Skiing

I got back from Morzine a week ago now. It was a great week out seeing Craig and Dani. Lots of skiing and some planning for their wedding in May. Ate lots of food and drank a bit. Excellent week but now it is back to work......

Powder day on the last day.

We had a sunnier start to the week.

It was cold when the sun went down.

We did a bit of off piste but we were hit with high avalanche risks at the end of the week.

Some videos here.

Next Year

Well the dates are out for some events next year and so it is time to work out what to do.

The Scotia Winch Challenge Club who organise the TFC have launched a Winch Challenge series based at Drumglog.

This looks as though it could be a good series of events but Drumglog can be a mud bath and it is not my idea of fun to winch through a bog all day long. To me that is a test of your winch and not your driving. It would be great if the Cheviot 4x4 team could organise a series of events like the one we did in Co. Durham as that was a great mix of technical driving and winching.

I've decided I'm going to enter the first SWCC event and see how it goes.

TFC 2008

Cheviot 4x4 Challenge 2008

There are still some upgrades to do before then. The new tyres have been ordered. a set of 35/10.50 16 Simex Extreme Trekkers. These are the same tyres I used this year but the sets I used were borrowed so I better buy my own for next year.
I'm also going to upgrade the shocks for next year. With relocation cones on the front to match the rear end. I ended up poping the front springs out a few times this year and in the process wrecking my front shocks. A product from Llama 4x4 should sort that. This is an 11" travel set up that will use my current springs. Going to get that ordered soon to try and fit it in December sometime.

Cheviot Autumn Challenge

This Sunday I was competing in the Cheviot 4x4 Autumn Challenge. Its been a few weeks since the TFC and I have had a few jobs to do on the truck before competing again. I managed to distroy the steering box and a steering arms so they had to get replaced. I had to give the truck a service and sort out the exhaust. After a few evenings down at Strathearn Engineering I had things sorted with the help of Dave and Allan. Thankyou.

This event was another 2 car team event and Dave and I teamed up with Steve Burton as my winchman and Allan worked with Dave. We met up on the Saturday at Strathearn to start the 200mile trip to Co. Durham. We were trailer both cars down for me to save fuel and to allow us to go a little harder on the day. Oh and Dave had only had a couple of evening shakedown... We arraive at the campsite and got the trucks off the trailers. We changed my wheels (thanks Bob) and headed off to find a chippy. Well steering lock with the different tyres was not an option so we had the local police ask Dave if he was ok while I was struggling with a multi point turn in the middle of the road....oops.

We got to Drivers Briefing in the morning after scrutineering went smoothly and the format of the day seamed fairly simple. We were competing in the Modified class which means we have more than one traction aid per vehicle. ie 2 Winches and diff locks. There were 17 punches over 2 sites and 2 special stages. The punches were each worth 100 points per team and you lost 50 points every time you broke the tape marking the course. The 2 special stages were timed for both cars to get through and the fastest team got 500 points and 2nd got 490 and so on.

Our plan was to keep on the move as much as possible and also make sure we do both the special stages. This was the first time Dave and Allan had done a challenge event and the first time we had all worked together. We got on great and really understood each others vehicles and what we were capable of.

The stages were set out close enough together and were short enough that you could get through them quickly and move onto the next. The first Special we did was great. A short Trials section round a tree and back out again. I felt we did well but thought we could go quiker. The 2nd special we did was awesome. Driving over some very large tyes again timed for both of us to do it. Great. We got our time but we were the first to complete it so the marshall couldn't tell us if we were fast or not. I fealt we were quick and the results show we won that stage. 500 points in the bag.

The TFC was tough this was a fun event and although the stages were technical and a little tough at times they were fun and our whole team I think had a great time.

There were some really steep climbs and descents so front and rear winches were used. I think a rear winch is next on Dave's list of mods....

Haddington Woods was a great site and this was one of the best days off roading I have ever had. Thanks to the organisors Cheviot 4x4. They said there might be a few more events next year. Bring it on. Thanks to Dave for being keen prepping his truck and asking me to join him. Thanks to Steve and Allan for being winchmen. Thanks to Dave Alonzi for taking the pictures you see here.

Oh the results. Well WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having Fun. Told You.

Dave's 3 week build. Well worth the evenings working on it. Nice one.

Some more pictures of the event can be found here.

Results of the event are here.

Loch Tay Paddle

I had a day out on Loch Tay last weekend. It was a good get away from the Landrover Prep. The Loch was like a Mill Pond. I did about 10km over 5hrs or so. I was not in a great rush and stopped a couple of times on the way. I was paddling the Dagger Exodus.

Looking down towards Kenmore with Drummond Hill on the left.

One of my stops near Acharn.

Tay Forest Challenge 2008

Well the Tay Forest Challenge. Been there done that. We got both cars through the event and I even drove there and drove back. David Alonzi who was to be my winchman had hurt his arm badly and so pulled out and so the week before I had to find a new winchman. Colin Rose also from SORC stepped up and agreed to be my team-mate. There were a few tense times in the campsite on Friday night as I arrived and was trying to make sure I didn't forget anything. I decided to switch from wire to rope at the last minute and Andy T from Ruftraks was more than happy to supply the 100ft of 11mm Plasma. Dave from Strathearn Engineering had seen me the night before when I went to pick up some spare parts and promised to lend me a set of 35in Simex Extreme Trekkers for the event. Only problem was, they were arriving on Friday. Alan then got them fitted to a set of rims and brought them up in the evening and we got them fitted. With these on it would give me a bit of extra ground clearance that I would need over the stumps.

Clean at the start control.

Fish and chips and a couple of beers to steady the nerves saw me ready for bed on Friday. We woke up early and with a bit of last minute faffing it was off to start control to get issued with a Marshal and drivers briefing. We got the number 13 stage to start on and off we went. We got stuck straight in with some heavy winching up a fire break and some careful driving. We missed the route a little and headed the wrong way. We found the punch location and change our course. Mike's winch managed to spit out a shaft and so we had to change the rear winch onto the front. Punch got it was time to get out the section. Bad news again. I manged to bend my front steering arm. We attached my rear winch onto it and winched it straight. Unfortunately this wasn't to last the rest of the section. We had to fix it again less than 50m from the stage exit.

In the middle of Stage 13

Colin showing off my morning's handy work. Yes that should be a straight bar.

We stopped for our compulsory lunch break before heading out to tackle stage 14. This looked fairly straight forward. Winch up a fire break over a few logs punch and back out the same way we came in. All was going well until we realised we were not going to make it time wise. We had to be back at control by 5pm or risk losing the point gained. We turned around and started to head out the stage.

On the way out of stage 14 I manged to smash my drivers window. oops. Careless on my part but you live and learn. So by the end of day one we had only managed one punch. But we were not the only ones. One of the tops teams were out. They had smashed a tree stump through one of the cars gearbox.

Sunday dawned and we were determined to do better. We were hearing stories of people working on their cars till all hours. We managed to get away fairly easily. A quick check over the night before and we seemed ready. This morning we were sent to section 8 first. A steep climb start followed by a rather scary looking drop off that would definitely require the rear winch. Lucky I got that fitted. We then had a tight tree section that I enjoyed. I felt I was driving it well and picking some good lines through the stumps. Less than 5m from the punch and my steering arm went again. I knew Alan from Strathearn had arrange another one to be brought up but we just had to find him. He was off watching at another stage. I walked out the section and got a marshal to give me a lift to find him. Got the Steering arm and got back to my stricken car in the forest. Colin had got the arm off and we refitted the new one. We were off again. We had to get out the same way as we came in so it was up the drop off this time.

The ledge drop off on Section 8. We had to go down this as well as up.

The final exit on Section 8.

We got lunch again, compulsory and headed for section 9. This was a great section. It was so good I was too busy to get someone to get some photos. The car was behaving itself we had some great bits of winching and driving to do and we finished on a high. We had one hour left before we had to be back at control. We had heard Section 10 was a long boggy one so we decided to give it a miss and head back. 3 punches over the weekend and we finished. I was happy with that. I even managed to drive home. Even though the steering wasn't all that great.

The results. We weren't last.

Thankyou to everyone who help me along the way in getting to and competing in this event. I will be back next year. Special name checks to Colin for stepping in at the last minute, Bob for all the work on the truck and help and advice. Strathearn Engineering for parts and help supplied. Especially with Jax who has put up with me.