Thread: WA Comp in a Disco

Competed in the 1st round of the NightOwl W.A. 4WD competition ("Operation Blackout") this weekend. Ended up having a ball

I'd originally entered with the old Disco TDI (the "tractor"), but as I recently sold it and had already paid up, in a fit of madness I entered in the new Disco 3

We were one of only two stock vehicles there (the other was a Toyota Hilux ute on 33" muddies). Other than the ARB bull bar, some home-designed rock sliders and a set of 32" muddies, my poor baby was straight off the showroom floor (well, 7000km old anyway).

Be warned - if you're wary of all the "new technology" - boy, can these new cars perform!!

The event was run at night, through natural formations - ravines, gullies, old waterfalls - and a farm dam. To make it worse, the headlights were taped up, except for one 20mm by 10mm strip in the centre. Wheel placement was obviously of paramount concern - trees suddenly loomed up out of nowhere - and anything faster than 2kph was suicidal! At the group start photo, we were surrounded by modified trucks (mostly Jeeps and Suzukis on giant tyres, two Disco V8 Series 1's, one Rangie and two Defenders). And a lot of smirks and comments

Well, I'm sure it was all in good fun ........


The two stock cars were put in class A (up to 33" tyres, no manual lockers), so we were the first off. There were 6 special stages, linked by sections that more often than not, seemed just as hard as the special stages - the difference was that you only scored points on the special stages (100 each), but you could still DNF between. After 15 seconds of dragging the bottom of the car over the boulder-strewn tracks, I bumped the car suspension up to full emergency height (about 300 mm clearance) and left it there for most of the night - about the only time I let it down was to traverse steep cross-angled slopes, where I dropped it down to access height. The combination of hill descent and traction control was stunning - climbing up the waterfall, which had near-vertical ledges the height of the wheel-arches, the car just hauled itself up. Going down the first dam slope (into the dam, which was about a half-metre deep in water), the hill descent (whilst admittedly making quite a racket pulsing the brakes) gently lowered us down the face. How it found grip I don't know - I couldn't even walk down that face earlier.

Anyway - to cut a long story short, we won Class A, but also came 9th overall, beating all but two of the Class C cars (the most populated class - twin lockers and tyres over 33"). There were a _lot_ of people going over my car afterwards, congratulating us, but also looking for damage. Other than the mud-flaps (useless non-flexible bits of crap) and a plastic strip at the bottom of the door (which I clipped back on after), there was none! More than one or two thought I was quite mad entering such an expensive car in a comp - my wife included - but they had to admit that a stock Disco 3 really can take on some amazing terrain, if you're willing to push it that far.

Don't know if I'll do it again though ..............

Then again

I'll put what photos I have up in my gallery this week - although being a night comp, there weren't many.


Cheers,

Gordon

and thats why the D3 took out all three 4wdoty comps and no one could say Land Rover had paid them off. Good stuff and congrats on the finish. Matt