Odyssey Challenge Records tumble in high-scoring day at Mow Cop

Odyssey Challenge records tumble as Hirons and Wilson dominate at Mow Cop

Words: Pip Evans Pics: Tomasz Jarecki

Round 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 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 fi ngers crossed that the Government’s original date for the fi nal relaxation of lockdown protocols was going to hold fi rm, 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 offi cials 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 fl urry of phone calls and texts to try to fi nd 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 fi tness, nor were they in the fi rst fl ushes 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’ briefi ng, 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 briefi ng, 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.

The competition area at Mow Cop is fairly unique. The event is set up along a deep, horseshoe-shaped gully, all of which is under the cover of big trees. The gully goes around fl at, open pastureland, so what competitors are faced with is soft, moist, boggy ground. Getting into the gully isn’t an issue – but getting out again is a tad more diffi cult!

What basically happens is that the drivers have to give their trucks the full beans to try to drive out of a boggy spot, with their huge and very aggressive tyres spinning furiously with no grip at all. Forward movement is aided by winching – but as trucks emerge from the gully and tyres reach the fi rst bit of dry, hard ground, the spinning wheels at one end suddenly bite hard, while those still on the boggy ground want to keep spinning.

It doesn’t take an expert to fi gure out that somewhere in the middle, the stresses are enormous and something has to give. It will therefore come as no surprise that almost every competitor suffered from broken CV joints or halfshafts.

There were other issues as well. Dave Adams had a recurrence of the fuel lift pump issue he’d experienced at the previous event, despite having fi tted a new one. Hugh Gascoigne had a problem with loads of air in his fuel line and issues with his steering hydraulics. New competitor Ty Boothroyd broke two alternator belts as well as suffering CV issues.

Above: Switching punch cards to the vehicles’ off-side for the second half of the day presented a whole new set of challenges Right: Exiting the Mow Cop gully meant putting massive shock loads through the trucks’ transmissions – there was no shortage of driveline breakages

Richie Lott, meanwhile, suffered what is a common issue for winch challenge competitors when his winch rope broke under extreme tension and the portion left on the vehicle buried itself deep inside the coils on the drum. It can be a mammoth job to remove the rope – sometimes it’s quicker and easier just to cut it up to get it off the drum, though even this isn’t easy as winches are usually buried behind big steel bash protection bars. All very time consuming.

The only team who appeared to be having an issue free day were the two Toms, Tom Hirons and Tom Wilson. For various reasons, they hadn’t competed at all this year in any event, so this was their fi rst outing in 2021, but they certainly hadn’t lost any of their competitive edge. They smashed it out of the park, collected all 25 punches by 11.30 and returning to the paddock to have a second card fi tted. By the time of the 12.30 lunch break, they had already fi lled their second card!

Mat Bain with David Burton had also managed to get on to a second card, albeit with CV issues causing them some considerable delay.

The crews returned to the paddock by the 12.30 deadline, with a penalty of 100 points per minute for lateness to ensure compliance. The organisers quickly went around each truck to fi t new punch cards to the opposite side of the vehicles, allowing everyone to head off again half an hour later. The afternoon was quieter on the breakdowns front and everyone plodded along, collecting as many punches as they could – apart from Bain/Burton and the two Toms, who were still going at it hammer and tongs.

Matt completed two more punch cards during the afternoon, while Tom managed three – a truly awesome effort by both teams. It’s also worth mentioning that Tom Wilson was concerned about his abilities before the start of the event, as he has done an ascent of Snowdon the day before and was feeling stiff! I’d hate to see how he’d get on if he was as fresh as a daisy…

The teams returned by the 4pm deadline then kindly went back out into the site to collect in the punches while the organisers collated the scores. There were only two teams in Class 1, however they were engaged in a titanic battle for the win; both teams had breakdown issues but in the end, Dave Adams and Tom Britten claimed top spot on 3501