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Rhino Charge Brits bring home class title in legendary African event
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British-based Team Gumtree 4x4 wins Unmodifi ed class in Kenyan Rhino Charge for the third time
Words: Olly Sack Pictures: Shelagh Ballard
British based Team Gumtree 4x4 has completed a unique trio of sporting successes – by winning its class for the third time in the Kenyan Rhino Charge.
The team’s vehicle is a classic ‘bitsa’ made from a variety of Land Rover components that were lying around Gumtree’s workshop at the time – a 90 chassis, Series III bulkhead, 4.0-litre V8 engine, LT95 gearbox and axles containing a Detroit Locker at the back and Truetrac at the front. It qualifi es for the Unmodifi ed Class in the Charge mainly by not being equipped with portal axles or a twin-motor winch. The Rhino Charge predates challenge events by years, but in some ways it’s similar in principle to the way they operate. Teams are given 13 checkpoints and 10 hours in which to visit them all; the winner is the team that does so while covering the shortest distance. While this sounds simple enough, the distance between two checkpoints may only be a couple of hundred yards – but it might also be up a cliff or across a fi eld of carsized rocks. Teams have to decide whether to take the short, potentially extreme line or save time by going the longer way round.
To aid them in doing this, a team really is a team. As well as a driver and navigator, each vehicle carries a crew of runners whose job is to scout ahead for hazards and routes through the terrain. It’s like walking a trials course, but in real time and on a huge scale.
For Team Gumtree 4x4, the driver was John Bowden – founder of the famous Sussex-based Land Rover specialist of the same name and a long-term supporter of the event’s charitable aims. He was navigated by Lorian Campbell-Clause, making full use of satellite images as well
as an actual map, with the running done by Simon Davies, Hugo Potgieter and John’s eldest son, Lawrence Bowden.
The other vital team member is Chief Mechanic Chris Ballard, who preps the Land Rover every year to ensure it has the reliability needed to battle its way through the bush for 10 hours non-stop. Bearing in mind that the terrain is chosen with Unimog-axled prototypes in mind, that’s no small task.
The vehicle was originally built in Gumtree’s own premises, mainly by workshop maestro Martin Stapleton – a man whose own competition vehicles go before him. It won the fi rst UK version of the Rhino Charge in 1997 before being freighted out to Kenya in 2000, where it has lived ever since. This was Team Gumtree 4x4’s 23rd event in total, with the clock currently running at more than £160,000 raised for Rhino Ark.
In addition to winning its class this year, the team was positioned 13th overall – a result which placed John and his crew ahead of more then 30 portal-axled rivals. As
‘Losing our brakes made less difference than I expected –though there was one hill I came down with never more than one wheel on the ground at a time!’ 4x4
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always, however, fate is a fickle mistress in the world of motorsport – and the outcome could easily have been very different.
‘Our fuel tank split at about midday after we landed the guard on a boulder,’ John explains. ‘We repaired it well enough to finish, but then we lost our brakes three sections from home, most likely when a branch pulled the brake pipe off the rear axle.
‘It made less difference than I expected, actually. Though there was one hill I came down with never more than one wheel on the ground at a time!
John was also gracious enough to point out that had Petra Somen’s Bushbabes team not got stuck on some enormous lava rocks 150 metres from their last checkpoint, they would have beten him to the class victory. ‘They said it should have been called the Obelix Charge, because it looked as if he had lived there and been having fun throwing all these boulders around!’
Team Gumtree 4x4 was supported by Britpart, which donated a 12,000lb winch and a number of other parts. In addition, Silverstone Tyres in Nairobi supplied six General Grabber X3s. ‘We really abused them,’ says John. ‘I had them smoking on rocks at one point, but they were faultless from the point of view of sidewall and tread damage, punctures and so on.’
John’s Land Rover covered exactly 35.92 kilometres while visiting all 13 checkpoints. This compared to a best possible distance of 20 kilometres as the crow flies – though when you learn that the winning vehicle, Sean Avery’s Series II/Discovery hybrid, only covered 24.72km, you can see the standard achieved by the top competitors.
This also equates to an overall speed of 1.5mph, which should also tell you something about how serious the off-roading is on the Rhino Charge. It might be a charity event – but it’s also one of the most challenging tests any 4x4 can endure.
OFF-ROADING FOR A WORTHY CAUSE
ONE OF THE REASONS for the Rhino Charge’s enduring popularity is that it raises money for an extremely good cause. The Rhino Ark is a charity set up in 1988 in a bid to save the Black Rhino from being poached to extinction in the Aberdare National Park; thanks to its efforts, the entire park is now encircled by a game-proof fence designed to prevent poaching and illegal logging as well as keeping animals from damaging farms.
In more recent times, the Rhino Ark has expanded its efforts to support conservation in other mountain ecosystems, notably around Mount Kenya and Mount Eburu. This has made a real difference to the lives of people living alongside Kenya’s indigenous species, as well as protecting the animals against the worst of the human race – all of it made possible by fundraising donations which have so far topped £11million.
There has always been a great deal of British interest in the Charge, and a UK version ran for several years starting in 1997. Gumtree’s John Bowden has been a trustee of the charity’s British arm since 2000 and is currently hoping to get one of the big names from Ultra4 or the winch challenge scene to give Kenya a go.
Up for it? You can reach him at john@rhinoark.org.
