Off-Road Hi-Jinks

I’ve always felt that there is no greater enjoyment to be had on four wheels than the adventure race in a four by four. It is one of those things that makes demands of you that seem in advance to be just completely excessive, but the human mind and body is capable of a lot when you put it to the test. You can only deal with what is in front of you, and my personal opinion is that a lot of people do not truly realize what they are capable of until they are put in a situation. That’s something I’ve learned through putting myself in situations I would expect to have difficulties with, and letting the experience teach me something.

Of course, I’ve had my difficulties just like anyone who has a penchant for adventure sports. I like to race, and I don’t think anybody I know of has ever won every race they have participated in. As enjoyable as racing can be, it is only enjoyable because of the challenges it presents, and meeting those challenges is the reason you do it. The feeling you get when you have pushed yourself to the limit and come through it in one piece, and knowing a bit more about yourself, is really hard to beat. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a religious experience, as such, but it certainly brings out something in you that makes you think about everything a lot differently. Quite apart from all that, it’s also a heck of a lot of fun.

The last race I was in, it would be fair to say I didn’t win it. It would be fair to say also that I didn’t actually finish it, but the fact that I managed to get out of the whole thing without needing a hospital trip was a moral victory in a lot of ways. I was really excited beforehand, I was racing with my best friend and race partner of ten years on a course that we’d never faced before. It wasn’t until a couple of days after that I paused to think and realised that it was our first “new” course for about three years. Would it put me off trying out a new course? What do you think? I really believe everything I’ve said about challenging yourself, and one thing that I learned from this challenge was that instinct is important.

It was about one and a half hours into the race when we got a flat. Cursing like a sailor, I got out and inspected the damage. The good news was that the flat was repairable. The bad news was that the wheel wasn’t. Clearly we’d hit something (we usually do – I reason that it’s better to bump stuff at the side of the road than hit another vehicle or a person) and it was bent beyond repair.