20/05/2024
Back up to Dougie Hamilton wee hill for our second event of the year hosted by the Mayhem winch challenge. What an event it was.! 😀
The build up to the event had been really hectic. Finding more and more things on the truck during the prep that needed to be sorted. 🤦🏼♂️ Only got it finished so that I was happy with it on the Friday morning and left at 1pm. Meaning that I was pretty knackered and felt unprepared heading up on Friday, which is very unlike us. I asked Luke Wakelen to drive hope for a few hours sleep but that didn’t happen. 😴
We arrived later than planned, shoved the truck in the tent and straight to the pub for dinner. 🍔🍺 Many thanks to Jamie Dickie and James Halliday for paying. Much appreciated. Austin James joined us later on and we crashed out early at the BnB.
Saturday, sign on, sorted the storage boxes with spares on the truck and up to the top of the hill for the start. Dougie set us off about 9am in glorious sunshine. ☀️ The truck was going well and we knocked out a few stages pretty quick. However, kept dying after being on heavy power, and was being a pain to start, but managed it. Then once in the new wood and in the bogs it kept happening. The fuel pump was red hot so thought it was best after 4 stages to change it and save being stuck in a section, dead. 30mins later back out with a fresh pump but the same issue was still there. Still not sure what it is. Lunch was at 12-2 and in our last section before we planned to stop we broke a front prop. I ran back to the pits to get it changed for the spare but the spare I thought was right wasn’t. So we dragged it out and went for lunch in 2wd and sorted it during the break to minimise the time lost. Thanks George for the use of your van and grinder and William Burnett and Jamie for giving us a hand to get it on. We had to chop it down but made it work.
The afternoon was mint and truck was flying. It felt great and really got in a rhythm. Another 4 stages and finished at 4:30. Austin had been busy in the pits while we were out and fixed the original prop with another joint. So we but that one back on thinking it would be better than running the cut one, and headed to the night lap. 🌙
It went a bit wrong on the night lap. A bit too eager to do well, I landed on power over the tyres and blew the front prop again. Gutted but it was worth 20 points and no time limit. So Gwyn Lewis took us back to the pits for tools and we took the remainder of the prop off and finished the lap in 2wd. Which I had to take full advantage of, doing about 10 laps of the Ken block pole in full Tokyo drift mode. That made it worth it. Last place but still got the lap. ⏱️
Sunday, we got the prop fixed again with a new joint and cable tied the spare to the back. 9am start again we dived straight in and got on it. The sections were brilliant. Really long and technical. There wasn’t much that was drivable. Luke has his work cut out, and some bits we both thought how the hell we going to do that but we smashed out 6 sections, stopping for lunch dead on 11:57 exiting the last section right at mothers tea. ☕️ 12:30 we were back out and wanted another 4 sections. That was the goal. It was really hot in the trees and poor Luke was working hard. Nothing on that hill is flat. All big rocks and vertical. He was totally knackered and dripping wet but we did it finishing 4 sections with 15mins to spare. I said “can we do a few scatter punches” but he replied “no I’m done”. I don’t blame him. He collapsed on the floor drinking as much as he could before going for a quick swim. 🥵
The truck was mega all weekend except the prop issues. Huge thank you to Marcus Williams for all the help getting the gearbox sorted. The loan of a laptop and a few spares for the weekend. It was faultless all weekend running on the HTG and very excited to see what else we can do with it. So much potential and it was a pleasure to use. 🙏🏻
We worked really hard and got 10 sections done both days resulting in 20 out of 24 over the weekend. We finished 2nd just 9 points behind Seamus Doyle which you can’t complain about. Him and Gar Twomey have way more knowledge and experience than us, with a completely new untested gearbox setup, only Luke’s 5th event as a co driver and a few small issues. Very happy to finish runner up.🥈
Thank you so much to Dougie and all his crew for all their hard work putting on a great event. Thank you to all our sponsors and great companies that help us put together this amazing truck. Well done Luke for getting us round and not 1 roll all weekend, plus getting us there. Thank you Edd Seymour and Austin for the help in the pits, and I can’t wait to see all the videos from Sunday chasing us round like a lunatic. Thank you Gwyn, Katie and Carys for a few lifts and spare joints. So many other people but you were all great and couldn’t have done it without you.
Looking forward to the stampede next after a quick stop at Poland. 🇵🇱 😆
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