MOTORSPORT
Odyssey Challenge records tumble as Hirons and Wilson dominate at Mow Cop Words: Pip Evans Pics: Tomasz Jarecki
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ound 3 of the Odyssey Challenge series brought competitors to Mow Cop, in the Congleton area in Cheshire. The site must have one of the most glorious views in England, overlooking the Cheshire plains with Jodrell Bank in the distance – though as always, there’s not much time to admire the scenery when you’re on the hunt for punches! This event sponsor for this round was Damar Webbing Solutions. Damar makes all kinds of strops and straps for a wide variety of industrial
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uses – and of course its products are also much used by the challenge fraternity. Not only for towing and attaching winch lines, either, but also for strapping vehicles on to trailers. The organisers had their fingers crossed that the Government’s original date for the final relaxation of lockdown protocols was going to hold firm, as this would mean the event could be run free of restrictions. Sadly, however, the month’s delay we now all know about meant that once again, we had to run it as a closed event.
Thus the site was open to competitors and officials only yet again, and everyone had to be temperature tested upon arrival. Not a major issue, but one more thing we could have done without. A much more serious and, I’m sad to say, extremely tragic hurdle for us to overcome was that one of our club members, who was due to help set out the punches, took his own life in the week leading up to the event. His closest friend, who was due to set up with him, was understandably too traumatised
to think straight, let alone set up a challenge event. This led to a flurry of phone calls and texts to try to find a set-up crew at short notice. How can I put this politely, the people who were available were not exactly in the peak of fitness, nor were they in the first flushes of youth! As a result, it was decided to set out 25 punches instead of the usual 50, with a cunning plan to make this work on the day. During the drivers’ briefing, it was explained to competitors that as usual, a punch card was secured to the near side of the vehicles and the event would start at 10am. But whereas our events normally run non-stop for six hours, this time there would be a mandatory halfhour lunch break at 12.30. During this time, all punch cards would be collected in and a new card would be attached – this time to the other of the vehicles. Clever, huh? This would effectively make it a 50-punch challenge. Moving the cards to the opposite side of the vehicles may not sound like much of a change, but it’s amazing how much it can change a punch – especially for Class 1 vehicles which only have one winch. At the end of the briefing, a minute’s silence was held as a mark of respect for our colleague. The competitors headed off into the site at 10am. Finding the punches was not so easy, however, as the trees were in full leaf, so the set-up crew had put up streamers to help point people in the right direction.
4x4 03/08/2021 21:56
