Ice Cold in Ibex.

An account of the 4th Club Off Road Bulldog Trophy
by Peter Bradley 24/03/99

The Bulldog Trophy began in 1995 with a peculiar mix of trials sections, strange tasks, against-the-clock head-to-head winching (honestly), and a potentially wonderful night roadbook stage which went chaotically wrong. It had a future OK but the 1st Bulldog did not achieve universal acclaim. The 2nd Bulldog involved a lot of camping and a mad dash through the night to reach the second venue, just around the time when most sensible Ibex owners are in the bar. It therefore follows that the 2nd Bulldog did not quite achieve universal acclaim either. The 3rd Bulldog had a superb single centre base, a brilliantly contrasting satellite site, and a decent hotel for those allergic to nylon. The format was fast and furious non-stop action and it was tough - very tough. This was a Bulldog with attitude and everybody loved it.

Cue Bulldog #4 and something slightly different: sixteen teams each comprising two vehicles and four crewmembers. Accomplished eventers and Webster Trophy veterans Maddison and Redpath amalgamated with enthusiastic duo Bradley and Smart (3rd in the '97 Bulldog) and Team Ibex was re-born. On paper they looked strong but would the format of the event change yet again?

4wd.sofcom.com/News/1999/990324.Bulldog.html We managed to keep this one largely intact

Day One was to be based at the new Beaudesert site near Cannock in Staffordshire. Run by our friend Paul Peet this site is heavily forested and large at 800 acres. Day Two would feature the twin sites down at Clyro near Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border, again heavily wooded with steep slopes and glutinous mud. Maddison and Redpath selected chassis 5F 039 as their conveyance, while 4F 022 was wheeled into Maddison 4x4 for some serious modifications, chiefly tree fender bars, rear roll hoop, new wheels and rubber, and full safety harnesses. Unbeknown to us at the time the roll-hoop, bars and harnesses would shortly be tested in extremis.

Neil arrived on the Friday at about 6:00pm. Before leaving Thirsk his Ibex was treated to a new high output Cosworth alternator suited to keeping those big Varta batteries fully charged. The overnight bags were thrown in the back and soon we were heading down the A1 bound for Rugeley. Around Wetherby the gremlins came out to play.

Juha reported a faint glow on the charge light and asked me to interrogate the GPS with regard to input current. The emerging data was not encouraging - less than twelve volts was dribbling from our own alternator. Fifty miles further on it was down to eleven and an investigation was urgently required. Several sharp taps with a hammer revealed that a small percentage of the earth's crust was hiding deep inside the device. Detailed chemical analysis showed that it originated from Tong. Miraculously a generous helping of WD40 got the alternator working again. Great, except that by now a problem with the viscous fan had been spotted. Basically it was knackered.

Both vehicles rolled into the Cedar Tree Hotel at Brereton close on eleven. Not only was the bar still open but it was destined to remain so for the next four hours. Oh no, why do we always do that?

The next morning dawned bright and early, rather too early for my liking but somehow we made it to the site on time. Steve and Patrick had cunningly recced the place two weeks previously by entering the last 1998 Cannock Challenge event, and this familiarisation was to prove invaluable both now and later in the evening. Brian Hartley devised a little mental teaser to decide the start order. It wasn't exactly MENSA standard but nevertheless we got it wrong. Clearly some other teams got it even more wrong because we were allocated a start position of ninth. The first team away had a sixteen minute lead over the last team. Big deal. The 4th Bulldog was now running and the clock was counting down.

The first exercise was an extensive tulip roadbook (visual not measured) split into two halves, white and red. Steve and Neil got the red half, Juha and moi the white half. There were a couple of questionable moments but basically the white half was fairly easily sussed, though we scored badly on the letterboards (only 4). Radio contact was pretty dire even on the expensive Motorola walkie-talkies, so each half of the team didn't really know how the other half was doing. Back at control we switched the white book for the red book, the other pair having done the same about 15 minutes before us. The task sections had opened at 10:30; it was already gone 10:30 and we still had a whole roadbook to go. Blimey, somebody was a bit optimistic with the roadbook timings weren't they?

A small piece of advice: the navigator must always read the whole roadbook, including any appended notes and small print. In our hurry to catch up we had gone zooming off down the track according to tulip A1. By A3 we were wrong, nay comprehensively lost, and something was clearly amiss. We backtracked, went up and down a bit, had a good old general explore, hurled a bit of verbal abuse at each other, and tried without any success to call up the other Ibex. Eventually we recognised a bit of the roadbook as the track in front, but this was down at the bottom of the page. Where was the missing start chunk? I spotted Roland Czerny winching his monster modified Wrangler behemoth up a nearby hill. "Roland, where are we?" He pointed at the box that I thought we were in. "So where's the start then and how do you get here after A1?" He turned the sheet over and pointed to the top left box. It was numbered A1. I couldn't believe it. Yes, both sides of the sheet were numbered A1 onwards. I scanned the page furiously and there in tiny spider print letters at the bottom it said "page one". On the other side it said, "page two". Oh Jesus.

Juha was not amused. I knew this could only mean one thing - 4F 022 was going to be "making up time". Juha's idea of "making up time" is to drive at speeds similar to that of a Tornado GR1 with afterburners set to full re-heat. We flew through the red book in about forty minutes and at a pace that made letterboard spotting impossible, so I invented five letters just for effect. Back at control it became obvious that excessive friction had caused my Rohan Bags to become welded to the nylon seat covers. Still, at least we were now an integrated two-vehicle team again.

There were six special sections at Cannock, three being task/driving sections and three being "punch" sections. ("Punch" sections require the team or crew to locate a series of orienteering punches attached by a short chain to something immovable like a tree, the punches are then used to stamp a plastic card which is fixed to the dashboard of the vehicle with a tamper proof fastening. Remove the card and you score zilch.) You can take the special sections in any order you like (assuming you can first find them). The punch sections I found a little disappointing. On the '97 Bulldog the punches were easy(ish) to find but the very devil to get at. This year they were hard to find but very easy to get at. Not, in my view, a giant conceptual leap forward.

We broke this one, but carried on anyway

The task/driving sections had a ten minute limit and were, on the whole, pretty fair and thought provoking. One was a manic trial with multiple choice gates through some very slippery ground. Another featured switchback winching which definitely favoured the fast Warn 8274's, and it was here that Steve and Neil picked up a twenty point penalty for using the stump hook. This was "awarded" halfway through the section and came as a complete surprise, nobody having mentioned at the briefing that stump hooks were forbidden. The third task was a very wet hole indeed. We left the very wet hole until the end, partly because there was a queue when we initially arrived there and partly because it was undeniably very wet.

On the second chosen punch section Neil's Husky burnt up a solenoid. The spare was fitted and it too proved to be malfunctioning, Neil's winch now being capable of power-in only (even free-spool was impossible with a load on). It was a bad omen and the semi-repair had cost a valuable half hour. We were timed-out of the "very wet hole" section which was a pity because there were fifty very easy points up for grabs (or a hundred rather more difficult wet ones).

Back at control everyone enjoyed a well earned dinner, (very good roast pork with all the trimmings and included in the entry fee), and then it was time to address the problem of the viscous fan. Outside assistance is forbidden on the Bulldog so it was a case of "all join hands in a circle and concentrate very hard on a single object". Uncle Steve opened the magic cubby box and there it was for all to see - a new viscous fan unit! Paul Peet said it was truly amazing and we were all very lucky indeed. Nobody argued with him.

At 7:00pm all teams set off on the "Northern Lights" night exercise: find four tiny red lights hidden in eight rather large grid squares, collect the letters on the boards under them, and return to control within sixty minutes. The clue here was in the title, the lights being easier to spot if approached from the south. Steve in particular excelled at this task and forty minutes later we had finished "Northern Lights" with a full complement of points.

There was no time to say thanks and goodbye to Paul Peet; having been signed off at Beaudesert, Clyro check-in now lay a hundred and thirty kilometres distant to the south west and we had to present ourselves before 11:30pm to count as Day One finishers. The Swan at Hay was advised of our impending arrival, and "the Major" assured us that the bar would remain open.

It was a tired and bedraggled looking convoy that hammered across the sparsely populated landscape between Kidderminster and Clyro. Every now and then the CB would crackle into life with one of Paul Wilson's jokes. They weren't long and they weren't very funny, but they were delivered in Paul's unique style and were therefore especially welcome. Thus far, everyone had survived the first day of the ' 98 Bulldog Trophy.

The general team consensus in the Swan's bar was that we hadn't done terribly well on the first day, and I suppose we would have placed ourselves about halfway down the field. Nevertheless everyone agreed that it had been enjoyable enough, though I personally didn't think it as good (thus far) as the '97 Bulldog. Neil retired to bed early (for him): it transpired that he had been feeling rough for most of the day and he thought he was "coming down with something". If that was the case I didn't see much effect on his driving the next day.

Day Two greeted us with a couple of surprises. Firstly, the strong wind and rain of the previous day had been replaced by glorious calm, sunny weather, however the temperature had dropped dramatically overnight resulting in a significant frost. The second and slightly more uplifting surprise was delivered at the driver's briefing: We were placed third at Clyro check-in and a mere 150 points adrift of the joint leaders.

Perhaps even more intriguing was the fact that (barring mechanical failures) the Bulldog was now effectively shaping up to be a four-horse race. What we didn't know at the time was that those top four teams would finish the day in exactly the same positions as they started, with the exception of an outright winner emerging. We were allocated the "Upper Wood" first and set about it with renewed enthusiasm.

Our initial chosen task was the "dead vehicle winching", a ten minute section with a convoluted course to drag the "dead 'un" around. Now you don't get much time to formulate a plan of attack on these tasks and in our haste to get started we chose Neil's Ibex as the winch motor and mine as the dead motor. At the first re-rig the Husky refused to either pay out or free-spool and we were timed out of the section with just twenty points on the board. Not a good start.

Still following the roadbook and now searching for three hidden "punches" we came upon the "weight suspend" task. This was a section of mixed blessings. Without wishing to give too much away, (in case it comes up again in the future), we scored full points on the task and well within the ten minutes. The downside came on exiting the section: we had a feeling that something was wrong but what? It would soon become apparent that 4F 022 had secretly blown the front right halfshaft and was therefore now downsized to 3WD plus very uncertain steering.

If the team had suffered a few setbacks on Day One these were about to pale into insignificance on Day Two. Clyro can boast terrain that makes Beaudesert look like the Headingley test wicket and word was coming through on the grapevine that the "Lower Wood", (our final "zone"), was causing havoc for both competitors and marshals alike. With two vehicles now wounded it suddenly seemed likely that the worst was yet to come. It was, and the next surprise lay just around the corner.

The roadbook indicated a very long and slippery hill decent with a turn 90 right about halfway down. 4F 022 was leading the pair and we took on the decent with the rear diff only locked. Very quickly things got out of hand as the Ibex slid down the hill with all the engine braking of a well oiled skateboard. Patrick spotted the right turn as we hurtled past but I had my eye on something else: at the bottom of the hill was a large bank of earth and in front of the earth bank was a very small boy directly in our line of fire. After much furious honking of the horn the lad was eventually plucked from danger by a marshal, seemingly at the last second, and we finally came to a halt only a couple of feet from where he had been standing. To say that I was relieved would be the understatement of 1998.

Several sections and a couple of punches later we were able to get the mornings performance into perspective. We were fast running out of time for the AM tasks; we had one task yet to complete and one punch to find; we had a broken winch on one vehicle and a broken front halfshaft (and precious little steering) on the other. It seemed likely that we were doing OK as a team, but if a challenge was to be mounted it would be essential to score full points on the punches and complete the last task. The final half-hour of the morning session would prove to be a rather frantic one.

Somehow Steve and Neil found the last punch in the MkII, as Patrick and I held a place in the queue for our last task. Steve then piloted the MkI back around to the final punch location whilst Neil's truck was substituted in the queue. We now had all the punches in the correct order on both vehicles, however a near 180 degree spin by Mr. Maddison merely confirmed that 4F 022 was somewhat deficient in the steering department. Eventually we got both vehicles to the start line of the final task with just five minutes to go. This was a timed section involving a vertical (yes, vertical) winching exercise. Thankfully we were allowed to begin, and against all the odds somehow managed to come away with a full quota of points.

Regrettably, but perhaps not surprisingly, there was no time for lunch and attentions were immediately switched to the Lower Wood which featured a mere four sections and no punches at all. What the Lower Wood lacked in quantity it certainly made up for in bruising quality, the first section (eleven) being described by Steve as "Toot Wood on steroids". Here yet another mysterious thirty-point penalty was acquired, this time for apparently allowing the two vehicles to "split up". Considering that both towing and snatch recovery were forbidden I could not see the point of this, if indeed the two vehicles did "split up" at all.

The main feature of the Lower Wood area was the two ravine sections, numbered ten and twelve. We had now arrived at the notorious twin sections that had been causing all the grief and it was immediately obvious why. Mere photographs cannot do justice to such terrain so let me augment them with a short description: we are talking long and steep - very long and very steep. We chose section twelve first, though in truth both sections were almost identical.

There were fifty bonus points on offer if both vehicles could reach a team nominated gate within the ten minute limit. For this reason we took some time walking the course (as best anyone could) and pondering the various ponderables. I think we nominated gate seven but as it happened we needn't have bothered. The decent was straight down, about 1:1 and slightly slippery. The slope was heavily wooded and maybe about fifty yards long, the track laying in a pronounced hollow with a raised bank either side. You might reasonably describe it as the sort of hill that commands respect.

4F 022 was lined up to go first and a brief team confab resulted in the decision to go down with both lockers engaged. Frankly we needed maximum engine braking, regardless of the effect this configuration would have on the steering. Suddenly there was an air of tension in the lead Ibex, and Juha very carefully strapped himself into the full harness for the first time that weekend. I reached for the grab-handle and offered my navigator's final words of wisdom: "Just keep it straight Patrick". Within five yards it had all gone totally pear-shaped.

The Ibex had full body weight on its front legs but unfortunately one of them was broken. There now followed a pronounced lurch, the steering was ripped violently from Patrick's hands and the vehicle staggered drunkenly to the left, climbing the bank in suicidal fashion. What happened next is lost in a blur of tumbling light patterns and a cacophony of sound. The windscreen shattered into a dull mosaic and something whistled through the tiny gap at the top of the mesh bulkhead and joined us in the front. This something later turned out to be the old viscous fan unit.

We stopped rather quicker than I expected, seemingly totally inverted and with nothing but bare earth visible through the remains of the windscreen. Eyewitnesses say the Ibex tried to climb a tree before going into a spectacular full-twisting somersault. All I can say is that our final resting-place was very precarious indeed and we could do no more than hang helplessly upside-down in the harnesses awaiting rescue. Patrick hit the battery kill-switch and I stared out of the side window down the hill - we were being held in position by a tiny flattened sapling no more than 3.5 inches in diameter. The next sizeable tree lay about two and a half barrel-rolls distant. A pack of cigarettes sat undisturbed in the dashboard tray and I remember the first two things that came into my head: "Bugger we just retired" and "I wish I could reach my smokes".

The desire for nicotine quickly diminished when I realised that some kind of liquid was dripping down the back of my neck. Luckily this turned out to be nothing more sinister than WD40. Within about four or five minutes the vehicle was secured by winch cable to a motor at the top of the hill, and we were able to un-buckle and climb out through the inverted drivers door. It was now time to assess the damage.

The strength of the Foers spaceframe never ceases to amaze and at first sight the damage appeared to be negligible. The tree fender bars and rear roll-hoop had undoubtedly helped save us from serious body damage, but even they can only be as strong as the underlying structure to which they are bolted. We had a broken driver's side window, a bent front bumper, smashed overtaking mirror glass, and a dent in the bonnet. Astonishingly, all the doors would still open and close perfectly, both whilst upside down and during recovery when the Ibex was under severe torsional stress. Once back on its wheels the truck was unceremoniously dead-winched up to the top of the hill, allowing sufficient time for the oil to drain back down into the sump. Steve gave the engine a quick visual check and then came the crucial moment as Juha turned the key. The 200Tdi fired first time - not only were we more or less in one piece but hey, we were still competing!

As the front bumper was straightened and the last remnants of the windscreen kicked out, we received the best piece of news yet. The recovery had taken so long that the organisers had no option but to cancel the entire section and remove it from the event, all competitor points accrued on twelve being deemed null and void. In short we had lost nothing but time and a chunk of pride.

Section ten was a near carbon copy of twelve so a unanimous decision was taken to pass on this one. In any case we were fast running out of time with one last section still to go. We nominated the start gate as the "team gate" and both vehicles merely inched the front hubs through then retreated.

The final section (thirteen) comprised of a deep pool followed by a tricky scramble up a very rocky waterfall, culminating in a steep step and a steady haul up to the top of a hill. It was another large dose of "Toot Wood on steroids" and once again we had a ten-minute time limit. Steve and Neil went first in 5F 039 as 4F 022 was clearly going to be struggling. In fact the MkI Ibex was looking very sorry for itself, like it had maybe just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. If vehicles have feelings, and I reckon that hand-built ones certainly do, then this Ibex was crying out to be rested.

The lead motor made steady progress until the malfunctioning winch was required. This slowed the crew down slightly but ingenious use of a ratchet strap got them to the top within the time limit. The trailing Ibex was, on the other hand, a rather pitiful sight. Juha wrestled desperately with the steering and we never seemed to have traction when it was required. We ended up winching when we should have been motoring, and charging ground that really required a more "softly softly" approach. It was a very vehicle-unfriendly way of driving but the Ibex battled on and simply refused to give in, even when an extremely narrow rock gully simultaneously broke both nearside GRP wheelarches with a resounding crack. Eventually we were timed-out at gate eight, exhausted and with numerous bits of bodywork either bent, completely missing, or simply dangling forlornly.

Back at control we were able to take stock of the situation whilst waiting for the results to be determined. Ibex does not use a standard Defender windscreen, so Patrick and I could now look forward to a very uncomfortable glass-less drive back to North Yorkshire. Deep joy. Determined to minimise the draught we fitted a piece of heavy gauge polythene over the hole where the drivers side window once was. What a pity the driver couldn't actually see through it.

Most teams were busy with repairs of some kind; weary bodies were being fortified with two day old sandwiches, and birds-nest winch cables were put back into some sort of order. Before long we were all called to attention in a stripey tent by a lot of men (and some women) in red coats. It was the moment of truth. After two long days and one night of manic driving, frantic winching, task solving and navigation, the results were now in.

With the odds heavily stacked against us we had somehow held onto third place and even managed to narrow the gap slightly with the leaders. It was a good result considering the problems we had on Day Two. The joint leaders from Day One had finally been split: Frost, Oxley, Dransfield, and Longdon were announced as popular winners, with high-seeded Holah, Bond, Czerny, and Anderson close behind in second place.

I have yet to meet someone who would not agree that Brian Hartley's events run like clockwork - they are organised and marshalled with almost military precision. But to err is human and in the haste to get results sorted quickly somebody er erred. Reverse the top two places and you are about there. As it was not discovered until the next day, this little mishap rendered the "rostrum" photo rather useless. Apart from that I think everybody present would agree that The Bulldog Trophy has certainly come of age and is now undisputedly one of the two major annual UK events.

The long night drive back had to be undertaken with the centre diff locked, it would obviously be miserably cold, and there was always every chance that another component would give out on the way. Multiple fleeces were zipped up, mittens donned, headgear pulled down tight, and with that the epic journey commenced in earnest. Neil dug out a pair of goggles for Patrick to wear, and before long he had also donated a pair of sunglasses for me to model.

Several "thawing out stops" had the crew of the other Ibex in stitches. Imagine, if you can, a cross between the SAS, the Blues Brothers and the Michelin man - that gives you a fair indication of our appearance. Patrick was by far the most sinister looking, sporting as he did a black Balaclava, goggles, navy coloured fleece zippered up to chin level, and some black woollen gloves that any self respecting bank robber would have been proud to own. I opted for a more bizarre look - twin fleeces zipped up to the nose, ear protectors, bobble hat, and Polaroid shades. In fact I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the good citizens of Kidderminster, several of whom I think we genuinely frightened as we drove through the town. Sorry.

Roundabouts and junctions were a bit of a nightmare and involved me virtually climbing out onto the bonnet to watch for incoming traffic from the right. We had a close encounter with a bird and another with a rocket-propelled cigarette packet, in fact the whole return trip was a bit like driving through a mini meteor storm. The wind-chill on the motorway at 70mph was something else but Mother Nature managed to save her best trick until last: with 200 miles behind us and only 50 to go it started raining. Yep you guessed it, now we really were "Ice Cold in Ibex".

- © Peter Bradley 1999

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Footnote

Our rollover was caused solely by attempting to drive-on with all ARB diff-locks engaged for 3WD. The vehicle went AWOL so quickly and in such spectacular style that it really scared everybody into some preventative action. The principal "event-Ibex" all now have halfshaft clutches fitted to the front halfshafts ... expensive at about £300 a pair but you never again break another front halfshaft.
- Peter B