2007-03-20
Total Off Road Magazine Article - March 2007

This month we have another article in Total Off Road Magazine. This time its a 4 page spread on or first year of racing. This entry gives a preview of the article, the full quality version is available in newsagents now!!!

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2007-02-05
Total Off Road Magazine Article - February 2007

This month we got a small mention in Total Off Road Magazine. The TOR article gives a roundup of the finishing positions for the 2006 season, giving a short profile on each of the drivers.

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2006-12-12
Racing a Vitara in the 2006 Championship - report

Well, the official results are now in. I can confirm that we have driven our vitara to 1st in Class A and 4th Overall in the Southern Counties Off Road Championship. This is a fantastic result for our first years racing. So, in a sport dominated by Land Rovers and Land Rover based specials, why a vitara? The honest answer is becuase I already owned it. That said, there are many good reasons to choose a vitara as the basis for a cross country racer. They are small, light, and parts are cheap and plentiful. The question was would it make a good racer?

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2006-11-05
SCOR Round 7 - Sidbury Hill, Wiltshire, 5th November - event report

Following the disapointment at Long Valley, I was looking forward to getting back behind the wheel and racing again. I was also looking forward to another chance to race at the Sidbury Hill Site on Salisbury Plain. Our first ever event was back in March of this year at Sidbury Hill but we did not complete the event after withdrawing with a chalk clogged radiatior and a burst top radiator hose. But before we could race again we had a car to repair.

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2006-10-01
SCOR Round 6 - Long Valley, Hampshire, 1st October - event report

The lead up to the Long Valley event saw some spectacular down pours. At the driver briefing the Clerk of the Course warned us the site was horrible and we’d need a stock of wiper motors and brake pads to get through the event. Heavy overnight rain had submerged a water-logged site further under water making a difficult site even more testing. Following the driver briefing we were keen to get going and quickly buckled up and got underway early in the first wave.

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2006-08-29
SCOR Round 5 - Horam, Sussex, 29th August - event report

Before I knew where I was it was time for Round 5. Winchester in July had been kind to the car so after a quick check over I found there wasn't really much to do. I investigated the blowing exhaust and found although there is a small crack in the manifold casting the majority of the 'blow' was coming from the broken gasket at the manifold / down tube interface. Once this was patched It was a quick look over the suspension to check the new bushes had faired ok and a check and top up of the vital fluids.

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2006-07-23
SCOR Round 4 - Worthy Down, Hampshire, 23rd July - event report

Following Minehead I had a fair few things to do to the Vitara to make it 'race-ready' and I was determined not to leave it all until the last minute again. The Monday after the event I was on the phone. I ordered a new wheel and tyre from Tyres Direct UK (http://www.tyresdirect.co.uk) to replace the one damage by the stump. During the event I'd also noticed the front wheels were begining to rub on the back of the arches in bumpy corners - a sure sign the front bushes needed replacing.

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2006-06-14
SCOR Round 3 - Minehead, Somerset, 11th June - event report

Preparing for Minehead ended up all a bit of a rush. At the beginning of the week I had a dirty racer on axle stands in the workshop, no transport to the event and a 'to-do' list that filled a page of my note book. To be honest the car still looked more or less as it did when we left Slab Common. After over and hour with the jet wash (thank you Simon Clark) and over 200 litres of water I'd barely dented the job of cleaning the vast quantities of Slab Common sand and mud from the Vitara. On Monday / Tuesday I was fairly adamant that I would not be racing a Minehead.

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2006-04-20
SCOR Round 2 - Slab Common, Hampshire, 16th April - event report

At the driver briefing the CoC described it as 'horrible' and a '3 1/2 mile trials course' ! I'd been warned the course could be tough, but I was keen to get out there. The first run was to be a potter to learn the course. I'd spectated a few times at Slab over the years so knew roughly what to expect; the deep sand, twisty sections through the pine trees and big holes cut by the tanks over the years. They weren’t wrong about the 'trails course' I recognised some sections we were driving through from an AWDC trial I'd watched a few years ago. Rather than trying the 'wait until last' tactic from Sidbury I thought I'd just get on with it and let people pass as required.

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2006-04-10
SCOR Round 1 - Sidbury Hill, Wiltshire, 19th March - event report

Round 1 of the Southern Counties Off Road Championship at Sidbury Hill was my first event. After years of thinking about it, I was finally here.

The course we had laid out the day before was 8 miles over the Cross County Driving Area. Sidbury only ever seems to go two ways, either an enormous area of chalk slurry or set as hard as rock. We had the 'hard as rock' version, but the day was sunny, the sky clear and there was a breeze the keep the dust moving. The target was set at 10 runs for the day.

Having come along on the Saturday to help lay out the course I had a fair idea of where it went and the major obstacles. On balance I suppose this is a benefit as it saves walking the course on the day, but it also meant I knew about 'the hill'.

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