Croatia Trophy 2010 Tale of the ‘Pink Panther’

The Croatia Trophy is a massive challenge, being the toughest 4×4 competition in Europe. Just finishing the race is already a major achievement. Adding to these rigours with extra, unforeseen, problems meant that the days were sometimes rather long…

For ‘Team Tommie’ the predominant feature was, sadly, mechanical failure, but of the kind that you couldn’t predict or plan for, like: a blocked suction tube in the fuel tank? Crown wheel bolts sheared off? Axle halfshaft twisted and snapped? You can’t make this stuff up… Here’s a day-by-day account of our adventure.

26 April: The ‘Pink Panther’ (competitor nr. 55) is ready on Monday afternoon, just in time to be loaded onto the trailer. The car is strong, but it is disappointing that there wasn’t enough time to prepare and test the car properly. Basically the car has been rebuilt using a donor Discovery engine and gearbox and sporting some new bodywork from another Defender 90.

That evening we discover that we can’t engage fifth gear due to the gearbox being slightly twisted in its mount in order to get it to fit. We shrug it off and claim bravely that we won’t need it, but later, on track, it is more of a handicap than we might have thought…

27 April: We depart later than planned from Lelystad in Holland and put in some long hours to reach our ‘waypoint”: Passau. We have no spare parts, some basic tools and a rather thin looking wallet… It is after ten pm before we manage to secure a room and some dinner over a few beers. We’re excited about reaching Croatia now. For Vix and me, it’s our first time visiting eastern Europe.

28 April: We depart early, heading for Slovenia and Croatia. The border is actually rather old school, with some of the strictest looking guards (with no sense of humour) we have come across. Really cool. The landscape changes, from huge mountains in Austria, to meandering hills. Old houses are scattered about and ancient tractors are plowing dusty furrows everywhere…

We arrive at the designated campsite (actually just a field with one water tap for over two hundred men) at about three o’clock and set up our ‘camp’. This consisits of one tent, one folding caravan and a taped-up ‘party tent’. We feel rather small next to some of the teams’ trucks, mobile homes and very professional looking setups… … Then we head to ‘town’ (really small), for some hamburgers the size of your plate!

29 April: Registration. We get our start number along with a pile of (local) sponsor stickers. Where to put them all? We check out some of the competitors. A lot of big engines and bigger characters. Russians, Slovenians, Italians, English, German, Polish. Maltese? Also some quietly confident Dutch teams (been here before?)

30 April: The Prologue. We draw a good starting number from the hat and are able to start fairly soon. This one-lap race, of three-and-a-half kilometres in the bush, decides the starting order for the competition itself. But we have a double run of bad luck: we dive into a massive hole that stops the car dead in its tracks at forty kilometres an hour (a huge bang that was heard by everyone!) and the car jams in gear right before the finish, costing us fifteen seconds!

1 May: Stage 1. The first real day. We drive fast but controlled. At the first checkpoint we get a flat tyre, but return to battle strongly and overtake others at a muddy ravine where cars are strewn about all over the place. This is where the ‘topwinch’ breaks.

After this testing, but enjoyable, section the engine starts losing power and stuttering. About four kilometres from the finish we are forced to phone the ‘tow’ service, which itself arrives with a broken clutch (you gotta love it!). No idea what our engine troubles could be..

2 May: Stage 2. The “Team Trophy”. Our car problems prevent us from starting. All day long we check and replace a number of things: fuel filters, injectors, piping and cabling. Eventually, at the end of the day, we trace the problem to a blocked suction tube in the fuel tank. Totally clogged with mud! Why is it always the last thing you check? We clean it and the engine runs like the proverbial sewing machine (or is that a tractor?). A pity that our non-start has cost us a three hour time penalty…

3 May: The Night Stage. 23h00 is the starting time for the front runners. We leave at 00h30 in the rain. Bizarre watching headlights shining in all directions. Everyone is lost! I find it really exhilarating and am ‘buzzing’, enjoying myself. It takes us an hour to find the first checkpoint. Right there, after getting our stamp, the front end loses drive to the wheels. We have to quit and limp back ‘home’. The marsh is too difficult to attempt without all-wheel drive…

4 May: Circuit Race. We remove the diff in our ‘workshop’ (on the back of the dusty trailer) and open it up. All the crown wheel bolts have sheared off! Naturally there is no drive to the front wheels without them. Luckily there is no damage to the crown wheel itself, so Rob heads back to the other dutch teams (fortunately all Land Rovers) to scrounge some parts. It takes all day and a lot of help from others to reassemble. Also amazing is that Peter Arends (a fellow Dutchie) knows how to callibrate the gears correctly.

Two minutes before the Circuit Race we are finished! We grab a helmet and buckle up. Naturally we have to start at the back – the ‘grid’ being formula one style. But Rob drives like an ace and we pass a number of competitors. The obligatory pitstop, to swop the front and rear tyres on one side, is perfect – one of the quickest. Without even practicing? Ferrari headhunters expected soon…

But we get another flat tyre and are forced to repeat the tyre change, this time along the track. All the cars we overtook now come past us again. At the end of the twelve lap race a mix-up by the officials has us coming in a lap too soon, only to be sent away again for another lap! The last muddy ditch has us strung up between two cars on their winch cable. Thanks Burgaard! Incredibly good fun and huge enjoyment to give it some stick through the forest. We check the car that has come through rather well except for a crack in the diff housing (the bashplate couldn’t be mounted on time) that is ‘fixed’ with some duct tape (magic stuff that holds most of Africa together)…

5 May: The ‘marsh’. A LOT of cars stuck in this part. I enjoy helping the other teams to winch their way through the metre deep mud and water. The quicker they are through, the sooner we can have a go… For me it is a crash course in winching techniques: snatching, double-snatching, resetting, tension on the cable… Good fun and some unexpected back-slapping and thumbs-up from the ‘old pro’s’ (does a man good). The rest of the stage goes rather well, but because of the two hour wait in the marsh we get back to camp late…

6 May: Today we enter a creek that runs for a couple hundred metres. And also run into a couple hundred metres of 4×4′s – all stuck. A bit frustrating after our good navigation had got us to this point rather quickly. Once again we wait…

Very tough to get through. Like winching your way, literally, through wet concrete. High suction from the mud thwarting all efforts. Eventually we need to double-snatch in order to winch our way out… Terribly slow… Once on dry land we find the rear diff doesn’t want to know. At the second checkpoint we decide, disappointed, to quit the day.

Back on our dusty trailer, the halfshaft comes out easily. Rather too easily… The shaft has been twisted and snapped! Unheard of, especially for an Ashcroft. With a huge amount of help from the Dutch teams and luckily a spare from Jansen Used Range Rover Parts, the bulk of the work is done. By now it is three am…

7 May: We’re on the move again! We start well and drive really well. Until we get to a gulley that will eternally be referred to, by yours truly, as ‘Hamburger Hill’… Another concrete mixer, really steep and heavy going. Halfway up – you guessed it – the axles don’t cooperate. The ‘lockers’ aren’t working, effectively leaving us with two-wheel drive.

Halfway up we decide to head up the side of the canyon. Even steeper but dry, since the mud was sucking us down towards China. The top winch (which had been the back winch the day before) also gives up the ghost.

Now we need to double-snatch up this incredibly slippery, extremely steep slope, using a tree cord to anchor the car while we moved the (now triple snatched) winch cable. All this without the aid of traction by the wheels. The fuel tank is leaking diesel due to the exceptionally steep angle, so the pressure is mounting. We reach the top, totally shattered. One of the tree cords stays behind – we are too exhausted to go looking for it. It is our ‘offering’ to the hill that nearly slaughtered us…

Two minutes well deserved rest. We gulp down our full water supply and head on to the finish…

8 May: Final stage, with quite some driving – 50km’s… No ‘lockers’ front or back. No rear winch. No top winch. But we are going to start (and finish this race). Once again we do really well with navigating and driving.

Marsh or swamp without four wheel drive? Rob doesn’t even blink as he floors it. Halfway to the end, the front roller-block breaks, shearing the winch cable! Now we are driving a completely ‘standard’ Land Rover… Stopping every couple of kilometres to tighten the stripped axle bolts. Thanks to Tjarko and Sybolt we manage to exit the river at the finish and cross the line together. Fantastic!

9 May: Time to head home. We depart from Topusko feeling fulfilled and delighted to have received a medal for our efforts. But it isn’t over yet… In Austria we forget to renew our vignet and both cars get a hefty fine. In Germany I am travelling slightly faster than permitted whilst towing a trailer and get pulled over for a speeding ticket (anxious to get home?)  A short while later the Disco’s head gasket decides that enough is enough (pulling a 2,5 ton trailer is pretty hard work…). The rescue service is summoned, but it takes a long time to get everything organised. Eventually Rob and Rinze manage to find a bed at three in the morning. The next day we continue with a replacement car, while the  Disco and trailer with our Pink Panther are hauled back to Holland …

Problems:

• 2 flat tyres (inner tube)
• top winch broken
• rear winch damaged (moved to top but also inoperable)
• fuel suction pipe blocked – engine stalled
• crown wheel bolts in front diff sheared
• halfshaft in rear diff snapped and crown wheel bolts loose
• branch stuck in bottom of car breaking the air hoses
• ‘lockers’ not operating anymore
• axle bolts worn and stripped
• roller-block broken (and therefore front winch cable snapped)

What went well?

• the driving – Rob drives fast but steady, in control – keeps us in the competition
• navigation – a couple of wrong turns, but better and better – last three days faultless
• camaraderie among the ‘competitors’
• help and advice from participants
• organisation of the competition – professional but jovial and relaxed
• camp fire – thanks guys!
• beer – idem ditto
• Croatian landscape – beautiful
• the ‘team’ – we made it to the finish!
• THE COLOUR – within half an hour of arriving in camp, everybody knew the ‘Pink Panther’, we even got a fan club!

Some observations:

Nostalgia:  Hotel Toplica Topusko is like stepping back in time forty years… As if time has stood still… A poignant reminder of the ‘glory days’. After jamming our tents back into the cars, we spend a night in the local hotel so we can head back early in the morning (still two days drive to get home). A warm shower – after ten days spent under a cold showerbag hanging off the back of the Disco – is most welcome.

Biggest surprise: the pace of the competition, no time to relax, always fixing something, constantly on the go…

Best expression: “Hey dude! (pauze) It’s BROKEN!”: Rinze, our mechanic, in classically thick Dutch accent after we return from the field with yet another mechanical problem.

Coolest image: Igor (the boss and organiser) sitting in his camping chair near a swamp, calmly making a phone call and spreading a sandwich, while mud flies, cables snap, winches break and V8 mayhem ensues around him…

Worst moment: losing the front diff on the night stage…

Best moment: (except for finishing and claiming our medals) waking up at 6h45 one morning to the sound of… nothing but birds. Normally the generators and V8′s are fired up at 6 am! Testament to how the whole camp was starting to feel it… I had to smile…

After doing battle in Croatia, the ‘Pink Panther’ will return to Holland at the end the week. Besides a spate of internal gremlins, we managed to keep up with all the massive V8′s with our standard 200Tdi.  Perhaps we could have ended a lot higher up in the results…

A small budget. A small team. But a huge adventure! Next year? With more sponsorship? We’re there!

Croatia Trophy 2010 DVD on sale at: http://marvic.biz/webshop/dvd-book/croatia-trophy-dvd