom - 1575 pts
3rd Bob and Dawn Smith - 1450 pts
4th Shaun Houghton and Stu Guard - 400 pts(retired early)
5th Paul Radford and Kerryn - 225 pts (retired early)

Std - 1 aid (eg 1 winch, or 1 locker)
1st = Simon Parsons and Chris Solway - 1650 pts
1st = Tim and Jake (Team Devon 4x4) - 1650 pts


Some pictures from the event