Photography Credit – Simon Miskelly of www.all-action.com
Friday 8th August saw the start of a Prologue section which heralded three days of intense off road 4×4 competition at the MAXXIS King of the Valleys 2014.
With 46 teams from 6 countries scheduled to compete, the Prologue was the first opportunity for many to familiarise themselves with the terrain at the vast 1600 acre Walters Arena motorsport complex near Glynneath in South Wales. This 2.5 mile taster serves as a seeding run which establishes a fastest-first running order for the following day’s first lap, but on this occasion it wasn’t going to prove as straightforward as that with two of the fastest and most competitive teams making a navigational error on the course. Team Gigglepin from the UK and Team Lucky Dog from the US both took a wrong turning which saw them not only travel about a mile further than planned but also incur a 5 minute penalty – a mistake which would see them starting almost at the back of the field the following day with a lot of catching up and overtaking to do. Rob Butler from Off-Road Armory posted the fastest time on the Prologue at 5:01 giving him the role of pathfinder on the first of the event’s Saturday main runs.
Friday night was the final opportunity for teams to get their vehicles race-ready for the main event with last minute tuning, adjustment and repairing damage already inflicted by the unforgiving rocks on this inhospitable Welsh hillside.
Despite repeated forecasts of heavy rain and the tail-end remnants of Hurricane Bertha, Saturday dawned dry and sunny which was a relief for all concerned. As well as the teams competing in MAXXIS King of the Valleys who had endured the Prologue the evening before and had six 15 mile course laps ahead of them, there were a further 8 cars joining the lineup who were competing for the first time in the TERRAFIRMA Everyman Challenge – a race for vehicles with limited technical specification who would be undertaking the first laps of both Saturday and Sunday’s event for their times.
Rob Butler was first off the line at precisely 10:00am with the remainder of the field departing at 2 minute intervals behind him spread out over the next hour and a half. As the course wended its way back and forth through this vast reclaimed coal field there were great views for the spectators as the track regularly crossed the public access road which runs right through the centre of the site and ends at the most extreme and spectacular rock crawl section where many had gathered for the best photo opportunity.
For the organisers the race is followed by a combination of radio messages from on-course checkpoints and the onscreen display made possible by the Yellowbrick satellite tracking units fitted to the vehicles – a new innovation for this year which gives almost real-time visual updates on the team’s location.
For many teams King of the Valleys is a battle for survival and, as usual, the attrition rate was high with many teams failing to complete their first lap. For them it is a matter of waiting until one of the busy recovery marshals can get their vehicle back to the pits area in the hope of effecting repairs and getting back out for another attempt at the course.
With news that front runner Rob Butler had broken down on course the first car home on the first lap was Frenchman Sylvain Bessiere of Team Black Rigs who had started 3rd off the line and made it home in a time just under One hour, he was followed almost 40 minutes later by Team Offroadterror’s Axel Burmann, then another Frenchman Nicolas Montador from Team WSR. Then came the biggest surprise as the next cars home, still separated by two minutes as they had been at the start, were Team Lucky Dog and Team Gigglepin who had managed to pass over three quarters of the field to come home in fourth and fifth position respectively.
These were the teams that were to go on to dominate King of the Valleys but for many more there were other battles to play out, some drivers aiming for a personal best, some to beat their closest rivals through the event and some set on completing their first ever full lap of the course after three years of trying.
Through the rest of the afternoon teams battled against the clock in a relentless cycle of race and repair until the start line closed at just after 5:00pm. Lucky Dog’s Levi Shirley was going from strength to strength and had managed to claw back all of the lost penalty time to finish the day as unofficial leader. Team Gigglepin’s Jim Marsden was not so fortunate however and suffered a number of mechanical issues on the final run of the day, first losing low range on his transfer box – this in turn put undue stress on the clutch which then failed and finally electrical issues left him without a winch on the critical final obstacle of the course – ‘The Wall’ just metres from the finish. Whilst all these contributed a Maximum time for this final run he had caught up enough during the day to be placed for 5th off the line the following morning – albeit with a long night of servicing and repairs ahead for his team. Immediately ahead of Marsden off the line on Sunday would be 17 year old Bailey Cole – son of Ultra4 Racing’s founder Dave Cole – competing in his first Ultra4 Europe race in a car loaned by Team Offroadterror.
Finally late on Saturday afternoon Hurricane Bertha arrived and with it almost 12 hours of non-stop rain! Working all night to repair a vehicle can rarely be fun but when there is a river flowing through your improvised workshop you need a particular kind of determination – fortunately one that is not in short supply amongst Ultra4 racers!
At 6:00am on Sunday morning the organisers headed out onto the course to evaluate the effects of the overnight weather and decide whether any modifications were required. All seemed in order, just a little more water in the site drainage gullies than before, but within 30 minutes all that changed as the heaven’s opened once more and the true nature of the site revealed itself with almost instant flash floods descending down the staircase of the main rockcrawl – powerful enough to knock a man over and certainly too dangerous to race through. A decision was made and a bypass to about 1km of the most extreme part of the course put in place. The drivers were advised of the change and also that the number of laps required through the day would be reduced from three to two and the maximum time allowed for each increased from 2 to 3 hours in anticipation of slower lap times.
Team Lucky Dog were first off the line followed by Sylvain Bessiere then Nicolas Montador who had been posting steady but consistent times through the Saturday. Amazingly only 7 teams had not managed to make sufficient repairs to make it back to the start line for Sundays’ runs.
The overnight leader in the TERRAFIRMA Everyman Challenge was Nick Bolt from Devon 4×4 Centre who had a 9 minute lead over Richard Nicolson with local driver Ryan Dunn sitting in third place. For these teams just one more lap of the course would see them cross the finish line of their race.
The change in course conditions favoured some drivers such as British driver Daniel Roderick who posted his fastest time of the event – just minutes off the leaders – while many were afforded their first opportunity to travel the entire course with the harshest rocks now no longer an obstacle.
Sylvain Bessiere continued to push both Shirley and Marsden until an unfortunate mechanical failure saw his efforts curtailed on the final run of the day, not only doubling his previous run times but also attracting a penalty for bypassing ‘The Wall’ on the closing stages of the course. This meant that third place at MAXXIS King of the Valleys went to fellow Frenchman Nicolas Montador who is currently leading the MAXXIS Ultra4 Europe Series 2014 with consistent placings in the 3 rounds to date. Event winners were Team Lucky Dog Racing – Levi Shirley and Terry Madden – who collected their second podium win in a row following victory at MAXXIS King of the Mountains in Italy whilst in second place were Team Gigglepin’s Jim Marsden and Mark Birch who battled relentlessly to overcome their issues and even brought home the fastest time on the final lap.
The TERRAFIRMA Everyman Challenge would perhaps be better renamed the Family Team Challenge as it was dominated by father and son combinations – Nick Bolt with father Chris co-driving held onto his overnight lead to win the event by a 25 minute margin over Chris Bowler and son David, while in third place were Richard Nicolson accompanied by his co-driver son Tom.
The final round of the MAXXIS Ultra4 Europe Series 2014 sees the teams reconvene in the beautiful town of Vimioso for the King of Portugal on 25-27 September 2014 where the hotly contested series will be decided and another King crowned.
