Having booked the Friday off to load the 90, we were ready to go as soon as Jayne had finished work at 1:00pm, Unfortunately as soon as we hit the M6 it was standing traffic, a few shortcuts later we were past the hold-ups, but it was still 3:00pm ish when we arrived.

Pat & Trevor came to meet us at the gate, as they had our tickets and we followed them to the Glossop 4x4 Group stand, which was in a cracking position close to the arena, We soon had the tent up, the weather was a bit overcast and rain was to follow later. We had a wander round the stands, considering it is billed as a 3 day event it did seem very quiet. Saturday morning was bright & clear, and we were all sat out enjoying the sun & relaxing..... But that was all about to change.... Just coming up to 10:00am, Trevor & myself are discussing the merits of Land Rover electrics, and we are approached by one of the show officials, Can we muster up a team of 6 for the arena event, as a team had dropped out ?

As it stood we only had 4 (Trevor, Pat, Jayne & myself), we soon recruited Martin from the Romiley group who was camping near by, the organisers came up with the 6th in the shape of Ian Wright who only happens to be the UK trails champion. Untouchable think we..... The opposition were to be the "Monster Truck Team", who don't turn up. So in a fit of desperation the organisers assemble a team calling themselves "Team Rogue" who just happened to be the guys who had set up the competition !. What they had in store for us included a Suzuki that when steered Left goes Right ! A Four Wheel Steer Suzuki, complete with 2 steering wheels ! Live Axle, which meant putting Jayne in a row of tyres and rolling her through a slalom course Caterpillar, which meant the six of us going from point A to point B using 6 tyres and not being able to stand outside of them, (if you get the idea). A Tyre rolling Trial and finally a Tug of War. Given that the original condition of entry was at least ONE female on the team, and we had TWO, and team "Rogue" had NONE, you can guess who won, but we had a good go, and enjoyed it all.

Meanwhile back at Camp..... Steve Franks & Eddie had been holding the fort. Trevor had been saving his pennies for a snorkel, especially after the events at Tong. Having located a Safari Snorkel at one of the smaller stalls as Devon 4x4 had sold out, Trevor was rather chuffed.

Steve Hawks arrived at Lunch, and was gutted to have missed the fun, soon had his 90 up on blocks, having a spare one enabled me to do something similar. Finding a rather thick plank ( no not Steve H ) Trevor was ready to try some thing different While we were walking about, journalists from LRM magazine had come over to interview me, as they wanted to do an article on tyres, in our absence they interviewed Steve H instead as we both run Dirt Devils, so look out for that one in a future issue of LRM (what do you mean you don't buy it !!, you don't have to own a Land Rover to read it )

Saturday night, we had a bit of a BBQ and a few drinks, Jayne's brother Phil and his Girlfriend Fiona came to see us, a few more drinks were consumed. I don't know what time we hit the sack, but I do remember waking up at some point to hear Steve H's rendition of Delilah, Not a pretty thought.... Sunday we woke to another bright clear day. Jon turned up mid morning and added his Shogun to the stand The club did seem to get quite a lot of interest from perspective members, hopefully they will come along to an event and see what they are missing out on. By lunch time we were ready to start packing, made all the more difficult by the fact I had bought a new fuel tank, as ours had finally started to leak, after several months of smelling diesel but no apparent leaks.

By Gareth Newton