A couple of months ago I had a phone call from a friend that I met on my first trip to the Malaysian Rainforest in 2005. Bob Seaman has a lot of experience in the challenge scene, from the Tough Trucks Trophy to Desert Storm held in Morocco.
Bobs usual co-driver “JJ” has recently bought a house so is tied up and Bob needed a co-driver for this years Hound of the Baskeville Challenge, the event is invite only and places are limited so it was an opportunity I could not pass up.
This years event was held in the Tay forest and all the competitors stayed at The Fisherman Hotel in Pitlochery a mere 9 hour drive from Bristol. Bobs car started life as a 300tdi county station wagon and has been transformed into a 4.6 auto, trayback with front and rear ARBs an 8274 on the rear and an 8274 with Gigglepin twin motor top housing on the front. Our team mates were Steve Lloyd and his son Oliver, their car which has become more commonly known as the crazy frog on the challenge scene is Range Rover based, well the chassis is from solihull but it is powered by a TVR 5 ltr V8 it has unimog axles front and rear 8274s all fitted around a bespoke spaceframe with carbon fibre panels.
Saturday was an early start; all cars had to be ready to leave at 8:30 for a 9am start in the forest. There were 15 teams with 16 sections to complete, each team started at the section that matched your team number (We were team 7) there was a marshal per team who would stay with you at every point, when travelling between sections the marshal had to be between the 2 cars and a strict 15 MPH speed limit was enforced. Our first section took us up above the main track with a long climb up through the trees using an area cleared by forestry machines however this is not as straight forward as it sounds, the ruts made by an 8x8 timber harvester almost swallow a Land Rover and even with both axles locked it was still a challenge. We eventually reached the top of the climb and followed the tape to the left and worked our way along the ridge negotiating some rock ledges as we went, until we started back down through the pine trees.
It was here that we had our first taste of what was to be the Bain of every ones weekend, tree stumps, you would think that as those who live North of the border are well known for being lets say careful with there money, they would make the most of every last inch of available timber but no, In all the time I’ve spent hauling timber from forests have I never seen tree stumps left so long. Our next obstacle was a pair of fallen trees about 2ft in diameter and 2ft off the ground with a gap between them just big enough to fit a car, Steve and Ollie used the waffles and winch to drag the frog over each log, I lined Bob up on a slightly different line and with the use of 1 waffle and a bit of gas he wheelied his car over the log like a trials rider, the second log and the subsequent field of tree stumps took a bit more use of the winch to negotiate our way to the end of our first section. It was time for a bit of TLC we had an air leak on the front locker and Steve’s rear locker kept disengaging so I replaced the bulkhead fitting on the front locker and Steve put a new spring on his rear mechanism. Section 8, our second of the day was another climb up through the trees to start but took advantage of a steep sided gully, the course wound its way from side to side then out across a slightly marshy area with plenty of, you’ve guessed it tree stumps. We then came to a steep down hill over a few tree roots and into a deep narrow channel, Steve used the rear winch to lower down and then the front to pull up out, Bob and I decided to test his nerves and drive it but what looked like the obvious route from the top looked wrong from the bottom and would have put the car on its side in the ditch, so instead of following a natural curve in the ground which would of brought the car down parallel with the ditch I guided Bob straight down at the steepest point but this allowed him to attack the ditch on a 45 deg. angle . It was a textbook drive (obviously with my guidance) and with a short winch out we were clear, next we lowered down a near vertical drop of around 40ft drove to the punch and winched back out. These two sections took us all morning so as a compulsory half hour lunch break had to be taken between 11:30 and 1:30 it was back to the start point for home made soup and Scots pies.
After lunch we embarked on section 9 this was a drive in and out at the same point with a row of fallen trees to start off which Bob hit with confidence and drove without winch assist it was then a long down hill over brush and dead trees get the punch at the bottom then back out. 10 was also drivable although a lot longer, 11 was also a long section and it was here that we caught and passed Carl and Dale Frost (Winners of the Tay Trophy) again on this section Bob used his wheelie technique to clear 4 fallen trees. Section 12 was a nice drive through the forest without stumps but several interesting ditch crossings and a long slippery hill climb, on a couple of occasions the 4.6 missed a beat when called upon so we decided to check the fuel pump at the end of the day. We arrived at section 13 only to find a marshals car across the entrance, our marshal decided that it was blocked so we went on to find that 14 and 15 were the same. By the time we started into 16 it was getting dark so we donned head torches and set off, we drove the first part and then came to a long mud run Steve made it half way through and winched the rest of the way and it was the same for us, it was here that Ollie’s eagle eyes spotted the punch marker back amongst the trees in the pitch black darkness, both cars had to use rear winches to negotiate between the trees collect the punch and head off for the end we could see the lights of the team behind us and watched through the trees as they missed the punch in the darkness.
We decided to call it a day after section 16 as it was dark and the rules said that if you returned late you would lose your last punch, but just as we were getting ready to leave for the warmth of the hotel a marshal asked if we would another team out of the bog in section 15 (one we had passed due to it being blocked) Bob and Steve being sporting types agreed so we headed back into the darkness with a marshal, we found the team the first car of which was on portals buried up to there bonnets in the peat bog, we decided that to preserve the winches for the following day that we should use both cars and snatch blocks. The first problem was to find recovery points to attach to. It took nearly 45 minutes to get the portalled lightweight out and when clear the driver drove off leaving his team mate and co-driver behind and didn’t even say thanks. The second car tried to get through and despite having a twin winch top didn’t succeed, the bog had got even worse and Ollie spent about 10 minutes digging at the front of the car to find recovery points and when I passed him the hooks I disappeared up to my waist. The second car was extricated from the bog and also disappeared without a thank you.
Sunday was an earlier start we were in the car park for 6.30 ready to change the fuel pump and lock Steve’s rear diff in. We all assembled in the forest ready to go at 8:30 and our new marshal (Redline Mike) took us to our start point section 1. We started well and made good time on our first of the day but then we reached section2. It started with a drive up hill avoiding stumps for about 100m then over a fallen tree into a large open area with a fairly obvious route around between some huge stumps, all became apparent when it was time to winch, the reason it looked like piles of stumps was simply because these were stumps that had been dug out to clear for replanting and none of them were in the ground. The only way to anchor off of them was to strap them together and hope they bunched up and held eventually we made it around and back into the forest where the punch was placed on the opposite side of a fallen tree, there was no drama leaving the section and we went to section 3, another open field of stumps, we set off on a diagonal to the road with a 90deg left around a bank down and a 90deg right into a water run Steve hit this hard and we did like wise, through the water 90 right and up onto the bank we started winding our way over and around the stumps towards the end then realized we hadn’t seen a punch, we walked back to the water only to see that the marker was on the tree on the entrance but as previous cars had attacked the muddy water in the same fashion as us the marker was now brown instead of yellow, as we only had 100m to go we decided to drive out come back in get the punch and go back out of the entrance (as we had completed the section the marshal agreed) However as we turned the first 90deg left Bobs car got caught on a root in the bank and stopped dead, he applied the power and something metallic went bang, we winched to the punch and back out again. Steve got the punch and we headed back for dinner. It was agreed that Steve would go back to the truck to get what ever had broken and our half hour would start then but luckily as we stripped the nearside hub apart we found that it was the end of the CV that had sheared and Bob had a spare in the car, we changed this with time left for hot soup before our half hour stop was complete.
On arriving at section 4 we found it was blocked so went straight into section 5, a fairly long section up and along the side of a hill strewn with stumps we completed this then went straight down into section 6, this was to be our last section due to time and what a section it was with huge trees to climb over very slippery deep gullies to winch into and out of and finishing up a steep bank and over a stack of cut timber out onto the track.
We returned to the finish point with 10 minutes to spare and despite having a ne boy on there team we finished 3rd which in the present company was not bad.
The only thing left to do was to load up the cars get out of our very wet and muddy clothes and drive 8 hours back to Steve’s house near Darby which we reached at about 10 past midnight.
