Trailer maker helps team drive to victory at rally
AWELSH trailer maker has helped two intrepid Danish adventurers roar to victory in one of the world’s toughest rallies.
Aboard their powerful all-terrain vehicle, Jacob Glad, 45, alongside his friend and navigator Philip Hansen, were overall winners of the famous Intercontinental event, covering 2,000 miles of the toughest terrain on the planet from Spain to Senegal in a new record time of just over 58 hours.
That was despite having to deal with a serious electrical fire in the middle of the Sahara Desert which threatened to put an end to their hopes of even finishing.
This was the fourth time that Jacob and Philip, 45 and a fellow extreme rallying enthusiast, had entered the Intercontinental.
In the 2013 event they powered their way to third place in the car class, took second place in 2014 and won it in 2015. Their latest entry saw them add the same class win to their overall crown.
More than 70 specially prepared 4x4 vehicles on both two and four wheels took part in the 2017 event, blasting away from Almeria in southern Spain on January 23 and taking 14 testing days to reach Lac Rose, Dakar in Senegal on February 5.
The annual off-road event has been devised specially as an adventure tour for motor enthusiasts.
The route passes through some of the most spectacular landscapes in Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal, from the endless dunes of the Sahara to the desolate expanses of coastal deserts, the rocky trails of the Atlas Mountains, and the low-lying savannah.
During each stage, competitors race against the clock on an off-road course, navigating with GPS receivers and earning credits by reaching control points.
Jacob was at the wheel of a formidable four-wheel drive beast known as the QT Wildcat which is built by a company called Bowler in the UK and has a modified frame and chassis. At its mighty heart is a Land Rover 4.4 litre V8 petrol engine – a natural choice as Glad Trading, started by Jacob’s father Peer over 40 years ago and still based in Kalundborg on the island of Zealand, is one of the official service centres for Land Rover in Denmark.
Jacob said: “The Wildcat has a very thirsty engine and there’s a 375-litre petrol tank on board which didn’t leave much room inside for all our spare parts and other supplies and is why we took along the Ifor Williams trailer.
“It was towed by our Land Rover Discovery 4 back-up vehicle, which itself had a team of four aboard including a mechanic and our official cameraman. The trailer is brand new and was delivered to us from the factory in mid-December.
“We spent a total of 60 hours on adaptions for the rally, including fitting a spare wheel, lights inside and out, plus a battery and a generator for extra power. All this fitted in quite easily as the trailer has a large capacity of over seven square metres.
“We also installed a GPS tracker so we could find it again if we had to leave it behind in the desert for any reason, which thankfully we didn’t.”
He added: “The whole rally went very well for us and there were no injuries or illnesses involving any of the team. Sometimes you can get sick from eating the wrong thing but we too took along all our own dried food in the trailer.
“The Wildcat performed very well and the only real problem we had was an electrical fire as we drove through the Sahara Desert in Mauritania. Although we were able to put it out very quickly it had melted a lot of wiring which was very close to the fuel tank.
“Despite being in the middle of the desert we found a small village where someone was able to repair it before we were on our way again.”
Jacob said that along with a huge variety of terrain, the team also had to deal with some big contrasts in the weather.
When they started off in Morocco the temperature at one stage in the Atlas Mountains was -4°C and they had to drive through 20cms of snow.
“In the Sahara we went through a sandstorm when we couldn’t see five metres in front of us, and later in Senegal the daytime temperature was 30-35°C, which made the engine very hot and forced us to slow down to half speed for a time,” he recalled.
“Along the way, we changed clothing from ski underwear to shorts and T-shirts.
“At the end of all this we were delighted to become overall and car class winners, and it was great to reach Dakar where we checked into a four-star hotel and enjoyed clean beds and clean toilets for the first time in two weeks.
“People have asked why we kept on doing the Intercontinental so far away from civilisation with only cold water showers and very poor toilets but it’s a fantastic adventure and you can imagine what sort of pictures it leaves in your mind.”
Andrew Reece-Jones, design engineering manager at Ifor Williams Trailers, said: “Glad Trading is one of our most respected distributors so we were very pleased to hear that Jacob chose a BV106 trailer for such a crucial role in this rally.
“We’re absolutely overjoyed that it stood him in such great stead and helped his team to victory in this extremely prestigious event.”