Abingdon Sep 28th – 30th 2007-09-30
http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa207/eclipsetuk/Abingdon Sep 2007/?mediafilter=all
Day 1 Friday
Woke up to a very damp day, finished loading Big Red and it started chucking it down , went off to pick up mate and his boy, finally set of in the heavy rain around 16:00, drove through some mad traffic (still chucking it down) and finally arrived at the Airfield around 05:35.
Drove around looking for the others but couldn’t see any one (probably due to the rain) eventually found a clearing and set up tent, luckily the rain eased off to a fine drizzle and the once the tent was up it started again didn’t really care at this point, took a walk to burger bar but everything was closed decided to get the Barbie going, turned out nice in the end .
Day 2 Saturday
Didn’t sleep to well so I was up for 05:00, thought I would let the others sleep so took a walk, when the sun started coming up (you could actually see it through the clouds) and the others go up went back to burger bar and had a nice sausage & egg
Strolled back to Big Red and headed off to the Scrutineer section where Red was recognised by a few of the guys from another club I belong to passed the scrutinising and made our way on to the course by which time the sun was breaking through , the first section was nice and easy with a little bit of mud, moved around the corner and came to 2 markers, easy to the left and hard to the right, now as I am very new to this and don’t have a modded vehicle I made the sensible choice and took the hard route:wack3:
Got through that no problem and thought, well if that is as hard as it gets I will have no problem, how wrong I was followed the course around and reached next split in the road and yes I took the hard route, very tight section with lot of tight turns and scraping each side, clouted a rock with the wheels spinning the steering wheel at a rate of knots nearly taking one of my fingers with it, did not make this mistake again............
Continued around the course taking every hard section there was, came across a couple of photo points as you can see by the water splash pics, had no issues with these
Finally after following the course for 40 mins I came across a section that said extreme rather than hard, I thought twice about this, smiled at my mate and said what the hell :lol: , around a corner was a very muddy rutted 20 degree upward slope (at least my gauges said 20 but it seemed more than this), gave it a bit of grunt and up we went no problem, went around another corner and found another slope even higher even steeper with a big cross axle at the top, yep you guessed it, away I went, with a crash bang wallop and almost at the top lost traction and promptly came back down, after attempt three I gave up and finished the route, in the end me and my learner mate went around 5 times and enjoyed it more each time, At the end of the day we suffered a dented side step (which mad a excellent rock slider) and a slight dent on the rear bumper.
It was then a walk around the stalls, back to the tent and another Barbie and a few beers, took a walk around the trucks and managed to find a few friends.
Day 3 was pretty much the same as day two only we became a little braver, was amazed to find after my mate got us stuck in the water section “after a large hole appeared under the water” my engine continued to run perfectly well, even though it was submerged and still running, didn’t suck any water up, watched land rovers, Mitsu, Toyotas and all sorts get stuck and water logged in this section, truck after truck was towed out the engines coughing and spluttering, after rocking backwards and forwards a few times we managed to get ourselves out which amazed me, there were even modded motors with snorkels suffering.
Carried on around to the dreaded last extreme section and made it over, came around the bottom and watched a Disco go up, reached the rutted section and his back axle ripped completely off on one side, made a real mess, that and a modded disco with what looked like a bust steering rack were the only real casualties I saw, although I did come home with slightly re-angled tracking (now had it checked and need to replace a track rod end), a dented step and a small scratch on one of the wheel arches.
To be honest I was over the moon with how big red performed, hit the most severe the course had and went around the course 11 times in the two day period, without a doubt the biggest challenge I have had yet and thoroughly enjoyed it, shame I never managed to find many of you guys, just got to sort out tracking and clean the 1” of mud in the engine bay before I take my next ride out 8)
I have noticed a post by big pimp, it was a shame you didnt stay over and go out on the course, you would have probably enjoyed it more, I will agree the stalls were disapointing and did say to a freind that they could have done with a 4x4 auto jumble at the event to cater for those that did not want to go off road but to be honest I went for the off roading and didnt realy bother with the stalls.
Sorry if this was a little long winded, hope you enjoy the pics and videos.
http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa207/eclipsetuk/Abingdon Sep 2007/?mediafilter=all
Day 1 Friday
Woke up to a very damp day, finished loading Big Red and it started chucking it down , went off to pick up mate and his boy, finally set of in the heavy rain around 16:00, drove through some mad traffic (still chucking it down) and finally arrived at the Airfield around 05:35.
Drove around looking for the others but couldn’t see any one (probably due to the rain) eventually found a clearing and set up tent, luckily the rain eased off to a fine drizzle and the once the tent was up it started again didn’t really care at this point, took a walk to burger bar but everything was closed decided to get the Barbie going, turned out nice in the end .
Day 2 Saturday
Didn’t sleep to well so I was up for 05:00, thought I would let the others sleep so took a walk, when the sun started coming up (you could actually see it through the clouds) and the others go up went back to burger bar and had a nice sausage & egg
Strolled back to Big Red and headed off to the Scrutineer section where Red was recognised by a few of the guys from another club I belong to passed the scrutinising and made our way on to the course by which time the sun was breaking through , the first section was nice and easy with a little bit of mud, moved around the corner and came to 2 markers, easy to the left and hard to the right, now as I am very new to this and don’t have a modded vehicle I made the sensible choice and took the hard route:wack3:
Got through that no problem and thought, well if that is as hard as it gets I will have no problem, how wrong I was followed the course around and reached next split in the road and yes I took the hard route, very tight section with lot of tight turns and scraping each side, clouted a rock with the wheels spinning the steering wheel at a rate of knots nearly taking one of my fingers with it, did not make this mistake again............
Continued around the course taking every hard section there was, came across a couple of photo points as you can see by the water splash pics, had no issues with these
Finally after following the course for 40 mins I came across a section that said extreme rather than hard, I thought twice about this, smiled at my mate and said what the hell :lol: , around a corner was a very muddy rutted 20 degree upward slope (at least my gauges said 20 but it seemed more than this), gave it a bit of grunt and up we went no problem, went around another corner and found another slope even higher even steeper with a big cross axle at the top, yep you guessed it, away I went, with a crash bang wallop and almost at the top lost traction and promptly came back down, after attempt three I gave up and finished the route, in the end me and my learner mate went around 5 times and enjoyed it more each time, At the end of the day we suffered a dented side step (which mad a excellent rock slider) and a slight dent on the rear bumper.
It was then a walk around the stalls, back to the tent and another Barbie and a few beers, took a walk around the trucks and managed to find a few friends.
Day 3 was pretty much the same as day two only we became a little braver, was amazed to find after my mate got us stuck in the water section “after a large hole appeared under the water” my engine continued to run perfectly well, even though it was submerged and still running, didn’t suck any water up, watched land rovers, Mitsu, Toyotas and all sorts get stuck and water logged in this section, truck after truck was towed out the engines coughing and spluttering, after rocking backwards and forwards a few times we managed to get ourselves out which amazed me, there were even modded motors with snorkels suffering.
Carried on around to the dreaded last extreme section and made it over, came around the bottom and watched a Disco go up, reached the rutted section and his back axle ripped completely off on one side, made a real mess, that and a modded disco with what looked like a bust steering rack were the only real casualties I saw, although I did come home with slightly re-angled tracking (now had it checked and need to replace a track rod end), a dented step and a small scratch on one of the wheel arches.
To be honest I was over the moon with how big red performed, hit the most severe the course had and went around the course 11 times in the two day period, without a doubt the biggest challenge I have had yet and thoroughly enjoyed it, shame I never managed to find many of you guys, just got to sort out tracking and clean the 1” of mud in the engine bay before I take my next ride out 8)
I have noticed a post by big pimp, it was a shame you didnt stay over and go out on the course, you would have probably enjoyed it more, I will agree the stalls were disapointing and did say to a freind that they could have done with a 4x4 auto jumble at the event to cater for those that did not want to go off road but to be honest I went for the off roading and didnt realy bother with the stalls.
Sorry if this was a little long winded, hope you enjoy the pics and videos.
