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The 3rd Mike Wolfe Memorial Winch Challenge Event


Hybrid_From_Hell

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Hi All,

Well that the event over for another Year.............. :)

..............in a way I am happy, .....................and in a way I am sort of sad.

Happy cos my god it was a load of work to do, ......................and sad cos it really was fun B) ..................

Welcome to "WAR & PEACE" chapter 1 volume 1.

I thought I would do this post as a sepearte one, ...........

as it might be useful for those who didn't attend to see what it was all about,

................................................................................

................................like some background and info about the day. ?

Ok here goes, and in no particular order .....................

1st a HUGE thankyou to the Marshals and helpers.

Yes whilst I arranged the day and organized it etc etc, I COULD NOT have done it without a load of help.

The help came from may directions, but for those of you who have ver arranged an event youi'll know the work that goes in behind the sceneces, .............this finally all comes together .....(or doesn't ) ..............on the day.

Get it wrong, and rightly people can moan (they have paid hard earned money to enter - and some driven a long way with extra costs etc), ...........but get it right, ..................and it never sometimes dawns on people that the reasosn they are having such a great day is due to the 'behind the scene effort's everyone has made.

So, thanks to the marshals, without them these events cannot run.

I am going to write artciles for both the club newsletter (I am now the Editor :lol: ) and TOR Magazine, who sponsored the event with a Marshals prize (won but our Marshal Dennis Keen) who is well chuffed, and hence they have asked me for an write up of the event, and some photos....

Ah yes photos !....if you have any, would you please burn to a CD and post to me (I'll refund postage from my own pocket please advise how much) and I will try to ensure that you get the credit for your photos if they go into TOR - and NO I am not getting ANYTHING from TOR before someones asks :P ...or if you fancy writing up a short report from your team on your day, please do and I will happily publish it in the next newsletter due out March....................

Ok, the event....

This year was the 3rd event the HBRO Club has run - the "Mike Wolfe Memorial Winch Challenge event".

For those who don't know (I read a post somewhere here on this) Mike was a very large and very popular figure in the 4x4 world here down south, starting years ago "Rapid Rovers" and later changed the name to what it is now "KCC" - Kingsley Cross Country.

Mike was an ever friendly helpful guy, who was an avid 4x4er, towards the end of his life a keen AWDC comp safari racer, and as you can twig towards the end of his life means exactly that, a RTA meant that many of us lost a great friend as well as a businessman who even more respected.

The club that organizes this event - the HBRO - an 'ARC' Club was equally sadened by the loss of Mike, and I suggested a once a year winch event, dedicated to Mike, along with a cup, this event is open to non ARC 4x4s, this year we had Ibexs, Suzi Bodied RR Hybrid, all sorts of Hybrids, tray backed RRs etc etc etc

As an ARC Club we reserved the right that the cup can only be won in the ARC Class, ..........

although there are always 2 classes ARC and NON ARC - we call "Extreme Class".

KCC is now run by Shaun Goring (a Marhshal with us on the day and a setter outer with me on the Saturday) and his wife Suzi.

They (KCC) donated prizes as did another club member (Nick Jennings) who runs a new 4x4 business called www.landrox4x4.com we also as a club took most of the oprofits from the event and bought further prizes. Bear in mind that we do not "Expect" or "Plan" to make money, if the event sort of washes its face that ok with us, hence the prizes issued were when you consider a £50 entry fee prizes ran into several hundred pounds worth.

Lastly, and many of you , (erm no actually all of you) will not know about this 'cos we forgot to mention it at the end of the day at prize giving - there are no cups, ...........but there is something else.

We have a long chat about cups, .............again these are either rather cr&p and expensive, ...........or really nice and really expensive, .............so we decided to not do cups, .....................and instead put the money and prizes into equipment, .............but I am going to do a 'certificate' for ALL[.b] Teams showing drivers and winch bitches and do 4 copies per team...

Basically this will be A4 (you can frame it) and will show the event (MWMWCE) date, and venue, along with your class, team mate and winch bitch names etc, along with your finishing position and if I can a couple of pics of both your team trucks during the day.

This is going to take me some time, ....................and is yet another reason I would like pics !

If as a TEAM youDO want 1 2 3 4 of these then PM me now...with how many !....if you don't wnat one no probs, it will save me time !

I will post again when I have sent these out.......this could be a while as I have gone down with soething horrible and am sitting here shivering and shaking dripping over the keyboard as I cough and type..... :wacko: ...no idea where this has come from, came on really sudden late Sunday, remained in bed Monday - only now just surfacing, when I have finished this I am returning to it ! :rolleyes:

Ok then the event itself.

Slindon was chosen this year, for the previous 2x events we have equally had different sites, one of the real problems with these sorts of events is finding something that gives enough scope to place out enough quality punches to make it a great day, slindon certainly does this !

I also owed poor Michele from Italy big time, as he was supposed to be my pasenger last years event, but the eales which was newly fitted played up all of the Saturday when we set up, and refused to run properly on the day of last years event - Pete - Bathtub knows exactly how this feels, as he has the same problem with his new whizzy TVR 5.0 V8 which plagued him all day with cutting out, we got it going on 2x occassions I know of (one was water one was ful pumps stopping) and in the end I heard Petes V8 has thrown its teaddy one time too many out off its pram and refused to play any more - great shame as from what I saw of it progress was steady whilst it behaved, the sound of it from deep in the goo in the bomb hole was music to us V8ers.....

But this year I PROMISED M that it woukld be running, and it was, I picked him up for the saturday (setting out) and along with 12 others we met up at 9.00am at the site, where I gave them a "Quick Breifing" of what was neded on the Saturday.

We split into 3x group, abnd went to sections of the site to set out, the 2x other groups went to the far end of the site to place the mandatory sections easy - mediums and ones down the far bank, .........and the others came with me to set out the extreme sections in the "outback" as it is known.

This part of the site is normally soaking wet and full of water,.......... I have never seen it so dry, but intstead of water we had thick poridge to play with punch wise.

At the setting out brefing I had made a 'big point' about how we were all here to 'set up' and 'not play', so please could they all aviod at all costs getting 'horribly stuck', .....as I would not be too happy in spending the entire day winching people out of areas they had got stuck in for no good reason blah blah blah.

Martin Mullerin and myself both drove down one of the exceptionally steep slopes at the back, into this dire area,...........

......... and 30 secs later we were both dragging our winch cbales out to trees......... :rolleyes: hey hoo..

Much laughter came our way................. :P

Anyway, at the end of the day we had set out 80 punches for the entrants, and departed home.........

When the alarm went off at 5.00am I hobbled out of bed, and marvelled once dressed and out in the 90 at the sheer state of it, it must have doubled in weight during the saturday, another fill up of petrol (£40) saw me at the gates at 7.00, and other already putting the tent up and the 1st arrivals came in shortly afterwards.

Tghe entrants came in sigbned on and parked in a preset circle, when I then placed the punch cards and the 4x4s, and sorted with heklp of Chrsi H, Nigel T and Bob D scrutineerings, all passed and I was delighted to be able to start the event 20 mins early.

I had decided on a cunning plan.....

The dear old winch bitches do get some stick during the day, I had decided on a cunning plan, popular with the bitches and er maybe not so popular with the drivers.

I asked all bitches to get into their 4x4s, and then that left the drivers, I then asked for each team to nominate on of them and the other to get in the 4x4, someone asked "er why what are we doing"....answer I'll tell you in a minute...

Much looking at each other I eventyually had 19 drivers standing in front of me, one hjust about to have a fag....

I then pointed to Eds range Rover about 800 yardas away and told them to run and collect the starting instructions......................

Some minutes later a selection of puffing and gagging drivers returned, what many of you don't know is I spoke to Simon Pearson (Paul Ws normal winch bitch) he laughed his head off and thought it a great idea, but then suggested I made all the drivers carry a ground anchor there and back too......and you think I'm a sod B)

The envelopes contained a quick quiz, this was for 2 reasosn :

1. saves 40 4x4 all trying to exit a area at the same time.....can be dangerous with the resd mist lowering....and it also gave me a "Tie breaker" should 2 teams core the same.....sections 1 and 2 further helped this with all teams choing to do a mandatory section, either 1 or 2, and just once as a team.

I can now tell you the slowest was over 10 mins so a penatly of 1000 points, and the least was 0 points obtained by 6 teams, as they were in less than 15 secs (the tak was to get a dead / engine not running) 4x4 to the punch, 25 points penatly per 15 secs or part thereof....less than 15 say 12 secs = 0 !

I won't say who did make a pig breaky of over 10 mins, :o but it diod involve snatch blocks and about every piece of equipement they had between them :D

My other worry was Paul. I know he knows Slindon like the back of his hand, apart from Piggy and him being rather good too, I was worried about him being back at control at 12.00 doing a fry up with the words "Finished" ringing in my ears, so I tried hard to ensure that the punches would be a suprise and not a been there done that next......

From the fact that all through the day evey time I went pass him my parentage was claeed into question I was chuffed....

I saw Paul on the falts at the back sidfe of the outback, where there were 2x very deep and very hard ruts, covered in a ample covering of "Porridge".....these tracks whent straight through to some more sections, but as you went down them 20 yards in UP OUT of the ruts was a punch, but there was NOTHING to winch off to get to it....

The only way (maybe other than a ground anchor - and that would take too much time) was to straddle the ruts and allow the 4x4 to drive up to the punch, but the ruts where perfect, the RH Rut was lower than the LH rut, so as you sraddled them and move forward thee 4x4s would slide to the right ....back into the ruts

....

It took Paul a lot of efforts before he got there, and got the punch, and then if as I though you carried on straddling to ruts as they got deeper so as not to get stuck the RH rut became far lower and the LH higher, the angle of Piggy (not to mention the laungauge from Paul) was superb on both counts......

Interestingly paul had seen me enter this quagmire (I say enter - it involed me trying to stay away from jamming up any driver or sections getting there - which left me not a lot t- and I entered via a winch cable ! B) ) he didn't twig that it was stange to see me in there ?.....there were NO other marshals or officals with moving 4x4s, all except 2 were parked up, and mone was delibertly driven several times into ALL the areas of the site, parked up VERY OBVIOULY in the middle of all the chaos recovery and sliding about, and LEFT for 10-20 mins at a time......

90-punch2Medium.jpg

Yep, a punch - No 54 tied to the back of the 90, was worth about 100 points, as less than half of the entrants saw it, one bloke waiting for his mate ate a sandwich less than 5 feet from the back of the 90 - we could not belive he didn't se it, finsihed hi food, waved at me.....and reversed out....

Heres me driving down into the swampy bit just to the edge of the bomb hole, clearly seen on the back....

90-punch1Medium.jpg

and when I say winched my way around the site I mean winched trhough....

Whilst I was winching through BETWEEN 4 TEAMS - thats 8 4x4s - 8 drivers and 8 winch bitches, some even came up and chatted to me !...one said "COC Coming through" and they all laughed....NONE saw the opuch all were within 20 foot max,......

Unfortunately this meant I was in the goo a lot.....and this greeted me on the Monday morning :

90-3Medium.jpg

Thats going to take a few minutes to get off, the rest of the underside is little better.............

Anyway, the best of the "Stop me and punch one" was as I was winching OUT of the swampy bit, a competitot from high up on the bank tried to stop me and get my attention, I didn';t hear, so....they puicked up a big soggy ball of muf and lobed it at the 90s roof from say 30+ feet up ?.......BOOOOONG ! I thought the drive train had exploded.....but they came around and down and gain the punch....my mate Ed Ellis (did the prize giving - Chairman of the club) had the 2nd on his blue RR parked for an hour at the burger van at lunctime on display ....how many got that one !...was worth even more as less got it !

Most disappointing part of the day for me was a group of marshalls telling me they had some geif from a team who argued with the marshals on arrival, and were named as "Team Stroopy".....frankly lucky they didn't bother to find out the team number, they just said "NO" and the team got the huff and left.....if you know who you are then I am not impressed, and neither should you be......

Otherwise the attitude and atmosphere qwas great, I liked one part of the day when a team both got stuck, and another team driver pulled one out, he and his team mate then found they were stuck having pulled out the other team "Oi, gives a tug - I'm stuck now...." "F Off" came the reply, you should be aore carefull" :D ....but after they all laughed they did pull him out....

The weather was a real bonues, fabulous sunny day.............................and the burger wagon was happy, he saw good trade....

Dave Ashcroft popped in, wondered if his was going to tell me the warrnaty on my new 4.11s :1 had just expired :P, but I was running about so much I didn't get to see him again, hope you enjoyed the visit dave... ?

Saw many Forummers on foot, esp Simon R who was happy in the knowledge his 90 would be 100% intact when he got home :rolleyes: along with other things X Eng .....Chris watts, who I have the thank for the Computer program he passed onto me, had to change ia bit but a superb piece of software...

The punches were all worth 1000 points each, ie if only 1 driver got a punch it was worth 1000 points, 2x drivers 500 each, and so on, 10 driver 100 points. There was some confusion re this, but I did try to explain, the logic from one was there was no point in the team mate going for the punch as the 1sr driver (team mate) got 1000 points, and then the team mate got it so it drops to 500 points no point in doing it ?

wrong.

1x driver 1000 points, and team mate does not both....9 others then get it, value to the 1st driver is now 100 for his team, if BOTH had done it then BOTH score, ie if 9 more got it (can't be bothered to do 10 :lol: ) the score for the opunch is 100 each, and the team get it twice as both drivers got it ie 100 x 2 = 200 !.........see :D

Ok.

The quiz, some have asked me for the questions and answers...here they are, most scored well, but there were some amazing answers.....

The other memorable thing here was Will Warne cioming back with envelope, and then jumps in 90 about to drive off

"have you got you envelope Will ?"

"Yes"

"er have you read it ?"

"Er no............SIMON STOP STOP STOP come back........." :lol:

Bless.................

The Questions and Answers.....................

1. For this event, ANY sort of Kinetic Recovery is BANNED

..........Best answer was "Likely" - :huh: .............had a word with them when I read that :lol:

2. The Telephone Number of the Main Sponsors of this event KCC is ?

01420 475303 (was on the punch cards !)

3. What is the recommended minimum number of full wraps of a winch wire or rope that should be on the drum before you start ‘hard’ winching ? 6 some said 5 allowed that too....

4. The other Sponsor Providing Prizes today is ? www.LANDROX4X4.com (on punch card)

5. Looking at the picture of the hook,

what is the name of the small spring MOUSE

loaded safety plate going across “B” ?

6. Name 2 types of Fairlead Types : HAWSE and ROLLER...... (had steel and Ali !) :lol:

7. Punch Card Scores are VOID for any Team Card not with Jan Hallum at 3.30pm (added...?? FFS :huh: )

8. Gloves when Handling ANY type of winch rope INC Plasma is Mandatory at this

event ?……. TRUE or FALSE ? TRUE

9. Who designed the Range Rover? SPEN KING

10. nlidsno is an anagram of ? SLINDON

There are a number of Manufacturers of HD Drive shafts for LRs

….how many can you name ?

11. GKN 12. MAXI-DRIVE 13. QUAIFE

14. ASHCROFT 15. KAM (er, not the same answer as number 11 ! )

also allowed MacNamara as someone put it down .............seemed fair

16. The firing order of a Rover V8 is : 18436572 .........saw a load of bonnets go up on others trucks....

17. The Firing Order of a LR Tdi is 1342.....

would the owner of the 200tdi which runs 1 2 3 4 please post up a AVI file .....so we can hear it please :lol:

18. Gear Oil such as ‘EP 90’, ………………what does the “EP” Stand For ?

('extemely pongey'..... funny but wrong...prob one of the female WBs answering that maybe :lol: ) .....EXTREME PRESSURE

And now, the scores on the Doors.

ARC CLASS

1st Team 5 - 3581

Mark Ambler & Matt Hewitt

2nd - Team 2 - 3430

Mathew Eaves & Marcus Hamlyn

3rd - Team 4 - 3289

Roy Friend & Richard Salter

4th Team 3 - 1499 (retired)

Neil Thomlinson & John Jackson

5th Team 1 - 316

Darren Holmes & Nick Woodgae

EXTREME CLASS

1st Team 16 - 10885

Paul Wightman & Nick Watts

2nd Team 15 - 9146

Adrian Turner & Richard Nicolson

3rd - Team 11 - 6498

Roger Pardy & Paul Rogers

4th - Team 14 -5846

John Piper & Gary Andrews

5th - Team 7 - 4777

Dave and Graham Antill

6th Team 17 - 4609

Jim Marsden & Lee Longhurst

7th Team 6 - 3915

James Trembath & Mike Dunlop

8th Team 9 - 3789

Mark McFarlane & Ash Parsons

9th Team 18 - 3724

Tony Cordell & Nick Walker

10th Team 8 - 3317 (blew Engine)

John Beagley & John Jennings

11th Team 10 - 3311 (llok at the number above !!!- :rolleyes::lol: )

Will Warne & Simon White

12th Team 13 - 3232

Andy Smith & Paul Hooper

13th Team 19 - 3153 (retired)

Pete Wilkins & Bryn Hemmings

14th Team 12

Mark Jeffrrey & Colin Humpries

So there you go, play nicely now, and no swabbling

If you have any pictures and or Video, please PM me for my address, PLEASE !

Keep you eyes open in TOR Magfazine, no idea when If I find out I'll let you know - you all do likewise ! :)

Thanks once again to all the Marshals and also to the entrants, seem all enjoyed the day, and a good time was had by all....see you next year ?.....

Back to bed now for me :huh:

Nige

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I also owed poor Michele from Italy big time, as he was supposed to be my pasenger last years event, but the eales which was newly fitted played up all of the Saturday when we set up, and refused to run properly on the day of last years event (...)

But this year I PROMISED M that it woukld be running, and it was, I picked him up for the saturday

Mate!

Thanks for the chance to help on Sat and great time vrooming around in the hybrid,

finally I saw and heard the creature in action and was well worth it

B)

Obviously a BIG thanks goes to

*Mandy & Mike (co-driving Tonk this year) first for having hosted me for 3 days,full inclusive,and helping me out to wrap Jez's cranked arms

:)

see ya in Italy in July then!

*Mark for having picked me up at Fratton station with the Tonk Rover,great time running on Tarmac with Jungle Trekkers fitted

:lol:

*Jez-sadly missing the day-for the trailing arms and Si for delivering them in Slindon!

*All the forumeers I met who stopped a bit to chat with me

*special note to Jim "back to you in 2 secs mate!" Marsden...never seen him again!

:blink:

Man!Now we'll have to wait for another year to talk!!!

:P

*Tony for the snatch and finger saver (too little to fit my hook but...ok)

*Paul (Wightman) for the tech chat and!you'll have PM for you-know-what!

*all the marshals

etc etc etc

Next year,assuming I can finish the Cube off,I'll try to come and compete.

Nige,do an easy one for beginners!

:D

P.S.

Pics...you'll have to wait as old reflex cannot be plugged to the pc

:lol:

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Will,

a little birdy has told me that u had the mandatory section points added to your score, and in our team they were added to ash's score, take these away and i beat u ;)

of course i could always use the other excuse and say that your team mate carried u all day :lol::lol:

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Will,

a little birdy has told me that u had the mandatory section points added to your score, and in our team they were added to ash's score, take these away and i beat u ;)

of course i could always use the other excuse and say that your team mate carried u all day :lol::lol:

:lol::lol::lol: Not sure how thad've worked. I was only 200 odd above Si and we were about 30 seconds in the stage plus I had more punches. To be fair, neither of us had stunning days ;)

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"PUT THE SPADE DOWN... AND WALK AWAY MR WARNE"

Tis true,

just looked up the scores,

Both you and Tonk had the PENALTLY taken away from your 'individual scores',

Tonks team took longer then yours at the Mandatory and hence penatly in deducted points higher than your team..................remove the mandatory points from both yours and tonks,

His score goes up a lot,

..................................and. <_< ....er. :blink: .. erm :huh: ....yours doesn't :lol:

'Game set and Punch' old chap :D

Nige

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"PUT THE SPADE DOWN... AND WALK AWAY MR WARNE"

Tis true,

just looked up the scores,

Both you and Tonk had the PENALTLY taken away from your 'individual scores',

Tonks team took longer then yours at the Mandatory and hence penatly in deducted points higher than your team..................remove the mandatory points from both yours and tonks,

His score goes up a lot,

..................................and. <_< ....er. :blink: .. erm :huh: ....yours doesn't :lol:

'Game set and Punch' old chap :D

Nige

Fair cop Mr Barker, I'll pass on the spoon. :D

I just couldn't pass up the oppertunity to wind up Tonks :o

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The punches were all worth 1000 points each, ie if only 1 driver got a punch it was worth 1000 points, 2x drivers 500 each, and so on.

There was some confusion re this, but I did try to explain, the logic from one was there was no point in the team mate going for the punch as the 1sr driver (team mate) got 1000 points, and then the team mate got it so it drops to 500 points no point in doing it ?

wrong.

1x driver 1000 points, and team mate does not both....9 others then get it, value to the 1st driver is now 100 for his team, if BOTH had done it then BOTH score, ie if 9 more got it (can't be bothered to do 10 :lol: ) the score for the opunch is 100 each, and the team get it twice as both drivers got it ie 100 x 2 = 200 !.........see :D

Ok.

I like it, most cunning!! :lol:

It is a bit of a gamble; I'm think I';m right in saying that the maths behind it means that your team have to be 100% certain noone else will be able to get the punch in order to maximise the points for your team; otherwise both team members should get the punch. (Ofcourse it is not that simple as the time taken to get the punch needs to be taken into account too)

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Think also he managed this with a broken CV, not 100% sure but saw repairs in progress and my mate (nigel - grey Suzuki marshalling) said as much, Ibex broke a Prop early in the day, who else did what, body damage I think was minimal which is great, I really tried to layout sections that were challeneging, but not damaging unless you didn't take care, and slindon is reknowned for biting back, as I well know personally............. :(

Nige

PS Sorry to hear about your truck jukles, real PITFA that, metal is replacable, even if it does really P you off, you and passenger are both ok, thats the main thing...

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Certificates.............

Something like this ?

certifMedium.jpg

its a scanned copy, sorry re the blur :P

any takers... ?

Nige

Looking good Nigel, however I was in team 16 not 17! :P

Thanks to all the marshals and organisers, I know how much stress and anguish can be built up, looking forward to next time already.

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