Words by Mike Cuff (aka Cuffy)
Pics by Mike Pavelin, Paul Bass, Richard Eden, Sean Baker, Stefan Pracht

I have one over riding memory of this event, walking around the site in bare feet! Let me explain, for me the event started Friday around 1pm when I arrived at Tuff Terrains to layout the sections. Initially things went very well although a bit slowly, after a couple of hours I’d set out two sections, nothing to difficult I thought… and then the rain came… by Saturday morning section A turned into a slippery quagmire… some folks had trouble getting to the section let alone negotiating it…

Back to Friday afternoon, by around 6pm in total I’d set out four sections, section A consisting of a marked course, vehicles having to drive through a series of numbered gates, collecting punches as they went. Section B started with a marked out course leading vehicles into one of Bernie’s (the site owner) infamous bomb whole fields, a field where I positioned a number of punches, hopefully in positions that might catch folks out… Sections C and D were not marked and just contained punches, section C being along the waterfall/river and D the Dragon Lair, both obstacles that J33P members (me included) have driven before. After laying out sections C and D I was beginning to feel tired, cold and more than a little wet. However as it was still light, I had a few punches left plus I was expecting a couple of well kitted challenge vehicles to turn up I decided to set out one more section, section E, right through the middle of one of Bernie’s swamps. Did I mention the rain plus the fact that I’d left the heavy duty footwear in the Rodeo! After loosing my footwear in the mud for the Xth time I gave up and went native, walking (sinking) in bare feet. Fun! And there was me thinking that section E would be interesting, Stefan and Paul (challenge Landie’s) clearing it relatively easily! Grrr…

On Saturday morning, by 10.00am 13 vehicles had arrived. Post the usual housekeeping stuff, safety briefing, reiterating the idea behind the event, sorting out food orders, etc, etc the vehicles were split into 3 groups. Stefan and Paul heading off to collect punches (along with a Bernie supplied Marshall), while I took 4 Jeeps to section A and Will and Bernie took 4 to section B. Have to say, Will telling me on Friday night that he didn’t want to drive very much, he’d just come along to “chill out” was music to my ears.

For info, the idea of the event being to, encourage people to work in teams; to give them the chance to experience what it is like having to collect punches rather than simply driving around a site and off cause, have plenty off fun and socialise. Personally, I see the beauty of punches is that they often force you to look at an obstacle in a completely new way, often forcing you to doing things you may never have previously considered.

After 3 or so hours, both groups of 4 Jeeps had cleared their sections, so after a quick lunch break, the groups swapped sections. Rather than bore you, this is turning into a long write up, I’ll let the pictures do the talking! By around 4pm, after completing sections A and B the Jeepers were all rightly feeling pretty pleased because they had collected all the punches in sections A and B. I say rightly, as this was the first time the Jeepers had tried this sort of event, the Jeeps spec’s differed greatly etc, the team work and spirit of co-operation increasing greatly during the day, the winch equipped Jeeps helping the non-equipped ones etc.

Speaking to the Jeepers rather than start another section, when I told them that Stefan and Paul had completed sections A,B,D and E and were currently in section C, the waterfall/river, they decided to go and see how the “experienced folks” do it. The Jeepers arriving in time to see Stefan winning himself the extreme tyre changing award, something that Kevin Royston first bestowed upon me at Seven Sisters. Once changed, Stefan and Paul completed the section, including the punch where I seemed to have muddled up my left and right!

After a quick vehicle cleanup in the yard and some goodbyes, folks headed back to their hotels/B&B to prepare for the evening meal at the Laughing Dog in Howey. As usual, the evening meal went fine, everybody enjoying themselves…

On Sunday, things didn’t quite start of as I would have wished, around 3pm I woke up feeling extremely sick, it was somewhat embarrassing explaining to the B&B owner why the sink was blocked. Upshot was that I didn’t make it to the site until around 10am, over an hour late. However luckily, in my absence Stefan had led everybody up to the top of the hill over looking the site.

Catching up with the group, after a quick natter, I pointed them at section D, the Dragons Lair. From memory, some 7 Jeeps tackled the section, under the watchful eye of myself, Bernie, Will and Stefan. The 7 Jeeps tackled the Lair with gusto, demonstrating that some of the lessons learnt on Saturday had taken hold, strops were no longer being used once and then immediately picked up forcing the next guy in line to putdown his own strop, one person taking responsibility for a little section of the Lair, making sure that if a Jeep got into trouble the next one through was warned and advised to try a different line. By around 1pm, the 7 Jeeps made it to the end, only one Jeep sustaining minor damage due to driving around a blind corner – I’m not sure what was worse for the driver, the damage or being told off by Stefan for not looking first!!!

After finishing the Lair, everybody decided they had had enough, something I was quite thankful for as I was beginning to feel some what queasy again, for me it had been a very tiring 48 hours. So after another round of vehicle cleaning and goodbyes every body departed for home…

Post the event I emailed everybody who attended, general consensus was that it had been a very good event, collecting punches was far more rewarding than just driving around, winches were no longer being seen as bits of recovery equipment, they were necessary tools, IT WAS VERY HARD WORK, let us know if you are running another one!

To bring this write up to an end I’d like to thank everybody who came along, particularly Will for helping with the group on Saturday, Stefan and Paul for showing how it should be done and Bernie for the site…

Some pictures from the event