| Exmoor Challenge |
The heart-stopping moment came on a slithery steep downhill section. The original plan had been to drive up this stretch of steep and rutted forest track, but overnight rain and continuing patchy drizzle had turned the red clay into a grease-like slurry, and few had managed to get past the first tree, some almost coming into violent contact with it in the process. So, having diverted us to the hilltop via some gentler trails, the marshals eventually led us to the top of the same slope and pointed us down it. It didn’t look all that terrifying from the top, but no sooner had the Wrangler eased itself over the edge than it became evident that there just wasn’t enough grip. The Jeep started sliding; the only possible way to regain control was to accelerate, hoping the wheels would match the car’s speed and regain some traction – when, quite inexplicably, the engine stalled. The turbodiesel’s high compression ratio instantly locked up all the wheels sending us careering down the slope, and without power to the steering box all we could do was hang on for grim death, our horror made even more severe by the appearance at the foot of the slope of a Range Rover lining up to attempt the climb. Fortunately he spotted us at the same time – we’ve never seen a Range Rover reversing that quickly! Luck was with us; though the Jeep lurched and bounced through the ruts, swaying just inches from the trees lining the track as it hurtled past, we reached the bottom without hitting anything. Thereafter that section was referred to as the “toboggan run”. That was the most adrenalin-stirring section of the Exmoor Challenge, run over the weekend of March 20-21, but it was certainly not the most challenging. The Challenge, organised by the Wooden Spoon children’s charity, was held on areas of private land near Wheddon Cross, and the variety of off-roading involved was impressive, from tight twisting trails through undulating woodland to demanding trials section laid out on rougher parts of open farmland. Most of it was muddy, the conditions made particularly difficult by the rain, so it quickly became a matter of he with the better tyres would pass with ease while others would struggle. Thus Ian Luffman’s green Wrangler, with a 3.5-inch lift to make way for the 35 10.5 x 16 Simex Extreme Trekkers made it all look easy, though even he needed to be winched out of the final section of the day, which consisted of a gulley so deeply rutted that even his mighty machine couldn’t keep its diffs clear of the harder central ridge.
We couldn’t resist one of the highlights of the event, a traverse through a gulley involving making a sharp turn over a massive boulder with a rut washed deep by the rushing rainwater off to the left, a precarious passage that demanded all the off-road driver’s skill – not to mention the helping tug on the end of a rope from a marshal’s Land Rover to get the car safely over without body damage. Wooden Spoon, the charity of British and Irish rugby raising money for disadvantaged and disabled children, raised over £12,000 from the event. Quite apart from that aspect, the quality of off-roading and the cheerful attitude of the marshals made it an event truly worth entering. |
In contrast our long-term Wrangler struggled to find enough grip from its 265 70 x 17 Cooper Discoverers to handle the slipperier sections, particularly where side slopes were involved, so we missed out a few of the angled tree-lined trails for fear of incurring some body damage. Somewhat less cautious was Matt Tate who threw his ageing but well-maintained off-roader, armed with notably grippier BF Goodrich mud terrains, at every challenge that presented itself, even though his attempts to scale one slithery climb through forest undergrowth had little more effect than to broaden the first twenty metres of the track to motorway width, culminating in a noisy collision with a tree.