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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Northwest Challenge
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Teams were forced into winching early.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Co-drivers guiding vehicles over technical terrain.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Skill challenges allowed teams to gain extra points.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
The final push up the washout… literally.
Story & photos by Budd Stanley
The Northwest Challenge is a special event in the world of off-roading. Not only do you get to see Land Rovers in their natural environment, it is the allied event that brings together two countries, two states and a province in competition for a single beloved mark. Split between Land Rover clubs in BC, Washington and Oregon, the event has been held annually since 1989, with each region rotating hosting duties. As a result, you get an iconic event that is held in a different region each year with cool 4WD’s taken to the limits of their abilities - what could be better?
I’ve been trying to get out to the Northwest Challenge for four years, unfortunately the timing and distance hasn’t worked with my schedule. Thankfully Pamela Blair has told the story in these pages to make up for my absence. However, 2016 was going to be the year I got out to see the NWC, and what a year it was to make it out.
This year, it was BC’s turn to host the event, and the Rover Landers had something special in mind. A particularly daring grid of BC trails overgrown with thick coastal rain forest lay in wait to challenge every wheeler. On hand were nine proper Land Rovers from Oregon, Washington and BC, each already showing the scars of combat against tree and rock.
Arriving at the beginning of the first stage I was greeted by several marshals who had the foresight to make a Timmies run prior to setup. With a Honey Cruller in my belly and a warm coffee in my hand, I made the long hard slog up the mountainside as rain began to fall. Setting up next to a moss-covered slab of rock that undulated and climbed a good 30 metres up the trail, I knew the competitors were in for a challenging go right off the bat.
They don’t call it the Northwest Challenge for nothin’. The narrow trails winding through the thick coastal rain forest proved a worthy adversary to the Land Rovers. Wheeling on muddy moss covered trails is nothing new to these competitors, each one hailing from similar environments down the BC, Washington and Oregon coast, however the thickness of the forest through these overgrown trails seemed to wrap around each truck, not with sticks and branches, but with large diameter tree trunks. The Range Rovers in particular were having a rough time in the forests’ close and intimate quarters. With slow and calculated movements made through the maze of green, I likened them to “elephants in the woods”, forced to squeeze and realign themselves to fit through the narrow gaps.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Range Rover of Gord'n Perrott was the first to winch and would go on to win the event.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Open rocky climbs were a sign of things to come.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Short wheelbase Rovers like the #3 D90 found the route a little easier to traverse.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Range Rovers made up the majority of the field.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
The higher up the mountain, the more winch lines came out.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Breakdowns thinned out most of the Range Rovers.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
A trail not for the faint of heart.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
Always good to see a classic still wheelin’.
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Budd Stanley
Land Rover Club
The 109 that never gave up.
However, each driver and co-driver combination was a well-oiled and disciplined team who knew their vehicles better than the men who built them. The first team (Range Rover of Gord'n Perrott and Carey Wright) through got hung up on a particularly slippery rocky spine early in the first stage. After a couple of attempts, they knew it wasn’t going to work and were winching only a few moments into the trail. The second team (Range Rover of Mike Bach and Lou Tauber) through analyzed the opening obstacle and had winch line and recovery gear at the ready before even getting stuck. However, a tough recovery turned out to be too much for their winch, leaving them without one for the rest of the day. In an impressive display of driving, they wheeled over the section that hung up the first vehicle and continued into the dark rainforest.
Repositioning up the mountain, I was passed by the Defender 90 of Steve and Scott Schoenfelder, ripping the short wheelbase Rover through the tough terrain with surprising ease and were off into the undergrowth before I could even lift my camera. I caught up to them at the first skills challenge, an axe throwing competition that would score each team extra points for the closest hit to the bulls eye. Each team had three throws.
It was here that the whole train of Land Rovers began to stack up. Beyond the axe throw, a particularly gnarly bit of rainforest opened into an extremely challenging washout that had littered large boulders all over the trail. The #1 Range Rover and #3 Defender made short work of the course, but the winchless #2 Range Rover was at a severe disadvantage. With no means of pulling themselves up the steep washout, good old-fashioned hard wheeling was required to get up to the turnaround point. Unfortunately, it would all prove too much for the big Range Rover as the team broke a half-shaft and were forced to pull out.
The washout narrowed at the top of the course with a tricky series of “S” curves around large tree’s, which proved to be a bottle neck for the remaining competitors crawling up from behind. This would be the undoing of a couple more Range Rovers as slow progress and heavy winching brought the entire competition to a standstill. The two short wheelbase Series Rovers of David Blair and Kris Markson, as well as Doug Shipman and Ryan Phelps managed to bump and grind their way to the top with little issue, but everyone was waiting to see the fate of the Rovalution Defender 100 of Don MacDonald and Yannick Labonte.
Spectators along the route predicted disaster; the biggest truck on the course likely would not be able to handle the one obstacle that has already seen the demise of two vehicles. Despite the disadvantage of their size, MacDonald and Labonte guided the big 110 up the mountain without any drama at all. However, a broken frame on the way down the mountain would take them out of the competition.
The ninth and final vehicle, the 109 of Greg and David Sutfin would find drama on the now infamous washout. Taking an unfortunate fall onto a large rock in the washout, the fuel tank of the 109 had sprung a puncture. With quick common sense thinking, Greg stopped the 109, inspected the issue, grabbed a screwdriver and hammer, metal worked the wound closed right there on the trail, and sealed up the leak with chewing gum. Yes, it sounds like something from a movie, but the team was able to limit environmental impact to a couple splashes of gasoline and even finished the course. Now that’s old school Land Rover thinking.
By now the three-stage challenge had turned into a full on expedition that was dwindling the number of Rovers (and daylight hours) at an incredible rate. The time spent on the first stage forced the closure of stage two, sending the competitor vehicles straight to stage three and a meeting with a rather nasty mud bog. By the end of the day, vehicle damage and timing meant only four vehicles would complete the course. Despite the challenging terrain, loss of time, and dwindled the field of finishers, BC’s David Blair and Kris Markson would come home to finish third, with Steve and Scott Schoenfelder finishing second. Taking top honours would be Gord'n Perrott and Carey Wright proving that a Range Rover could handle the very difficult conditions.
Was it worth the trip? Absolutely, very rarely do I get to see Land Rovers even dip a toe into the wilderness, let alone go completely off-road. To see these competitors all taking their vehicles to the limit (and beyond in some cases) was absolutely amazing. While the photos may not give a sense of the challenge, these competitors tackled some truly hard and unforgiving terrain. Every vehicle upheld the honour of the Land Rover name and no vehicle left those woods unscarred. A special thanks to the volunteer marshals, as with any event like this, it just doesn’t happen without their help. Now, where will NWC 2017 be held?
