Highlights from the UK's extreme off-road race series

The series attracts some of the quickest crews and cars in the sport with a diverse range of machinery taking part, from virtually standard vehicles through to mighty purpose-built prototypes.

BXCC's latest round was hosted at Sweet Lamb, the iconic WRC venue in Wales. In a Covid-reduced championship, the series is running over just four rounds this year, finishing in South Wales in October.  

The events are held at similar venues to forest rallying but unlike the more traditional sport, where the cars largely stick to gravel roads, the BXCC uses extremely tough offroad sections.

Hence the reason for the more extreme machinery on display, as crews battle across harsh terrain across a timed route that's normally run 12-14 times over the weekend. Although in Sweet Lamb's case, this was reduced to nine sorties of the nine-mile course, as there were several stoppages with cars breaking down or crashing. Despite this, out of 50 starters, an impressive 42 made it to the finish after two days of competition, with plenty of body damage to show for their efforts.

Words by Gary Simpson

They had been leading the opening round in Yorkshire until a driveshaft failure dropped them to third. This time, though, no such misfortune befell them as they emerged from the dust of Sweet Lamb as the victors, 31 seconds up on their closest rivals. Marfell races a Fouquet that is powered by a Nissan V6 engine, and has been competing in the series for two years.

Running close behind other competitors, they suffered with catching their rivals' dust on day one and struggled with cooling on their Audi-powered Warrior. With expensive sounding noises coming from the transmission tunnel on day two, they battled on to get a finish but were down in 18th place.

The 3.9-litre V8 in their Bowler struggled on some of Sweet Lamb's steep hills and a broken power steering pump didn't help, making driving difficult for the youngsters. To add to their woes, they also suffered from failing brakes on their last run - not something you'd want on the course's steep inclines - but came away with 20th place overall.

Driver Jade Paveley and navigators Hannah Davison and Claire Williams race coped with the extremely tough conditions in their production specification Mitsubishi Pajero on only their second offroad event. 

It was a disappointing end to what could have been a great couple of weekends for the Burnley driver, as Birchall had won the offroad arena shootout at the Goodwood Festival of Speed where he was one of several BXCC crews competing.

Maverick Recovery, led by Deborah Burndred, attend all the BXCC rounds in their truck “Katy”. Stricken drivers are rescued from the mire and even given some flapjack to at least try to help ease their anguish.

Their event wasn’t without issues though, a drive belt breaking on one of the early runs and then the car tipping onto its side later on day one. Fortunately, with the assistance of a marshal, they were able to right the car and carry on, making up enough time on day two to earn the class win.

Driver Oisin Riley and navigator Phillip Richards previously raced a 1.0-litre Polaris so the V8-powered Lofthouse, with Fiesta panels, represents quite a power-hike for this season. Riley must have liked the upgrade though, as he raced to an 11th-placed finish overall. As part of their efforts in the BXCC, the team is helping to raise awareness of the ChemoHero charity. 

Despite being paralysed below the waist, Rowlands finished fourth overall in his Lofthouse Evo and fifth in his Polaris (pictured), accompanied by navigator Neil Lloyd. The cars run an adapted steering wheel similar to a Sony Playstation wheel, allowing Rowlands full control of both the Lofthouse and Polaris. Rowland's son Jason was also in action at Sweet Lamb, winning his class.

BXCC stalwarts Phill, pictured here, and dad Chris were both racing, while Phill’s three young daughters were helping Team OFG in service. Sadly their event did not go to plan, as Phill's car had an oil pipe come off which caused a fire, dropping them to 41st place, while Chris rolled his Land Rover 90 into retirement.