Devon 4x4 Off Road - Outback Challange 2007

Outback Challange 2007 - Simon's Diary

Following victory in the 2007 Outback Challenge, Simon recalls some of his thoughts and experiences from the event...

"I was aware of the OBC Morocco from the previous year, I had seen the video and although it looked fun it didn’t appear to be an event worth considering, that is until Chris Armelin contacted us about the 2007 event. When I voiced my concerns he assured me that the 2007 event was going to be a lot tougher and even though I liked the sound of it I still took a lot of convincing.

Eventually Matt and I decided to give it a shot, one of the appealing factors was that it sounded very much like an adventure especially since neither of us had been to the desert before. The other influencing factor was that there are an increasing number of people venturing out to desert for play or expedition and I felt that this would give us valuable experience when it came to supplying parts or for the preparation of vehicles.

Now we had decided to enter we had to build a vehicle; having sold the Bobtail Rangie the previous year we were left without a suitable vehicle. We had the 90 but a short wheel base vehicle is not really suitable for this type of event so we had two options, the first was to stretch the 90 to a 100 inches, the second was to start with a clean sheet, we opted for the clean sheet. The next choice was what to choose...

That was quite simple, I wanted to use a vehicle that looked the same as a current vehicle and was affordable so it had to be a Defender and the only option was the 110, ideally I would like to have chopped it to 106 inches but time would not allow and with hindsight I am pleased that we left it as it was.

I originally gave myself a budget of £10K which was a tad unrealistic so upped it to 12K which with time would have been achievable if I had had time to source second hand parts as it turned out it cost £15K (not including labour) which I think is quite a reasonable amount for a competitive international vehicle. The story of the build is documented in the workshop section of our web site, and pictures of ther build can be found in our web gallery.

It was ten weeks of hard slog by all the team to get the vehicle built (about 800 hours in total) in fact some of the team were still working on it as I was driving it out of the workshop. The decision was taken to drive the 110 to Sete in the South of France as it had covered less than 20 miles it would be the perfect opportunity to test all the systems.

We had covered about 400 miles in total and were well under way through France when we noticed the first hiccup from the engine, eventually we pulled into a service station about 10 mile from Niort to investigate.

We decided that it was the fuel pressure regulator of which we had no spares so some frantic calls to Chris and Patrice. They managed to locate a second hand regulator in Niort which was sent out by taxi. Two hours later it was fitted, to our amazement it made no difference, we spent the next hour changing fuel pumps checking connections etc. to no avail. Time was getting on so we decided to limp on in the hope that we would be able to find a main dealer how might have various sensors to try, it was now becoming apparent how hastily we had left taking very little in the way of spares.

Two o clock in the morning about 20 miles north of Carcasonne the 110 finally died, we had no other choice but to call the AA. Within a few minutes we had the AA on the phone only to be informed that they would not recover us from the motor way, furious I limped the car for 10 miles along the motor way by pumping the throttle and repeatedly starting the car it seemed like an eternity but eventually we made it off the motorway and called the AA again.

Five o’clock in the morning a recover lorry turned up and although very helpful would only be able to take us back to their base which was a body shop and we needed a main dealer.

Our luck changed when the driver opened up their workshop and put their facilities at our disposal, in fact they could not have been more helpful. Matt and I test every electrical component that we could and settled on the air flow sensor as the culprit. Although the V8 is not supposed to run without the air flow sensor we discovered that if we disconnected the battery the ECU reset its self and although the engine was not happy at low revs it ran well enough to get us on the road again so at 8am off we went on our way to Sete.

Forty three hours after leaving the garage we arrived at the ferry port in Sete, Patrice was waiting with a second hand airflow sensor which once fitted cured the poor running and taking no chances we had a new spare plus any sensors that we could think of flown out to Marekesh with Daniel Fabb who was joining the event. Thanks Dan.

Although I was not looking forward to the 36 hour boat trip it gave us the chance to catch up with some old friends and much needed sleep. A lot of the paper work required to give us a smooth entrance to Morocco was carried out on the ferry so I mistakenly thought that it would be off the ferry flash the passport and on our way for the 400k drive, wrong, 2 hours later after various form stamping we eventually got on our way. We decided to change up some sterling for local currency and after another half hour paper work exercise we were on our way.

We had been warned about the speed traps on the motorway and avoided being collared although we did see several competitors having their wallets lightened. The first night we stayed in the Ibis hotel in Marekesh and had the chance to meet all the competitors.

In the morning we had a half hour drive to the prologue, the start numbers were drawn and we were second from last. Personally I prefer to go early and sit back and watch the rest of the field but this was not to be and to be honest the course did get quicker although once half the field had been I don’t think that it altered a lot. Eventually our turn came and we were off, every thing went fairly smoothly and no sooner had we started than we were finished. We were lucky enough to set the fastest time which is always confidence boosting.

After the prologue we drove over the Atlas Mountains stopping once for fuel which was an experience to say the least, all we wanted was fuel but anyone with something for sale was going to sell it to us …..and they did, even Cookie (who is notoriously tight except where beer is concerned) could not resist, in the end I had to drive off with the door open or I am sure that we would still be there. Several hours later we arrived at a night stage which was a rock strewn valley that we were to drive up.

We were prevented from reeceing the stage, although most teams did, I don’t think it would have made a great deal of difference, other that seeing how big the rock at the end of the stage was. We got ourselves well and truly hung up on it, it cost us about 3 or 4 minutes and a very dented chassis, other that that I think that the stage went well. That was the end of the day for us although there was plenty of work going on around with people fixing broken cars, mostly as a consequence of being hooked up on that damn rock.
The next morning we had a long liaison section to the next stage, I have to say that the liaison stages were great and I feel were an important part of the adventure. During this section we developed a fuel leak, it was a consequence of earlier problems where we had changed fuel pumps and had to use the existing copper washers so we pulled over removed them and cleaned them up with a file and eventually we got the system to seal and a valuable lesson was learnt, and that was to site service items simply, the fuel system worked OK but was a pig to work on.

Due to our enforced stop we were one of the last teams to arrive at the stage, there was no harm done the stage was a rock crawling stage and you could have put a hundred teams through and it would have been the same for every one. The stage went well with no apparent problems. I should point out that after the prologue we were not informed of our positions during the event (I am not sure that I like this but it certainly made it interesting) but you do get a good idea if you have done well or badly by the look on the marshals face. I believe that the secret is not to try and win every stage but to be consistent and near the top three as often as possible.

Once the section was completed we were off on another long liaison section, after a while we came upon some competitors and support vehicles blocking the road, we pulled up and on further investigation saw where we were about to drive. The track that we were on wound between two very large rocks on to the side of the mountain, I truly believe that if you had fallen off you would have died of old age before hitting the bottom, I have never seen anything the like before. Eventually it was our turn to wind our way down the side of the mountain, it was a single track gravel road that required a shunt to get around each hair pin corner, this was a time when you really did not need your brakes to fail in an auto, amazingly three quarters of the what down we drove through village perched on the side of the mountain, quite what they did there I’ve no idea. It is worth mentioning at this point that where ever we went people waved and were incredibly friendly, in fact I found it almost strange how enthusiastic the locals were. After about half an hour we reached the bottom of the mountain and continued on our way.

We were making good time and eventually caught up a small convoy of competitors and marshals vehicles and tucked in behind, which was not a good idea as it was incredibly dusty so dropped back as there was no way of passing, after about an hour we were crossing a large dry river bed when Matt insisted that we stop, we have to go right here and follow the river bed he exclaimed, now the natural thing to do was to follow the convoy that was now a speck in the distance but after checking the road book with Matt I agreed, and realised that I should not have questioned his instructions in the first place, a lesson well learnt. At about 5 o clock that afternoon we rolled up to the start of the next stage tired but pleased that every thing was working well.

This stage was to be a timed 17k stage, A to B as fast as your wheels would allow, not having done any thing like this before I was unsure how to tackle it, I need not have been worried it was brilliant, what an adrenalin rush. The stage started off on some thing that resembled a track but after a few kilometres we quite obviously need to deviate from its path if we were going to find the grid reference of the finishing point. What soon became evident was that we would have to make a decision on what route to take; do we follow the valleys, do we try and cross a group of hills with vertical drop offs to each side or do we look for an alternative route? In the end you follow your nose and sense of direction, what is hard to explain is the visual distance every thing is so vast and alien. Eventual we reached the finish line and to this day I have no idea weather we posted a good time or mediocre time, what I can tell you, it was one of the best adrenalin rushes you could have and that one stage made the trip worth while.

What we didn’t know at this time was that the next day the stage would not be 17k but 300k and we had no maps. Absolutely staggering!

We were given an 8am start time so Matt and I were up bright and early at half five, by six we were packed and on our way to a small town to fuel up, when we found the station it was a bit of a culture shock, fuel was served in plastic cans and any other receptacle they could lay there hands on. We were warned that the fuel may well be dirty so were prepared to filter it; however it seemed to be perfectly clean even if it were a lower grade than our engine would have liked. With a 160 litres on board we went off to find the start line just outside of town. We were the first there at 7.30, over the course of the next half an hour pretty much the whole field rolled in and the sun was now burning down on us. Eight o’clock came and went, nine o’clock came and went, ten o’clock arrived and the start procedure started at last.

We were given various way points and control points that we had to check in at or record information to show that we had been there The first thing that Matt noticed was that the route would take us into Algeria, on taking this up with the organisation it was explained that the border was in dispute and we were perfectly OK to follow the planned route, panic over. The next thing to shake our confidence was the fact that some teams had had the foresight to obtain detailed maps before arriving in Morocco, another huge mistake on our part; we assumed that these would be readily available, how wrong we were.

We made the decision to pace ourselves, 300k across country was a long way, well thirty seconds, fifteen seconds, five four three two one, we were off like scolded cats it was only when an unsuspecting press car slowed us did we actually start to pace ourselves. Over the course of the first hour we picked off a few teams and were making good progress until we came to a ridge with no apparent way down, the only thing to do was drive along until the shear drop becomes a slope that we could traverse. We could see other teams running through the plain below us which was our first lesson, the direct route is more often than not the longest, eventually we managed to pick our way down the hill and were soon on our way across a never ending plain.

The hours rolled by surprisingly fast, plains turned to rock strewn hills that turned to scrub that turned to dunes, it was whilst picking our way through some dunes that we past an army out post, a couple of soldiers motioned us to pull over, wondering what we had done wrong we dutifully pulled up, we need not have worried all they wanted were pens and preferably our shirts which we did manage to keep and off we went again. We learnt that by turning at right angle we were likely to intersect tracks which would allow us to travel a lot faster, or failing that dried river beds were a good option, and during a lengthy trip up one of these river beds we came around a corner rather fast to be confronted by about 60 camels, yet another new experience.

Now something that I have not mentioned yet is our leaky power steering box, we knew that we had a very slight leak driving through France but it was inconsequential, now it was much more serious, our PAS fluid was boiling, what had been a weep was now a geezer, fearing we would seize our pump we were forced to stop every 15 to 20 minutes to top it up added to this our fuel was boiling in the tanks and fuel was now being forced out of the breathers and running into the cab, this was a particular worry but we were left no choice but to press on. The hours came and went and way points cleared one by one the car was working well although we did have to moderate our speed in some of the really fine sand as it was pushing our temperatures quite high. One of the hardest parts for me was my crash helmet, what started off as a light weight helmet now felt like a concrete block on my head my neck felt as though it were going to explode.

Seven hours had gone past and we were getting close to the finish, we were absolutely knackered but pushed on as hard as we could, the last 15 minutes or so were spent weaving our way through dune until we arrived at the camp and the finish line. If memory serves my correctly it took us about seven and a half hours to complete the stage, absolutely awesome, the best stage I have ever done! The final sting in the tail was that the cars had to go into park ferme until 5 the next morning, what a great idea no work tonight, just a well earned rest.

The first few nights were autonomous having to provide our own food and camping gear, now, we were staying at a bivouac with rather cool sleeping quarters that consisted of mud huts and camel rug roofs all food was provided and was served in another huge tent so all the teams could eat together. The other HUGE bonus, there were showers!

Compared to some teams we had had a trouble free run, however we did have a major PAS leak which meant an early start yet again, I removed the top of the steering box and the problem became quite apparent, when the box had been reconditioned the “O” ring that seals the top of the box had been pinched. We cleaned it up added some sealant and replaced the top of the box, it didn’t work. Start again, A good friend Dan who was driving a support truck for another team appeared with a seal from a diesel filter and although at first glance it didn’t look as though it would fit a bit of stretching and then a bit of trimming with a razor blade and it was on, fired up the engine, perfect! We gave the rest of the car a check over and we were ready for the days stages.

The first of the days stages was a relaxed affair, just a short course through the dunes with a 15 minute DNF time, and after the previous day stage very welcome, it should be pointed out that it is about 10am and cars are still arriving to finish the previous days 300k stage. We had a decent enough run and set the exact same time as Jim who due to fuel problems had only been in camp an hour. One of the nice things about this type of stage is that you get to watch it and have a laugh with your fellow competitors. As usual Andy (now known as the ‘Wookie’) continued to entertain with a massive jump over a dune only to tear off one of his engine mountings, not deterred, off he went to weld it back on, nothing was going to stop this guy!

The stage for this afternoon was aptly called deep water, now bear in mind that we are in the desert, its 45 degrees, how deep could the water be? We left the bivouac at lunch time in convoy for an easy hours drive to arrive at what I suppose you would call an oasis; it was a very picturesque tree lined river. We were all lined up and instructed to walk the course, and sure enough it was deep water with it reaching your shoulders in places, however once walked it became clear where the line was. Given that the water was deep enough to come over the bonnet we took the decision to remove all our kit and any electrics from inside the 110 just in case we got stuck and filled the cab with water.

The stage consisted of a short 6/8 foot drop off from the start line on to a track, a flat-out dash up to a hairpin, back on yourself into the river for 2 or 3 hundred metres, a short winch out and then back along a winding track to the finish line, we could tell from the look on the face of the marshal that we either had a very good time or a very poor one. We were happy with our time and went off to load the car in readiness for the next stage.

The start of the next stage was a few Km down the track, it was very simple, here is the start, and here is the grid reference for the finish, fastest time wins. Simple, well no! The obvious route took us about 10k along the foot hills of a mountain range the ground was littered with rocks from the size of a tennis ball to rocks the size of small cars and then add to this a wadi every 300 meters that had shear drops of up 10 metres. Even though it only took about an hour and a half I found the stage very frustrating, it was very stop start turn around pick another route, hard acceleration hard on the brakes, it was impossible to get into a rhythm. We finished just as we were starting to loose the light, I really didn’t envy the teams still out there. Once we had signed in we were free to make our own way back to the bivouac and a well earned shower. On the whole another pretty good day.

Today, well to be honest I’m not even sure what day today is, every thing is starting to merge together. After breakfast we were lined up facing the dunes, we were then given a grid reference and a couple of minutes to punch it in. A horn was sounded and it was every team for him/herself, Le Mans in the sand dunes it was brilliant, to start with there were teams every where but as time rolled by it slowly thinned out and we found ourselves chasing through the dunes which were getting larger and larger. I did manage to get us stuck on the crest of two dunes and quickly learnt that you have to be committed to clear them which is a bit of a worry as you have no idea what’s on the other side, the other thing that I found difficult was controlling our decent and choosing a route out of the bowl at the same time because once you are on the way down from the crest of a dune you lose your line of site and on more that one occasion I had to do a 360 degree turn at the bottom so that I could find a way out.

We had been travelling for I guess must have been an hour when Chris Hummer and his navigator Carol appeared right next to my wing, now this was the third time we had nearly had a coming together, one of the other times was in the middle of the 300k stage you just cannot believe how weird it is to be in the middle of nowhere and nearly have a coming together, laughing like pixies we were off racing through the dunes each determined to out do the other, and I have to admit that we lost out, I firmly planted us on top of a huge dune to Matt’s annoyance and although we were out in less than a couple of minutes getting out Chris had disappeared. Shortly after this we reached our finish point which had to be approached from the right direction that was in a huge sand bowl next to the biggest sand dune I have ever seen, it was huge.

Now there were two lanes marked out on this dune and as Chris and I were the first cars in we were duly put in a lane each. The object of the exercise was simple, he/she that climbed the highest won and received the most points, but, there was a twist, if any team could clear the taped off area you received an extra 200 bonus points. Not to be sniffed at.

Having never done any thing like this before I couldn’t decide if to take our fifty meter run up flat out and risk bouncing when we hit the bottom of the dune and consequently lose grip or to accelerate smoothly pushing us further up the dune. We were to be given two runs, one in each lane so opted for the slower approach on our first run. All went well and we made it about three quarters of the way up the course, we were held so that measurements could be taken and then allowed to back out; the sand was like powder and just flowed down the hill like water, weird.

The only option for our second attempt was to get our wheels turning as fast as we could, I held her on the brake with my left foot and wound the transmission up with my right, the horn sounded and we were off, we hit the bottom of the dune flat out in second, now for those of you that have not driven in sand it should be explained that once you reach a certain speed the tyres start to plane and rise to the top of the sand rather like a boat in water, well this is exactly what happened to us, the 110 just wanted to go, in fact we had to brake quite hard once we had cleared the coarse. The pictures and film footage will never do this stage justice Matt and I felt as though we were sitting in the space shuttle waiting for launch it was that step. What a fantastic rush, we let the 110 down gently and took a well earned rest.

The next stage started about an hour later, we had cleaned the 110 air filter and checked her over, and we were on a high and ready to go. We were back on a speed stage that took us out of the dunes and on to a plane that stretched as far as the eye could see and we were able to let the 110 go as she was meant too. Eventually the plain turned to rocks and wad’s which slowly picked our way through, once clear we opened up the V8 but something just didn’t sound right, we couldn’t put our finger on the fault it wasn’t exactly a miss fire moor a loss of power. There was a control point about 10k ahead so we decided to see if we could make it. Hot and frustrated we limped in, the first car to arrive.

I asked the marshal at the CP if it was the end of the stage and due to my lack of French completely misunderstood the answer. Believing the stage was over we started to look over the 110 to see if we could trace the fault, we thought that it was the low pressure fuel pump, when we tipped water over it to cool it down you could noticeably hear it pick up speed. About 5 minutes after arriving at the CP two more cars arrived and when the crews of the cars started to run across the desert to a vehicle scarcely visible in the distance I new something was wrong. It turned out that this CP was just that a CP not the finish. What in fact you had to do was run to the vehicle in the distance to collect the rest of the road book and run back a distance of about 2k.

Bear in mind that the temperature was about 45 degrees and we had been driving hard for a few hours so we were pretty knackered and now we faced this run. I was pretty upset at my cock-up so set off on our run in a poor frame of mind. Embarrassing as it is, I have to admit that I walked the last 400 meters, my legs were like jelly, on arriving back at the CP we were offered some segments of orange, foolishly I declined still smarting from my mistake I got in the 110 fired her up and took off across the desert trying to make up for lost time. I was experiencing all kinds of emotions inside my helmet, my heart was pounding but the adrenalin was keeping me going except I couldn’t breath and the harder I tried the worse it got. Matt realised that something was wrong and persuaded me to stop the car. I got out and sat in the shade whilst Matt emptied several litres of water over me, it took about ten minutes for me to get my breathing under control and return to normal. We got back in the car and set off at a more sensible pace eventually reaching the finish line. Not a great stage and a fairly horrible experience to boot.

The finish line was to be the start of the next stage, a fairly short affair with a DNF time of 30 minutes. The stage consisted of 50 meters of chassis wrecking rock then a 200 meter stretch of fairly deep muddy water at the end of this the course led you out on to some fairly slick rock with a 2 meter climb at the end, once this was cleared it was a dash back to the finish line which involved crossing the 50 meters of rock again.

We were going to be the fifth or sixth car in and even though we were held back from the stage you could still see enough of the start to give us an idea what the start was like over the rocks.

Even though the stages are timed sometimes it is better not to push to hard and try and save the car, I was amazed at the amount of teams that tackled this stage all guns blazing, resulting in a lot of broken cars mostly with tyres pushed off the rim. At the start Matt jumped out and guided my over the rocks, once clear it was a fairly straight forward run, we nearly managed to clear the rock climb but in the end we required a short pull on the winch, once again Matt guided me over the rocks to the finish line and that was that. Once the stage was complete we were free to make our way back to the bivouac to carry out any repairs that were required.

The trip back to camp was uneventful and the engine was running smoothly, so all we could do was check out the fuel system and hope that it was going to last, Matt also found several loose bolts in the suspension which we duly tightened and that was about all we could do.

Today was to be a long hard day, the first stage was a speed section which started from camp and we were to be the last away, it started in dunes nothing huge but big enough to catch out the unwary, I cannot explain how much fun it is to be racing in dunes and we were making good time, we passed several cars within the first 15 minutes and then we were on our own flying through the dunes, after about half an hour we could just make out Chris and Carol in the distance, all this serves to do is make me drive faster much to Matt’s annoyance, he is quite rightly worried about keeping the car in one piece now we were nearing the end of the event. Eventually we catch Chris and pass him only to hit a dune and get stuck I now fully expected to see Chris fly past but they got caught on the same dune, next we are both backing off the dune for another run we both cleared the dune and were on our way again, we slowly pulled away and were on our own again.

After an hour or so I was pleased to see a flat plain that would allow us some respite, no sooner had we hit the plain and the 110 died the temperature was quite high but not dangerously so. I tried to start it, nothing, not even a click, my first thought were that I had seized the engine, we jumped out and thankfully were able to turn the engine over by hand, so we resorted to the old tried and tested method and gave the starter a tap with a hammer, the engine now turned over but was missing quite badly. We changed various sensors and checked out the fuel system but in truth never really got to the bottom of the problem eventually the engine just fired up and ran without a problem so off we went to find the next control point. We arrived at the control point with the 110 missing badly, all we could do was let her cool down and she would run OK again. By the time we reached the end of the stage we had lost over an hour and I was less than pleased.

Being the last car in we would be the last to start again, this gave us chance to check the car over, we felt that it was the low pressure fuel pump playing up but set about changing as much of the electrics as possible just in case.

Our next stage is my least favourite, a wheel change, well in fact two wheel changes; we had to swap front and back wheels necessitating balancing the car on a Hi Lift jack. I will never understand why this type of stage is included and I must admit I hate it, especially when all we have is a breaker bar and most of the other teams had rattle guns, it was most certainly not one of our better times but I doubt that it was the worst time and it was now behind us.

The next stage was a short 30 minute DNF which suited us given our running problems. The stage consisted of a very rocky valley that had to be negotiated culminating in a steep climb out to the finish line. The stage was very hard on the car but judging by the marshals response when we finished we had completed it in a very fast time The car performed faultlessly which indicated that our problems were brought about by temperature

The start of the last stage of the day was immediately after the finish of the previous stage and was another fairly long timed stage, because of our running problems we decided not to push to hard and ensure that we finished. There was a twist with this stage and that was to ensure that we approached the CP in the right direction, it turned out that it was easy to make a mistake but in the end we managed OK and to be honest I was pleased that we only had one more day, We didn’t know how much longer our fuel pump was going to last.

We awoke on our last day to find that we only had one stage left and this was the infamous Cliff hanger, basically it entails a short dash to a 2.5 meter wall which formed the side of a dried up river bed, you are required to use your ground anchor to break down the side until you felt able to drive/winch up and over the side, turn around drop back down in to the river bed and return to the finish line. Fairly simple you would think, well Matt and I came across this stage on the 2003 Australian OBC and to say it was a disaster is an understatement we were unable to break down the wall and DNF’d.

We had a 40K drive to the stage mostly down a dried river bed which consisted of a very soft sand called Fesh Fesh, it was like driving in talcum powder which sucked the power from the engine and pushed the temperatures quite high, we had the choice of driving quite slowly or to drive fast in order to get the car to rise up out of the sand and on to the plane rather like a boat, any thing in between and the engine started to play up, it was a tough transit stage.

On arriving at the stage we all drew lots to determine exactly which section of the wall we were to tackle and then we were all lined up opposite our gates and then given the signal to start. Matt and I had discussed our tactics determined not to have a repeat our 2003 debacle. As it turned out it couldn’t have gone smoother four and a half minutes and we were done, a great way to finish the last stage of the event.

We decided to air up the tyres for the run back to camp, now we drove down with 20 psi and returned with 30 psi, you cannot believe the difference in handling, in fact it was so bad that we nearly stopped to air up again it was nearly impossible to get the car to plane. We arrived back in camp at about lunch time and had time to sort out our gear and get loaded before prize giving.

The result is fairly well known now, and I have to admit that Matt and I were very pleased to have won this event on our first attempt, whilst confident that we were in the top three we could never be sure as the stage times were not published so it was with some relief that we set off to cross the Atlas mountains on our return trip to Marakesh. Even this proved to be eventful; we were stopped by the police because our lights were not working correctly. It took about half an hour to make the repairs and we were on our way again.. We arrived in Marrakech at about half two in the morning only to find that the Ibis hotel was fully booked. Whilst driving around the streets trying to find a hotel once again we bumped in to Chris and Carol who kindly offered to share there accommodation with us, we were absolutely knackered.

The next morning we had an uneventful run up to Tangiers, getting on the ferry proved to be a bit eventful but that’s a story for another day. On arriving back in France Matt and I spent the evening repairing our steering, it was in a fairly poor way and I was surprised that we had got this far with out incident. We left early the next morning for the trip back through France and our final ferry trip before arriving home to a surprise reception with all the staff at Devon 4x4 and our families.

I was unsure if the event was going to be worth while, well I can tell you it was great adventure and can highly recommend it.

Thanks must go to the event organisers, marshals and sponsors with out whom the event would not be possible. I would also like to thank all my staff whose dedication made the build possible, my sponsors who made it affordable and my wife whose support and inspiration made it all worth while.