Ultra 4 Battle of Bovington – October 2021

The Battle of Bovington was the third and last round of The Ultra 4 British Championship.

After crashing through a fence on the prologue at The King of Britain we decided to take it easy.

We had also done loads of work on the truck and not had time to test any of it.

We had changed the clutch, clutch master, slave, pedal box, servo and brake master.

We had also changed from 1.4 transfer box to a 1.6 so main aim of the prologue was to get the truck back in one piece and see how it felt.

Everything went well so it was back to the pits to give the truck a check over and fit new front springs we hadn’t had time to fit.

First day was going well, we were still only taking it easy as our main priority was to finish the race and get some points. Then about 5 laps in we had a major problem, the truck cut out! Reece come over the radio “we’ve broke down”. Took Reece and Dylan about 30 mins to sort but we were absolutely made up to see them drive back into the pits. Thanks to Mikey who stopped to give us a snatch but rope snapped:) The earth wire had snapped off the fuel pump so no diesel. They fixed the broken wire but struggled to bleed the system back up then it just fired! While the truck was in the pits we checked the wheel bearings and they were fine so off they went. The rest of the race went ok and we completed the full 12 laps.

That night we went over the truck and checked everything. Both front wheel bearings needed nipping up but then the truck wouldn’t start! I had changed a go pro mount earlier in the day and had to remove the ecu cover that also houses the 24v to 12v dropper. The wires are dead long an i just coiled them up and jammed them inside. Turns out the coiled up wire got hot and the dropper failed so the fuel pump wasn’t working again:( Anyway we sorted this and the dropper came back on. So after a full check over we were ready for an early start in the morning.

We decided we weren’t going to bring the truck in to check the wheel bearings, we were going to stay out and try get the full 11 laps in.

Everything went well, our lads kept a careful pace and we completed the 11 laps and finished in third position.

We couldn’t believe it, our first podium. So we were waiting for the truck to come into the pits to celebrate only to find out it had broken down and had actually coasted over the finish line and had to be recovered:) The fuel pump had finally given up. Good job the race was over as we had given Mikey our spare pump as both his pumps had packed in.

We all felt like everything had clicked into place for us and we deserved it too for all the effort we had put in this year and all the problems we had and overcome.

First ever pic of all 5 of us below and also a pic of our team with Mikeys team.