The town of Montmorin played host to the French Xtrem – Ironman Warriors Challenge 2015 and after 8 long years, Team Gigglepin driver Jim Marsden along with co-driver Helder Da Rocha finally made the journey to the south of France to compete at this legendary event.
Kicking off with a night-stage, the crews are split into two groups and head in to the mountains to take on challenging road books and tough tracks. We are having great fun but finding the road book difficult to follow and punches hard to find. We finish at 1am but find ourselves not returning to base until gone 3am as we stay to help recover other broken teams.
Friday morning arrives all too soon and we can’t wait to get started. 22 rock hard challenge stages await us. The stages are graded with yellow being easy, red intermediate and black being the stuff of nightmares. We head straight into the first empty stage and find ourselves doing battle with sticky clawing clay and deep water. It’s not the start we hoped for but we are soon into the swing and start to push our pace. At midday hell descends in section 24, as steam pours from under the bonnet. We are at a 45 degree angle hanging on two winch ropes and somehow we have damaged a water hose! Its two long hours before we can get repaired and drive out of the stage. It’s not quite going to plan, and we find ourselves in 7th place overall come the evening.
The next day we are determined to make amends for a poor first day. With renewed energy we start laying down some fast times conquering some of the hardest stages and some of the toughest terrain I have ever seen. Our Maxxis Trepadors are really put to the test as we tackle vertical waterfalls, chest deep water, cliff faces, rocks the size of small houses and vast gulley’s.
We are staggered at the crowds that assemble as we arrive at the stages and they whoop, cheer and sigh as we tackle the ultra-tough stages. We are killing it and by 2pm we have finished all 22 stages and start our second round. This time you have to tackle the stages backwards! Our last stage of the day is another clawing clay mess and its perfect hell. We start well but soon the fan belt is torn from the engine in the clinging mud and we lose valuable time repairing the car while the clock is running. It’s a terrible end to a superb day and we are chuffed to find we have jumped 5 places to second overall.
Sunday morning arrives and the cloud is heavy on the mountains as we head to the start. The car is not so well and for some unknown reason our engine oil pressure is almost zero. But there is nothing we do so we push on praying it will last the day.
Helder is like a machine and sections are disappearing at alarming speed as we post fastest time after fastest time. It’s all going really well and we can sense that trouble or victory can only be just round the corner. Section 25 is simply mind blowing with every possible type of madness you can imagine. Doing it backwards seemed like suicide, but you get no points for being shy at these events and we knew what we had to do. An hour later we drive out of the completed stage shell shocked that we had achieved this incredibly demanding task.
The event comes to its twisted climax and a blast for all remaining teams through the deep, cold stage known as the swimming pool. 50 metres of uninviting water with steep banks either end await us. We have to drive from one end to the other and then return as fast as possible. With the engine faltering it was never going to be easy. The crowds cheered as the engine gave the roar of a wounded beast dragging itself through the murky waters. The huge Maxxis tyres launching vast columns of water over anyone standing to close, then we break free and claw up the final greasy slope.
The final prize ceremony is tense, and we are told that any one of three crews could be lifting the crown. But in the end, we are victorious. Our first time at the Ultra tough French Xtrem and we have won!
