The first annual European four
wheel drive invitational 2002.
This event was held on May 10th 11th and 12th on a privately owned 72,000 acre coal mining area just north of Knoxville near a town called Lake City. It was put on by Mark Lloyd of Off Road Adventures East.
There were only six teams competing, but nine States were represented. We had the only pinzgauer.
It was a three day event which consisted of a GPS hunt on Friday, A timed navigation rally on Saturday and another GPS hunt on Sunday. Trail conditions were quite unforgiving at times and most vehicles suffered some sort of damage. I bent my front bumper slightly, got a new dent on the bottom of my passenger door, as well as a couple up high on the box. I lost one mud flap on the first day because I forgot to hang them. I lost the other one on the second day even though it was hung. The box made it a bit tough getting through some of the trails and we had to cut and drag a few trees. I was amazed I was able to retain my window glass. The unimog was not so lucky in this area as he lost both windshields and a side window. I think the added weight of the box helped me in a few of the areas. You can tell by the angle of the mud stain on the front that we came close to going over in a deep mud hole. This trip really gave me a feel of what my pinzgauer is fully capable of and it was an adventure to remember. Maybe next year there will be some other pinzgauer to compete against. Some of the land rover owners were there to win and took it seriously with their laptops and topographical software as well as three GPS units. We finished last, but we didn't try that hard. We still had to drive the pinzgauer back to Kansas. The white Defender, team 13 took first place and the White Disco came in a close second.
If you have any questions or info you would like to share, send me an email to info(at)4x4crosslander.net. Replace (at) with @. This is to keep the Spam spiders from finding my e-mail address. Or give me a call. Rick Teeters 913-302-9903.
Bonner Springs, Kansas
