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       Nooze

 

February 2012

 

  • NoozeTeam Rumbling

Man alive! You know how it is when you start something and wish you never had?

That’s me, that is!

Casper has been in need of a pair of sills for a little while and I really should have got around to doing it sooner. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and preventative maintenance is the watchword, because ignore it and it comes back to bite you in the ar… after-end.

One body mount disintegrated, an absolute plethora of rust-created holes to floor, footwell, boot, wheel arches, etc, etc.

Well it is a Discovery...

So it’s been off the road since almost the end of November, and probably due to my somewhat relaxed attitude to getting up in the mornings, still isn’t finished as I write this. Mind you I had to wait for the new welder to arrive, then couldn’t get the gas, then something else happened, oh yeah, that Jesus bloke-thing; but eventually I ran out of excuses and started cutting half the body away, during the extended seasonal break. There never really is a good time is there? Summer is nice to work on the motor but there’s never the time with all the events we do. Winter is cold, wet and frankly, who wants to lay outside fixing a blinking Land Rover? Anyway by the time you read this I certainly hope it will be finished as I really miss driving the motor and have been lucky that there have been no SRR shouts to miss out on.

In this issue Paul Smith tells of his Morocco experience, several trials are imminent and there’s a word of warning regarding towing and your licence. I recap the 2011 show season, there is some guidance on sending event pictures to the website - as we want your pic’s up for all to see, and most important of all, the AGM notice is in.

Which just leaves room for me to say, well done Robert Cracknell for organising the  recent successful Lane Clearance with SCC.

Now read on…   DEANO

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  • Chat from the Chair

Well at least there is some good news from our favourite car manufacturer. Plans to build a £350m Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) facility near Wolverhampton have been given the go-ahead by South Staffordshire Council with the creation of several hundred new jobs. So it’s nice to see the company continuing to do well in these tough economic times.

Wednesday the 7th March is AGM time again.

So if you have any comments or views on the club why not come along to Newbourne village hall to air them to the committee. If you feel you would like to offer your skills to the committee why not put your name forward.  I look forward to seeing you there. As usual food and refreshments will be laid on.

Just to keep you posted I asked in a previous chat from the chair if you had any suggestions for this year’s charities, to put them forward. Well thank you we have had a couple of good suggestions so far. These have been brought to the attention of the committee and are now under consideration. However it’s still not too late so if you have any more please let Carl know. As usual I will look forward to seeing you at one of the many events coming up this year.

Happy Off-Roading, Tony Williamson - Chairman

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  • International Rescue

During a recent trip to Morocco after a five day transit through the Atlas Mountains, reaching heights of 9,575 feet and descending into the harsh conditions of the Sahara desert. After hours of rock crawling, driving dry river beds, harsh tracks and sand drifts. Our journey into the Moroccan edges of the Sahara desert, was outstanding with views to die for, off road conditions to cherish forever. Including a high speed transit across the Paris-Dakar route. Paradise!

One famous explorer said, “Expect the unexpected”, so I took plenty of food and a few boxes of wine, jokingly. What he meant was expect the unforeseen event. Well that’s what I experienced, followed by what can only be described as a miracle! F.A.B. at its best; if I had been close to a lottery machine I would have bought a few tickets, it was that surreal.

Our convoy of five Land Rovers, one 110 TD5, one TDCI 110, two 90 TDCI and good old Pat (Corps) in his trusty 90 TDI. On the edges of the sand dunes with only one more dry river crossing to navigate, the unexpected happened.

My TDCI 90 hit a buried tree stump, I heard the impact, the underside of the car screaming as if in pain, as this buried obstacle emerged out hidden in sand, twisted by the impact of the front wheel. What I didn’t realise, until a couple of seconds later, as the stump twisted and complained under the car it had taken out the plastic top of the fuel filter, stopping the car dead in the midday sun.

Not good, quick risk assessment, five cars in the middle of nowhere. Nearest garage over one hundred miles away, no replacement part, four other cars stranded due to pure comradeship and determination to complete the trip of a lifetime. The lead driver had gone forward to assess the best crossing point of the dried river bed, when reluctantly I called him on the CB to explain I had a non starter. The cause at that time was unknown. I had a Puma that wouldn’t start on the edges of the Sahara Desert, 3,000 miles from my friendly Land Rover expert and his PC.

The thought of the moment... S**t!

Out of the blue, along the same dry river bed came a group of four Spanish 4X4’s with their families in-tow, stopped to give assistance.

As time ticked on it quickly became evident the lead driver and his mates where mechanical engineers with outstanding experience of repairs in the field. They had experienced the fuel pipe breakage before and quickly requesting a suitable donor tube to carryout an on the spot repair.

After a hunt through the vehicles a suitable tube was discovered in the form of a Pirelli ballpoint pen. Our team leader had the necessary equipment aboard his one-ten to make the new discovery into a real contender for a field repair.

After a round 30mins the transplant had taken place, the glue had to set before we could chance re-starting the engine. Starved of fuel and the system full of air, starting needed a bit of encouragement in the form of a fuel hand pump purchased for £250 from Land Rover some years earlier by our resourceful team leader and never used until that day. It felt a bit like the flight of the Phenix, the resourcefulness of the guys around me was exhilarating. Out of the blue came international rescue, the thunderbirds. The true Land Rover spirit.

Paul Smith

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  • The 2011 Show Season

While 2011 was tinged with sadness at the loss of the Rougham venue and it's excellent facilities for fund-raising, despite their somewhat lackadaisical approach to planning, overall it's been a heck of a year; raising in excess of £10,000 for local causes!

We created the Suffolk 4x4 Show, yes 'we', us...SLROC, and it would have been even better next time, but now, with no more Rougham Airfield it looks like this show may have slipped between our fingers.

Still, never say 'never', eh?

We started 2011 with a press launch of the 4x4 show in April and a small number of our guys did a sterling job of taking media representatives around the two courses at Rougham. Good coverage in the papers for that.

A small contingent turned out for the Large Model Air Show in order to promote the 4x4 Show there and ensure the courses were all good to go, while Tony tried to kill us all with his very own Stuka - launching it from the pull-out awning on Wayne & Christine's 110.

2 weeks after that the 4x4 show was upon us and you guys excelled in the way only you do. There were some negative comments, but it seems only from the rivet counters at Series 2 Towers - which is apparently par for the course (no pun intended) - when any Autojumble doesn't include at least three complete vehicle's-worth of parts per club member; but on the whole both visitors and traders all said they had a wonderful time and would be more than happy to do it again.

Just a fortnight later in an 'eleventh hour' scenario, Tony pulled off an incredible coup finally managing to nail down the Suffolk Show organisers to letting us run at their premier event on Trinity Park. It was certainly different for me and made a refreshing change to running around like a blue-ar... like a blue-err..., well running around a lot with two radios, trying to make sure Health & Safety issues were dealt with, visitor vehicles were fit to drive on courses, everyone got fed and watered, giving the marathon morning briefings (sorry all), etc. Instead at this event, I spent two days in the sun, unloading happy passengers, and loved every second.

2 weeks went by very quickly and on arrival at Rougham for the West Suffolk Country Fair we were greeted with very bad news: Owner John Agnew had passed away just a couple of days earlier.

Still we did what we do best and despite the afore-mentioned problems with the siting of stands, still made some much needed dosh for our local causes.

Just a week after the West Suffolk Country Fair was the Long Melford gig. Terry was in charge and to make things a little easier we (Terry, Al & Sue and Joy & I) hauled everything from Rougham to Melford on the Monday after the WSCF and roped off the areas for ourselves and Little Rovers. Man was it hot, or what! Job done though and for such a simple course, using just the available     terrain and the Essex LRC ramps, it was a great example of what our  vehicles can do.

The Sunday after Long Melford, PB had asked me to sort out Suffolk Rover Rescue's attendance at the ‘999 Day in the Park’ at Nicholas Everitt Park in Oulton Broad, which I duly manned with Al, Carl and Dan. We kept it very simple as we weren't too sure what was required, but another time we have a much better idea of things we can do to show off Suffolk Rover Rescue. Such a shame that our hosts that day, South Broads Inshore Lifeboat station (the first inland, inshore station in the UK) has since been closed by the RNLI.

With the club's Open Day at the end of July it was the second week of August when some of us trogged up to Stoneleigh to oversee the camping arrangements for the LRMax! Show. Joy & I have been doing this event with LRM since first being asked in 2007 by Cathie & Richard Smith-Howell, then owners of LRM and we like to think we're getting the hang of it now. Uncle Al' has been there from the start as well and it's nice how, while some remain the stalwarts just like  Marshalling at the site, others are still willing to have a go and mostly enjoying the whole experience (as Dan explained in his article earlier this year).

While this was going on, Tony stepped in to run our contribution to the Air Display at Rougham - a static display - which as it unfortunately turned out, was to be our last event at Rougham Airfield.

And yet another fortnight after that, along comes Eye Show, on the August Bank Holiday. Despite the lowered attendance and lack of live music or alcohol licences and another conspicuous absence from Little Rovers matching that of the, then recent Open Day, we     managed to pull yet another rabbit out of the hat and have a really good social and fundraising weekend.

We finished off the show year with a somewhat windy weekend at Peterboro' promoting Suffolk Rover Rescue alongside SLROC. I have a cunning plan for next year on that front, so more to follow nearer the time.

I'd like to finish (at last) by saying a MASSIVE thank you to all the club  members who made the 2011 shows such a wonderful and trouble-free experience. It is testament to the training we do, combined with the sheer level-headedness and professionalism of our members that ensures that the event organisers, such as Andy, Tony, Terry and myself have such an easy time (!) of it.

Briefly looking forward to the 2012 show season we are well into talks with the new owner of Stonham Barns about recreating our course there. We are looking at five events at that venue starting mid-April and we have already had a site visit to look at the area we will probably be using. Dan as the Offroad Sec’ is obviously in charge of the building work and we will be looking for volunteers to help at some point. I can assure previous helpers at that venue, that the new course features will most definitely be going 'up' not 'down'!

Suffolk Show have seen what we can do and are keen to do the same again, and no doubt Eye Show will see our presence again, although a little drier weather for the preceding week would be nice to save us sitting outside the gates for hours on end, while the ground dries out (?). It never ceases to amaze me that the funfair vehicles with two wheel drive and their two trailers on the back are okay to go on and off site, but a Land Rover in low box and 4wd with a caravan on the back can’t!

We have already had some nominations for charities and local causes for this year so I do hope that you can help us out at one of the events and help us raise another welcome wedge for the local area.

DEANO 

Additional Pictures from Sue Scott, Mike Nash and Chris Finbow

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  • Getting Hitched

Do you tow a trailer or caravan? Are you unsure of what a B+E type   license is?

If you passed your driving test before 1st January 1997 you are unlikely to be affected.

If you passed your driving test on or after 1st January 1997 then you would have been granted a type B license (car) allowing you to drive a vehicle of a gross weight of 3.5 tonnes.

Category B vehicles may be coupled with a trailer up to 750Kg gross (allowing a combined weight up to 4.25 tonnes or a trailer over 750Kg gross provided the gross weight of the trailer does not exceed the unladen weight of the towing vehicle (kerbweight) and the combination does not exceed 3.5 tonnes gross.

Example 1 - Vehicle with a unladen weight of 2 tonnes pulling a trailer gross weight under 1.5 tonne could be driven with a type B license because gross weight of trailer is less than the laden weight of drawing vehicle as long as the gross outfit weighs less than 3.5 tonnes.

Example 2 – Vehicle with unladen weight of 1.25 tonnes pulling a trailer of 1.5 tonnes giving gross weight of 2.75 tonnes comes under B+E because the gross weight of trailer is greater than the unladen weight of the towing vehicle.

Same applies to caravans however as a guide, the gross weight of the caravan should not exceed 85% of the unladen weight, (kerbweight), of the drawing vehicle. In the majority of cases caravans should fall within category B. However if you tow a large caravan beware that you don’t gross over 85% of the unladen weight of car, also if the gross outfit exceeds 3.5 tonnes then B+E applies.

Category B+E allows you to drive a vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes and tow a trailer of any weight as long as vehicle manufactures conditioned are not breached.

To take the B+E diving test you do not have to take another theory test. The test is based on the LGV test and should take no more than 1½ hours.

Driving a vehicle without the correct license is illegal. If stopped you could expect 3 points for not having correct license plus 6 points for no insurance. If you are unsure look on the DVLA website.

Roy Edwards

Roy is a driving instructor who also undertakes trailer training so is well- versed in the various reg’s. Thanks for the wise words. DEANO

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  • Website Pictures

The website pictures have been a major source of new members at SLROC and we’d like to keep things that way with you, the members keeping the pictures coming in.

There have been a number of recent enquiries regarding the posting of pictures on the Club website.

As you know, the website has been famous for getting the latest event pic’s on the internet within a few hours.

But that was when Ian our webmaster was in a different job and able to attend the events himself to take the pic's but he doesn't get a massive amount of spare time to upload your pic's these days. So if anyone else takes any pic's of the events, there are one or two things we can do to streamline the process making Ian’s job much easier.

You see putting 250 pictures onto a disk, taken with a DSLR camera means possibly 2½ gigs of images for Ian to trawl through, select some of the best and resize before uploading.

So if you decide to send in some pictures please remember the following:

For a driving day between 40 and 60 images should suffice depending on the number of participants. Trials will often mean less pictures as there are fewer participants in most cases. Please try to select at least one of each vehicle so people don’t feel left out (it’s not always easy).

Nobody likes their head cut off or half their motor missing (except for the occasional ‘arty shot’ perhaps), so good framing and crisp, clear imaging is essential and makes the website look far more professional.

There is a size limit on the website, which makes opening each image faster and means less room is taken up too. For that reason we would ask that once you have selected the pictures you wish to send, you resize them to 800 pixels on the longest side. Resizing software is available for download on the internet following a quick search, including ‘bulk’ resizers, but most photo-editing software such as ‘Paint Shop Pro’ and even Windows very own ‘Paint’ can resize images quite easily, if a bit time-consuming.

When sending your selected, resized images to Ian you can use the   contact details on the website but please don’t send more than 5 megs of pic’s per email or they will ‘bounce’. Instead send an email first to say you have a selection of pic’s for the website, then send your files, preferably in zipped (compressed) folders. That way Ian can get them up on the site in the shortest time and everyone at the event will hopefully see a picture of themselves.

But most importantly, thanks to all who have and will contribute their  pictures to the website.

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  • Notices

  • Day into Night Trial - 4th February 2012

If you thought trialling was part of the ‘dark arts’ then on this occasion you’d be right! Starting in the afternoon and running into the night, the section which may have seemed a breeze in daylight, is a whole new challenge under cover of darkness!

Scrutineering from Noon for a 13:00 hrs start, expected finish time around 20:00 hrs

Please note: One extra set of driving lights may be used, which must be fitted below the top edge of the bulkhead. For safety reasons, no roof mounted lights may be used.

Please remember it's cheaper to pre-book than to arrive and drive on the day. Pre-booked entrants fee £15 - Arrive and drive £20 and as usual we need a minimum of 5 entrants to run this event so please book early to ensure it goes ahead.

Pre-booking via forum or PM or call the Competition Secretary.

  • Tyro Cross Country Trial - 5th February 2012

First Tyro trial of the year so another chance to try your hand at Trialling, for the less-experienced members, youngsters of 13 and above and just the plain curious. Come and have a go and see what all the fuss is about with this trialling lark.

Scrutineering from 10:00 for a 11:00 hrs start, expected finish time around 16:00 hrs

Access routes around the Yellow course will be available between 9am and 9:45am for driver familiarisation.

Remember it's cheaper to pre-book than to arrive and drive on the day. Pre-booked entrants fee £15 - Arrive and drive £20 and as usual we need a minimum of 5 entrants to run this event so please book early to ensure it goes ahead.

Pre-booking via forum or PM or call the Competition Secretary.

  • Night Winch Trial, 3rd March, Snuggs Pit

This is the first night winch that SLROC has run and so will differ slightly to our normal “daytime” winch trials. The trial details are as follows:

 Sign on/Scrutineering from 5pm to 6pm (NB: Sunset @ 5:45pm).

 Drivers briefing at 6pm with the event starting at 6:30pm. There will be a 30 min break between 9:30 and 10pm with the trial aiming to finish at midnight. Entry fee for the event will be £35 per team (one vehicle with two crew)

We will be sticking with our new winch trialling format, Class 1 for Trucks with additional traction aids and multiple winches and Class 2 for standard drive train vehicles with a single winch. There will be between 10 and 15 sections each with two punches (Class 1 to attempt both, Class 2 only required to attempt one)

 Safety: It would be easy to add a huge list of additional equipment and Do’s and Don’ts, however I have the confidence that in past   competitors and Marshals have managed the safety of themselves and others admirably. Therefore the only additional equipment I will be requesting will be:

 All competitors will be required to have head torches (and spare batteries)

 All people not in a vehicle to have some form of hi-viz (minimum waist coat). This will also include any spectators.

Any other Safety requirements or restrictions will be briefed on the day and will not require competitors to supply any other additional kit.

 Site facilities: Marshals will be setting out the sections from early Saturday morning however I would ask that competitors arrive no earlier than lunchtime and all vehicle movement will be restricted to the car park area until the start of the trial at 6:30pm. Those of you wishing to camp are more than welcome, but please remember there are no facilities on site, so you will need to come self-sufficient (ie: water, food etc). I hope to be able to provide toilet facilities but will advise nearer the time. Lighting by generator will be available around the sign on area and toilet areas with competitors being expected to arrange their own pit lighting requirements. Sunday will be clear-up day with a view to fully vacate the site early afternoon. Finally could I ask that all attending the event ensure the site is left in the same or a better state than we found it.

Well that’s enough rambling on for now, Pre-booking is now open, any questions or queries please contact me via the usual channels. Finally I will require my usual large number of marshals for this event so if you can help please let me know if you are able to help out.

Chris Finbow - Competition Secretary

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