10th LAND ROVER CENTURION DEFENDER TROPHY – THE BEST YET
- Team Bairy Hollocks take Land Rover Centurion Defender Trophy honours
- Land Rover Defender 90 for the winners
- Muddy conditions test competitors to the limit
- 10th anniversary of the event
- Kingsley Holgate makes surprise appearance
18 March 2013, PRETORIA – Team Bairy Hollocks emerged the winner of the 10th Land Rover Centurion Defender Trophy. The milestone event in one of the most respected 4×4 competitions in South Africa was described by many as the most challenging and unanimously as the best. Warren Vos and Peter Healey displayed a masterful approach to the epic event, their experience and teamwork ultimately giving them the edge.
The tenth anniversary of the Land Rover Centurion Defender Trophy follows a long legacy of Land Rover off-road competitions that have included such iconic events as the Camel Trophy and the Land Rover G4 Challenge. This exciting 10th year anniversary challenge was a fitting celebration of the iconic Defender’s prowess and one of the most challenging for the hardened competitors.
Team Bairy Hollocks showed whole-hearted determination and consistently displayed all-round Defender skills to take the 10th title from Two Brothers & a Landy (Rob and Mike Eriksen-Miller) and Team Oupoot (Trevor Stiebel and James van Onselen). This year’s event was held on the historical Prynnsberg Estate owned by Rick Melvill (of Melvill & Moon fame) just a few kilometres from the town of Clocolan, providing a centralised point for the five -day event, and some of the most grueling driving conditions. Rain and the consequent mud gave the event a further twist.
The competition was fierce as teams pitted their skills not only against the Free State countryside but against each other too. The stakes were the highest they have been: not only for being recognised as some of the best off-road drivers in the country, but having a Land Rover Defender 90 as the main prize from Land Rover Centurion.
The Hella Night Challenge was perhaps the most taxing, testing the team’s communication skills, night vision abilities and technical driving skills whilst at the same time, traversing rocky terrain. The teamwork activities extended to floating a replica Land Rover Defender across a dam, crossing a mud gully and navigating through a gully. The driving challenges within time trials included winching, general extreme off-road driving, raft building, puzzle-solving and removing and re-fitting a side shaft on a Land Rover. It all came down to those displaying the greatest skills within the best team dynamics.
Ending the special event was a surprise appearance at the prize-giving by intrepid explorer and avid Land Rover ambassador, Kingsley Holgate. He enthralled competitors with tales of his incredible adventures and humanitarian work throughout Africa.
The Land Rover Centurion Defender Trophy is not all about competition. In true Land Rover style, responsibility for the environment remains high on the priority list, as does giving back to the local community. The sponsors handed over R20 000 in financial support to the Klok-In Old Age Home based in Clocolan.
How they finished:
