Unleash the Ponies


The Ironman 4×4 Adventure Challenge is in full swing down on the rugged coastline of Western Australia. The town of Esperance is the host to the event and the dramatic week of stages takes teams from harsh desert trails and jagged rocky outcrops through to limiter bashing on the beach and winching up talcum power dunes.

They say that King of the Hammers is the “Toughest offroad event in the world” – Wait until the international mainstream media catches hold of the Ironman 4×4 Adventure challenge.

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The best of the best endurance racers turn up to this event. Peter Mihailoff is known to throw his GQ Patrol around in the pointy end of any event, Dave and Simon Cameron are another Patrol wielding team backed by Patrolapart who have turned up with an LS1 and a desire to race. Chippa, our man on the ground from Holeshot Images is there to capture the moments as they happen and when you have an event run by a guy who races competitively himself, you know there are going to be plenty of moments to be had. 

 

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With dramatic scenes to race in like sand mines piled high – the wind was fierce enough to sandblast the livery right off the cars. After Tuesday’s racing, the teams had been awake for 40 odd hours and were ready to battle it out again on Wednesday with another two stages.

 

 

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Barry Smethurst is another one of the 17 entrants to make the trek to the event. Colm Arthur ended up getting stuck in a dry lakebed for a whopping 12 hours (we’ll save those pictures for the magazine) and the Navigators are earning their keep spending plenty of time out of the car running winch lines and searching for GPS points.

 

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There cannot be any other event in the world where one day, the teams are crossing volcanic rock features on pristine white sandy beach headlands and then drive a few km’s and be tapping out V8 engines racing through the tundra of Western Australia’s iconic desert scenes.

 

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Follow all of the action over at the Ironman 4×4 adventure challenges Facebook page Ironman-4×4-Adventure-Challenge-WA or watch the awesome live coverage presented by Ruff Road Media by following the links on their social stream Ruff Road Media.

 

We’ll leave you with a short video of the first few days of the event. For those of you who couldn’t make it this year, mark the dates in your calendar for 2015 – Let’s shout it out aloud that the Ironman 4×4 Adventure challenge is actually “The toughest offroad event in the world”!!