leisurewheels.co.za SEPTEMBER 2017 25
Left: Driving near the beach, in sand, at night, is an interesting yet rewarding experience.
Above: Tackling Lang Duin, the longest, steepest and final dune on our 10km loop.H
ERE at Leisure Wheels we tend to
come up with some crazy ideas. In an
effort to portray and test vehicles in
a unique way, we are always looking
for something different to do with the ever-
increasing flow of new models that make their
way into our parking lot.
During one quiet afternoon spent trawling
the internet, we realised there was a bit of a hole
in the list of world driving records. There are
the normal land speed records across a variety
of surfaces but not much pertaining to off-road
driving. For example, there was no record for
the furthest distance driven off-road. While this
would not mean much to most people, it meant
only one thing to us: we had to set a record.
The furthest possible distance driven off-road
in 24 hours is dependent on a number of factors.
What is the definition of off-road driving? Does
it mean gravel roads or trail driving? South
Africa has an extensive network of good gravel
roads and we could have easily found a route that
would have allowed us to average over a 100km/h
and clock up well over 2 000km in 24 hours.
But we wanted a real challenge. We settled on asand-driving route. We thought this would give
us the best of all worlds. It is real off-road driving
because you need a proper 4×4 with low-range
and a diff lock. We also figured the sand would be
a bit kinder to the vehicle than a rocky 4×4 trail.
And as it goes in the record-setting business, we
wanted the resulting distance to be a challenge
and something that would take a lot of effort for
other teams to beat.
With the basic challenge formulated in
our heads, we needed to decide on a suitable
vehicle. Sand driving requires a specific driving
technique as it is imperative to keep up your
momentum to prevent getting stuck. A more
powerful vehicle generally makes this easier.
We also needed a vehicle that would remain
comfortable while traversing rough terrain
over long periods of time.
We recently spent a fair bit of time in a
Land Rover Discovery on the sandy tracks of
Mozambique and came away mightily impressed,
so we knew it had the ability. But the Discovery is
also jam-packed with electronics that control all