The second edition of the Welsh Xtrem was held at the ever popular 2500 acre site, Walters Arena near Glyn Neath in South Wales.
Bathed in glorious Welsh sunshine, the event was held over three days at the beginning of March and building on the successes of the inaugural event the year before Jason ‘Nobby’ Morgan and his band of helpers put on a season opener not for the faint hearted, with the event living up to its ‘Xtrem’ title in every way!
The event was a mixture of extreme off-road disciplines with timed arduous stages bundled together with the more traditional punch hunt spread across the vast site. Friday evening also saw a trio of night off-road navigational stages. The qualifying prologue run started off the event with father and son Chris and Nick Bolt from Devon 4×4 claiming the top spot in their awesome sounding Maxxis Trepador shod V8 Toyota based racer. Moving on to the night stage, which was composed of a tulip nav section, a paper trace and a speed section saw another father and son team Chris and David Bowler, this time on Maxxis Creepy Crawlers take the honours.
Saturday and Sunday laid place to some of the toughest stages and punches ever to be seen in the UK, with some of the sections requiring 30 feet or more vertical pulls. By Saturday evening the lead had changed may times and with some of the favourites suffering from equipment failure, the end result was wide open, with rumour in the pits that Chris Lerwill from Ilfracombe was in with a chance. King of the Hammers entrant Axel Burmann had travelled over from Belgium to compete in his american rock buggy and although he had had a bad prologue and a nasty roll on a punch stage he was pushing the locals to the limit.
Maxxis-sponsored Team Gigglepin were out en mass, with both Jerry Hunt crewed by Jim Marsden and Allen Sharp crewed by Ben Turpie working hard to take the top slots. After three days competing it was Maxxis Team Gigglepin’s Allen Sharp and Ben Turpie who took the crown from last years winner Jerry Hunt and Jim Marsden in 2nd place. With Chris Lerwill and Jordan Davies in 3rd.
The Welsh Xtrem is organised as a fund raising event and this year managed to raise over £5000 for two very special charities: The Fields twins Fund and Wales Air Ambulance.
- Check out our gallery from the event
- Browse our full calendar of events for 2014
A big thanks to Willo’s Off-Road Media for the report and pictures!
