With 87 starters in the field Craig managed to finish in 23rd position overall, and whilst that may not get a trophy from the podium it certainly gets recognition due to thefact that the blue machine was the only road legal and still production car in the race.

Battling against 86 other specifically race prepped cars was always going to be an uphill fight for the Land Rover, but thanks to some very important yet simple facts the Hella backed car was able to prove itself. Firstly, a major revamp of the suspension from the 2009 event was made. A fresh set of springs was installed just a week out from the 2011 event, with the softest off-the-shelf rating available, and it made a massive change.

In 2009 the rig was rebuilt and given some fresh shoes in the way of the new BF Goodrich KM2 All Terrain Tyres. The machine finished 35th overall running the same four tyres all weekend with no punctures and no issues. Those same four tyres then remained on the car until the Saturday evening of the 2011 race. 

Images: Land Rover rebuilt by Craig ‘Sooty’ Lord equipped with Hella lighting. The conditions at Taupo were mixed, not only in the weather but also on the ground. The terrain included a short high speed run on a tarmac forest road, and a couple of kilometres of packed clay dirt road with scatterings of gravel, but the majority was a dirt and pumis based layout where the high horsepower buggies and trucks had destroyed the surface and turned it into what can only be described as a rut-fest.

Whilst the track was littered with ‘proper’ race cars, Craig continued to circulate smartly in the Land Rover, the high speed ruts were easily skipped over and it was quickly becoming a darling of the race.

The car competed under the Class 6 banner, which is a class created for the highly modified and certified road legal winch challenge trucks. In all reality it should have been competing in Class 2 which is for non-road legal production cars, Utes and SUV’s – however Craig decided just for now to keep it in Class 6 because he wanted to try punching above his weight, keeping in mind that the Class 2 rigs were also specially prepped race cars.

"The fact remains that the Land Rover Discovery punched well above its weight and achieved plenty” says Craig "The results have many scratching their heads as to how we did it when their race cars couldn’t!”

Craig of course knows where and how it all came together - “It can easily be put down to the products used and the advice from the suppliers. I rebuilt this thing from the ground up with Stag 4x4 looking over my shoulder to make sure I kept is simple and reliable. We rewired the whole car with Hella products so that we wouldn’t have any electrical failures, and the ARB suspension and BFG tyres were faultless. Of course I had the right crew too.

Mechanic Dan Hayes and my engineer brother Brian did all the morning checklists, and my navigator Nigel Karl made sure I never missed a corner and never drove in a moronic fashion. We had the perfect package for a production machine”.

So what next for the Land Rover – again it’s simple as Craig states. “We’ve made our point of what can be done, so until the next event I wash it, polish it, vacuum the dust out of it and use it as my daily car again”.

Perfect.

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