Mac 4x4 2009

[magnum force]

Just to let you all know we completed the Mac, below is a right up from my co driver which was posted on our forum, enjoy!

It was on one of CORC’s finest green laning trips around Wales whilst my truck was undergoing a rebuild and Phil offered to let me ride shotgun in the bullet, half way through the day we were bouncing around the wayfarer we got talking about only having one life and how important it was to live it and not let it pass by, then came the comment from Phil “I would love to do the MAC” to which I think I replied “yeah it looks like fun” or words to that effect, “do you fancy having a go at it” Phil suggested to which I replied “ I guess so”, now I never actually thought we would follow this through and thought nothing more of it. A few months then passed by and I get a PM from Phil saying he’s going to apply for a place for us, still not thinking we would qualify I went along with it. Then not long after I got a phone call from an ecstatic Phil, we had been selected!

The rest of the year seemed to pass really slowly waiting for the big event, but when the last few weeks approached it seemed to whiz by as we made last minute preparations, then came the bad news about The Bullet (Phils truck) disaster had struck and the engine decided to self destruct, I watched helplessly on the forum as Phil tried everything in his power to fix it, he even purchased a second truck to do the event in but found it wasn’t going to be any good as the tin worms had been munching on it so much it wouldn’t pass an MOT. He tried to transplant the engine from one to the other but it proved to be impossible in the time frame, so with two broken cars and work drying up for Phil I convinced myself that we probably wouldn’t be going. Not long after I had a phone call from Phil, as I looked at the phone ringing I already knew he was going to tell me, my guess was we couldn’t compete in the MAC4x4 I almost didn’t answer as I thought I didn’t want to hear it, what Phil said in that call came as quite a surprise to me, not only had he managed to find yet another truck, he only paid peanuts for it and it was in good working order, even more surprising was that it was the same colour so by transplanting the doors, wings, windows and bonnet he could save most of our sponsors stickers, now it all became very real and with only days to go before the event I realised how unprepared I was.

Somehow we managed to get our act together, you wouldn’t believe how fine we cut it, take for instance the fact we hadn’t booked a hotel for the night before but were lucky enough to find a good value hotel with a room that wouldn’t give us head lice or worse. To make it even better we were made up when we got there and saw the car park full of 4x4’s smothered in stickers we wasted no time and got into the pub to meet the rest of the competitors. When I look back, it was at this stage where we realised just what we were in for.

[magnum force]

Next morning we rushed around and found our way to Britpart in Craven Arms now you would think we would be able to manage that, wrong. Some how we ended up in a narrow country lane, lost. We did work our way back and found it with time to spare. Next after chatting with two guys in the truck next to us, we slowly realised that we didn’t have the Philips Navigator map of England which we needed for the event. After asking around we managed to find another team who had a spare and acquired it in exchange for a small donation. Within no time at all we were at the driver briefing this is where the adrenalin kicks in and it became very real and before we knew it we were off.


Friday

Stage one.

Stage one was a simple warm up exercise and involved following a set of written directions, the first of which was out of Britpart head north along the A49, so being a cleaver chap I pulled my compass out and North was pointing more to the left than the right, we went off and although the instructions fitted we didn’t spot the answer to any of the questions until we passed the hotel we stayed in the night before, it was seeing this when the alarm bells started to ring in my head. I knew we had gone wrong as I had checked the hotel’s location when booking it and knew was south of Craven Arms. After this little set back we turned round thinking we had only gone 5 minutes out of our way, but no there was a queue of traffic waiting to overtake a tractor and it took us more like 45 minutes just to get back to Britpart after that we made very good progress getting loads of the clues all the way up to the M54 where we were instructed to just be observant all the way up to Junction 34 of the M6 from there we made our way along the A683 and were relieved to see a few teams driving around looking for clues we seemed to do alright and continued to follow the route to the White Scar caves near Ingleton.

Stage Two.
Next was an observation round that required sorting nine land marks we should have seen on the motorway section of stage one.

Stage Three.

From the white Scar Caves we proceeded using tulip maps and answering cryptic clues through Hawes and over the Yorkshire Dales this would probably been quite simple but dusk was setting in and as our eyes adjusted to the darkness it was proving hard to navigate from tulips whilst transplanting them onto a map and look for clues whilst doing warp speed in The Bullet. This section ended in Doe Park Caravan site, only we didn’t read the last line about handing in our papers at the caravan park. What we did was see all the trucks parked outside a pub in Cotherstone (I think) so we parked up and went in the pub looking for some one to take our papers. It took nearly 10 minutes until we realised we hadn’t finished and so we made our way to the caravan park.

Friday Night..

We decided after seeing the pub so busy we would drive to Barnad Castle in search of fast food, we settled for a Chinese take away and by the time we got back called it a night, and tried to get some sleep. What actually happened was we just lay there freezing cold taking it in turns to snore and keep each other awake all night.

Saturday


Stage Four.


Stage four involved a scatter with a difference to stop us from using GPS devices like memory map. We were given a list of mixed co-ordinates to sort, that related to a grid square each accompanied by an entry and exit degree heading, also this section was accompanied by another cryptic question sheet. Thankfully we did well on this and we were running in high spirits as we handed in our papers and received instructions for section five.

[magnum force]

Stage Five.

We were given a colour O/S map and were told to get to a grid reference and to follow the yellow line from there on to the end. We were to spot marker boards along the way which were basically cut up registration plates, on the map there was a route marked out in yellow near to where the grid reference was. So without any further ado we rushed off to follow the line. The alarm bells should have started ringing in our heads when I said to Phil “can we turn left in front of the river then cross it a bit further down?” the path we were looking for was blocked by a house. So we just ran along thinking it was a bad overlay, the yellow path then went down a farms drive through some gates and along a track, “excellent” we thought a chance to use the 4x4 for what it was built for. We followed the track as far as some troughs that had some kind of sheep food in and then they stopped, but the marked out path continued to the next field. Something didn’t seem right but I even consulted with some ramblers who said we were on the right route and there was a gate at the end of the field in line with the path, so we headed for it. The route got more and more extreme to the point where Phil to my amazement said we were not going any further and we were going back to complain it was too extreme. On the way back we got a little stuck but a bit of shunting forwards and backwards got us going again. I spotted a little yellow road and double checked the grid reference. It suddenly became very apparent what had happened, I had assumed the yellow line was an overlay for us to follow but was one square out from the start so we picked ourselves up and followed the proper route some 2 hours late. When we got to the check point we were told that the yellow line we followed was actually the boundary to the forest.

Stage Six.

Was a simple drive round a forestry track spotting more marker boards that had been placed in the most awkward of places. By now we were very tired and the concentration levels involved in spotting the boards was sapping our energy.

Stage Seven.

This was a set of instructions to follow, accompanied by more cryptic clues and marker boards that took us over some of the scary narrow roads of the Scottish borders to a hotel in Newcastleton (or Copshaw Holm) here we were given the option of a short cut that misses the next section or we could do the section even though seemed futile and would have cost us points to do as we were now running so late at a rate of one point every five minutes, here things got a little tense in the truck. Phil feeling the effects of having done all the driving and wanting to conserve what points we had, felt we should take the short cut, I on the other hand felt we were here to do every challenge set before us to the best of our abilities even if it meant coming last. For me it was a matter of respect to our sponsors, the organisers and ourselves, after a bit of adult discussion we decided to do the section because we were there to do the MAC4x4 and not to quit at the first hurdle. We did complete the event and handed our papers in at the next check point.

Stage Eight.

In this section we were given a set of tulip diagrams, a colour map and a set of observational questions asking things like how many telephone boxes did you pass, in which square have you covered the most miles, how many places of worship did you pass, and so on. We had thirty minutes to get around the route and hand the paper back in. We searched for almost fifteen minutes in our atlas for the villages in the little map so we could get there. But all the villages seemed to be in Shropshire, suddenly the penny dropped and I realised all the other trucks were still on the car park it was a sodding paper exercise, I fully believed that it was another driving section as in that mornings drivers brief we were told to make sure we had at least half a tank of fuel for the last section. Needless to say we didn’t have enough time to complete the paper exercise and ended up guessing the answers and handed it in with seconds to spare.

Saturday Night

That night we slept much more soundly, I think we were both so tired that they could have had a team of pneumatic drills around the car and we wouldn’t have woken up.

Sunday

(By now my memory of the event is a bit fuzzy so I may have made mistakes in the sequence of events)

Stage Nine.

This was something more like I expected. It was a scatter navigation with semi cryptic clues that tested your equipment and general knowledge, for example what’s the plant called (crane or heron)? We drove by a small crane in a field and it was obviously ‘plant machinery’, while most folk whizzed by we got out the binoculars and took a good look at the name plate on it. Another question was what is on top of the cairn? For this you would need to know that a cairn is a man-made pile of stones and the answer was a TV aerial. Whilst doing this we were also required us to spot yet more marker boards. We didn’t do too badly at this and answered most of the questions and think we got most of the boards.

Stages Ten and Eleven.

This was in two small forest sections which just required us to mark out a route from the grid reference and spot yet more marker boards within a time limit of half an hour, this gave us an average speed of 7 miles per hour. We got round the first section of forest without too much trouble but then whilst getting from one section to the other I went way out and Phil had to execute probably the last 3 point turn of the day. As he did so, the power steering was making a noise that I can only describe as a sea lion in a washing machine. We were so far from home at this point and worried we had done some real damage to the power steering pipe work that we skipped the last section and went to the check point, we handed in the papers and explained why we had skipped the last section. The marshal (Selwyn) calmly picked up his radio mike and just said “Spider, the Hilux” to which the reply over the radio was “on our way, ETA 5 mins”. As if by magic a bright yellow AA defender 110 bounced over the hill and came to our rescue, it turned out to be a worn belt so they just readjusted it and we were on our way doing the last few stages.

Stage Twelve.

This was a nice and easy drive along a main road answering yet more observational cryptic clues hand picked to have more than one possible answer and we were driving in traffic at road speed without any second chances or the option to turn back.

Stage Thirteen.

This exercise came as a bit of a surprise, it was an observational paper exercise that required us to put several photos of land marks we should have seen over the weekend into correct order.

Then we had the long ride from Scotland to the hotel for the end party, awards ceremony, charity auction and meal, passing almost every truck in the event. Things from this point became a blur as the alcohol took effect, but needless to say I had a good time. We made some good friends and contacts whilst doing the Macmillan 4x4 challenge and would now take this opportunity to thank all of the members who sponsored us this year and made it possible for us to compete.

Its an event I will do again and I strongly advise anyone who thinks they have what it takes to try it, as said earlier in the write up life is for living and it is important that you live it, from what I have learned over this weekend is that the best way is to challenge yourself, set goals and do everything in your power to hit them, when you do manage to hit them or you have done all you truly can that’s when you know you really are living. You really do go through the mill on an event like this and come out the other side a better person.


Cheers for all of the support.

Phil, Karl and the Bullet2
Team 53
Macmillan 4x4 challenge 2009

[jotto]

Well done guys

Maybe some more would like to give you a bit of sponsorship money
heres the link for you all

http://www.justgiving.com/teambullet2

[chrisinflight]

Hi Phil and Karl,
Well done and I enjoyed reading the write-up.
cheers,
chris

[stormforce]

i know it was late but donation added earlier Phil.Well done to you both