27th April 2003

My second visit to Mow Cop. It is a rather large and open site, with three main really difficult bits; the gulley, the bombhole, and a series of mud filled humps and hollows. The rest is all relatively easy going, do-able in most 4x4s. Or so everyone thought...

The day started off with a drive round the site, the ground was damp but not squishy. within the first 40mins Id done most of the course, up and down the banks, through some mud runs and along the ruts.

I came upon a stricken L@nd Rover Series 3 and pulled him out. The bloke told me that he got stuck in the same place last time and a Suzuki rescued him then as well!

I watched a few people drive up the banks and climbs and there was this LR who had several attempts at this one climb and couldnt make it. So i had a go and went straight up first time without losing traction once! Then the same thing happened again on a different climb but with a Toyota in front of me instead! I was on fire! hehe. This Toyota had MTs as well, but had to be winched up the final bit. I guess the weight of it was the main problem while my little Samurai waltzed up with a minimum of fuss.

Soon club member Steve Calderbank arrived in his coil-over SJ 'Rivet-mobile'. Steves not had the SJ long, he used to off road his other truck, a Toyota Hi-Lux which has been modded up and has 35" tyres on. BTW Thats a nice little home made half-leaf-over-coil-over-axle system youve got there Steve! We both went round the site for a bit, I even got a drive of steves SJ, then at 12.00 it bucketed it down!

By 12.30 the rain had gone and there was bright sunshine. but what a difference that rain had made! The ground was saturated and the mud offered no traction being a mixture of mud and clay.

Even with my MTs i couldnt go up the shallower climbs, and moving around the site required caution to avoid sliding into something! the guys on road tyres just couldnt go anywhere! they'd drive a few feet forward and come to a stop with all 4 wheels spinning. It really was that bad!

As the afternoon went on, the site dried up a bit and I could drive the rest of the obstacles again. Steve got through the series of humps and theres a few pics of me attempting it aswell. A few photos later and we watched a LR 101 launch itself into the bombhole and winch itself out again. that was quite impressive! A last drive round the site, and them it was time to go.