Last year’s Driving Force, held in April 2009, raised £1267 for Help For Heroes.
A Driving Challenge for the Police and Armed Forces that has a long and illustrious history.
The history of 4 Wheel Driving Force is long, dating back to the 1960s the event was originally run by the Military Police. Later it was taken over by Thames Valley Constabulary and now, is run by the 4 Wheel Drive Section of the Metropolitan Police Motor Club.
The event is open to all members of any Police Motor Club in the United Kingdom, members of the British Armed Forces Motor Association and Military Personnel from overseas. Essex Land Rover Club also gets to enter some teams as a return for the fact that they provide a lot of the marshaling and expertise for the event. The event is based on MDP Wethersfield, Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence Police. A former RAF station, it played host to the USAF during the Cold War and dates back to WW2. The facilities afforded by Wethersfield in terms of accommodation for both competitors and organisation is second to none and enables the event co-ordinators to come up with a highly sophisticated programme for the event.
Competitors began to arrive during the afternoon of Friday 24th April 2009 and having signed in and found their accommodation for the weekend, made their way to the main hangar for scrutineering, after which, at 22.00hrs, there was a briefing at Wethersfield’s Specialist Briefing Centre, where the night’s events were explained to the competitors.
The event itself is billed as a 4 Wheel Drive Navigational Exercise but that is only part of the story. Ranging as far north as MOD Woodbridge, in Suffolk, another former RAF airfield and taking in elements of the Tunstall and Rendlesham Forests (with the co-operation of the Forestry Commission) competitors have to navigate by road, both surfaced and unsurfaced, to a number of points where various tasks, such as safaris, scatters and trials took place.
It is a grueling 3 days, The Friday evening started this year with a night exercise and trials on the Wethersfield base, carried out in pitch darkness with only 2 auxiliary lights allowed on each vehicle. Competitors were given co-ordinates on the base and then had to plot those positions and find their way to the various exercises in the dark, the whole first day ending around midnight.
Day 2 dawned and despite the threat of rain from the weather forecast the evening before, the participants found a bright, sunny day and proceeded to deal with the important things, such as lining up at the cookhouse to get some breakfast.
After this, vehicles were lined up for a “ Team Photograph”, taken by the Met Police’s India 99 Helicopter (The Met in fact, have a number of helicopters and the one that came to Wethersfield was the spare). The Helicopter landed and another team pic was done with all the entrants and the helicopter’s crew. A banner for the Help The Heroes Charity was included in this picture, as the event was being sponsored in order to raise money for the charity this year.
After the helicopter had departed, the entrants started on the day’s events, which saw them traveling around 250 miles during the course of the day, using byways and roads, taking in a testing trails section set up by Essex Landrover before moving onto Tunstall Forest. These had some tough navigational clues and again these had to be completed against the clock but without exceeding 15 mph in the forest. The Rendlesham Forest had an additional twist. Having navigated to the entry point, unless the crews found all the points on their map, they wouldn’t be able to work out the exit point and could possibly still be in the forest. Hope they find their bodies !
The event then moved onto Woodbridge airfield, again a former Wartime base, now home to the Army. The crews had an evening meal, and waited for the airfield to be cleared by Marshals. Once cleared, the competitors had a safari route mapped out that took them over some very steep former bunkers. Again the Dutch Army teams proved that if the Mercedes G wagons had wings they would have taken off along the section that took in the runway. Crews had to navigate around the airfield looking for clues, which were small letter boards; this event took in some testing terrain.
The route back was a navigational route, which took them back to Wethersfield, where the evil minds of Essex Landrover had set up some trails in the dark. Although not popular at first crews the following day agreed a little bit of endurance was a good addition. Once all accounted for and dusted down, the bar was open where an auction had been arrange in Aid of Help for Heroes. The Whole event thus so far to June 2009 has raised over £1000.
On Sunday morning, the threatened rain had still not arrived, thankfully and a number of trials, which had been laid on by Essex Rover Club were embarked upon. Watching drivers trying to get their vehicle over the seesaw was amusing to say the least, but the special prize has to go to Essex Rover Club for their innovative egg and spoon race, in which the driver has to manoeuvre the vehicle over rough terrain while the passenger holds a spoon out of the window with an egg in it. If the egg is dropped, the passenger has to get out and replace it and all this is done against the clock.
Overall winners....
1st Leslie Busby and Kenny Campbell PSNI
2nd Gordon Simpson and Derek Graham PSNI
3rd Stuart Hinks and Nick Higson Met Police
4th David Banner and Richard Tillson Notts Police
5th Martin Lusty and Graham Spencer Notts Police
PSNI coming first, not only always good to see the PSNI guys who have taken part every year since year dot, but a well justified and well deserved effort again by the PSNI. Insp Stuart Hinks was the best-placed Met Police Team coming third overall. With a Met Police cadet Nick Higson press-ganged into Navigating. The event couldn’t have happened with out the help from all the Marshalls from Essex Landrover club, who without a doubt set up some fantastic trails or is trials, a special thank you to Kevin Hutchings Secretary for Essex Landrover Club.
The event as such is not funded out of public funds. An entry fee and a grant from the Met Police Driving Club support it. However, there is an advantage to the public in that the people, who take part in this, are improving their training in their own time. John Amos, the event co-ordinator, said, “It gives the crews something that is out of their experience and makes them generally sharper. It improves their driving skills all round”. The event is open to all Police officers throughout the UK and any Military crew under BAFMA. It is also open to non-service people so long as they belong to a club and that club is part of the MSA. Dates for the 2010 event are looking at present to be 17th – 18th April 2010. This is so it won’t clash with FBPMC AGM. 2010 will also hopefully see two Driving Force events, one planned for Wethersfield and one at another location HOPEFULLY Salisbury Plan, where it all started from many years ago.
The MPMC are also looking in 2010 to arrange a Motorcycle Enduro, so keep a look out on the FBPMC web site.