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BOPMPBC 4 HR Teams Enduro
12th October, 2019.

This years event attracted entries from 4 teams, a little less than what we had hoped for, but none the less, still provided a great competition.
Team “Pyes Pa Plodders” took an early lead of just a few laps, but after about 20 minutes Team “Hammer Time” gradually overhauled this deficit and began to build a strong lead position. Teams “Double Trouble” and the “Omokoroa Lizards” were both experiencing issues with a combination of failed servos and shafts etc.
After the first hour most teams had settled into quite a good rhythm, with Hammer Time just struggling with a couple of reliability issues, but none the less continued the charge with Charl spending a lot of time on the water while Brent and James worked out their issues.
The Pyes Pa Plodders had tried to go to boat #2 however this was short lived as moisture in a servo put an end to that boat. Boat #3, the ever reliable TNT cat joined the frey and put down a significant number of laps, then at the next fuel stop Hot Ice was launched, that boat suffered a couple of unusual uncharacteristic stops which were not diagnosed initially, however the problem became more apparent in the last half of the race.
In the mean time team “Double Trouble” were down to 2 boats also, sharing the driving duties between these, saw them closing in on the lead that the “Pyes Pa Plodders” had gathered over them.
Unfortunaly the Omokorao Lizards had their 2 main boats fail, so it was with last ditch hopes that their 3rd boat would see them do some catching up, but sadly that was a short lived affair, unfortunatley out of boats and no way to repair any on site, saw this team relegated to spectator status.
Team “Hammer Time” continued to surge forward with additional laps as the Pyes Pa Plodders discovered that Ice Hot had dropped a cell in the receiver pack, and quick charging the battery in between stints was having less and less effect until it completely failed, with the weight of finishing out the race falling back to TNT, and trying to defend second place from the hard charging Double Trouble team.
In the last 20 miniutes the finishing places were already by and large determined, with all just trying hard to finish out the 4 hrs.
This race is without doubt the toughest test of drivers and machines each year, preparation is key, but no matter how much is done pre event, this event always seems to find gremlins you might never otherwise experience !

We must say a MASSIVE thanks to:
Fire & Marine Services, Gold Sponsor.
Repco Fraser Cove, Silver Sponsor.
Barclay Engravers, Bronze Sponsor.

Laps Counters, Bev and Jas.
Race Director and Rescue, Peter.

Final results:

1> Hammer Time, 382 Laps
Brent Mills, James Mills, Charl Croeser.

2> Pyes Pa Plodders, 288 Laps
Steve Trott, Taylor Trott, Matt Lee.

3> Double Trouble, 257 Laps
Birmy Korving, Chad Henwood, Marc Thurgood.

4> Omokoroa Lizards, 120 Laps
Brian Hely, John Burke, Hayden.