MOTORSPORT
Viking 4x4 Club takes a shot in the dark with a one-off running of the Nightmare Challenge Words: James Watts Pictures: Tomasz Jarecki
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s we plunge into the depths of midwinter at the end of another season, most competitors are spending long hours in the workshop getting their trucks ready for the spring. After all, nobody likes off-roading in the dark, do they? Well, maybe they do… The Nightmare Challenge has traditionally been run by the Midland Off Road Club. But in 2022, the lingering knock-on effects of lockdown meant they weren’t in a position to do it – so the Viking 4x4 Club approached them and received their blessing to keep this iconic event going. Why is the Nightmare Challenge so special? The answer is simple: it’s the only winch event in the UK to be held at night. Weekley Woods, near Kettering, is one of the Viking 4x4 Club’s regular haunts, and that’s where the teams headed for to take part in an event that was sponsored by Fullflex Springs, Damar Webbing Solutions, RA Land Rover and Britpart. The event took the familiar format, with 50 punches laid out around the site – 15 of them particularly awkward to reach and worth twice as many points as the rest. But of course, what was very unfamiliar was doing it in darkness. This makes it much, much harder. The punches are set out on marker boards, which are easy enough to see from a distance by day but at night might as well not be there. So
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to help the teams find the punches, they were marked with blue and red glow sticks. Putting on an event like this in the middle of summer would mean starting in the middle of the night and finishing, well, also in the middle of the night. But this was early February, so the teams were flagged off at 5pm – by which time, of course, it was already dark. They had until 11pm to get as many punches as possible, with a 100-point penalty per minute of lateness back to the pits ensuring no-one would be tempted to try and burn the midnight oil. The week leading up to the event had been dry, but on the evening of the event drizzly rain set in that stayed all night. That made it quite slippery and tricky for the teams, but thankfully it wasn’t worse – in years gone by, the Nightmare has had terrible weather and freezing temperatures. It’s always great to welcome new competitors, and one such at the Nightmare was Jake Joannides. He had managed to bag Tom Wilson to co-drive; Tom is a well known and very experienced winch man, who had won most events he’s taken part in. Jake, though, was the first person to have issues, just a few minutes in. He was running standard alloy wheels and no beadlocks, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that he took a tyre off its rim. Every event is a learning experience, so no harm
done, and a quick wheel change saw the pair away again. As with every winch challenge, there was a special section. This has one punch and is done against the clock so it can act as a tie-breaker in the event of scores being even at the end of the day, which is why it’s mandatory for all competitors.
It needs to be done quickly, too, as it closes early in the event – in this case, at 6.45pm. This leaves enough time for everyone to run the section, but many headed straight there and queued up – the reason being that while it’s tempting to bag a few other punches while everyone else is sat around waiting for their
4x4 15/12/2022 22:26
