50 MUDDY YEARS

To mark the Anglian Rover Owner Club’s 50th anniversary one of the events for this year was a weekend of muddy fun at Tixover Quarry

This year is the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Anglian Rover Owners Club. It is one of the oldest 4x4 clubs in Britain and was formed in Cambridgeshire. The club first appeared in 1955 as the Land Rover Club Anglia and it crawled out of the Fenland mud and evolved to become the Anglian Rover Owners Club in 1967.

As part of the club’s 2017 programme of 50th anniversary shenanigans it spent a weekend at Tixover Quarry, near Stamford, with many members camping out for the weekend and a full programme of competitive events planned. The weekend was dry for the campers, but they still found some mud to play in.

The club ran a Tyro, RTV and CCV trial over the two days. The Tyro trial has been very popular within the club, especially as it is designed to encourage families to enter and encourage future membership. This was round two of three, of the club’s 50th Anniversary Series organised by Terry Wilkinson and Barry Walker. It even had a special trophy for drivers under seventeen, called the Walker Wilkinson Trophy. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to be driving dad’s car anyway, and these youngsters take the trialling very seriously. Holly Evans, Stephen Webb and Lewis Flanders had a great time battling it out on the Tyro sections. With Lewis taking first place in the under 17 and James Fuller in the over 17 category.

The CCV event was for the Dave Wise Trophy Trial and had eleven entrants, which included veteran trialler Steve Barnwell, who noted that he was getting stuck in the same

holes as he had done 50 years ago. He was beaten by his son Brandon.

As I’m the current holder of the Steve Barnwell Cup, which has been awarded since 1998 for the best Long Wheelbase or Range Rover in RTV trials, it was good to put a face to the cup so to speak and see the man still out competing at AROC events.

Long standing trialler Maurice Flanders was beaten by his son James, who at 19 years of age came first defeating many experienced triallers. It was James’ birthday that weekend, so it’s fair to say that he’ll remember it for years to come.

There were some good challenges at Tixover, and as the Anglian Rover Owners Club includes members with non-land Rover vehicles, it attracted Suzukis and a Mitsubishi Shogun alongside the more traditional Land Rovers, which included a Lightweight and a Range Rover Classic in the line-up.

Spencer Williamson generously let Malcolm Manser and Ed Lee drive his superbly set-up Range Rover Classic. Malcolm and Ed then ungenerously beat him in it.

The sections were nice and dry for the first half of the day although there were plenty of axle-twisters and navigational problems to think about, and in the afternoon they found the mud.

Gates were set wide to get drivers to consider their strategy. James Turner tried an approach on section four that left him stuck in deep mud at 45 degrees. It took about 20 minutes to get him out. James Fuller went for a Mitsubishi belly flop in the same mud. It took the same time to pull him out as well. The Range Rover and the Suzukis managed to find more successful routes.

All in all it was a successful weekend and a fitting way to mark part of the club’s 50th anniversary celebrations. AROC’S next event is the final of the club’s Tyro competition, at Weston Underwood on October 29.