Four Wheel Drive Club of Sri Lanka

By Deepal Perera of Daily Mirror

The 4x4 Lake Cross this year drew probably the largest crowd on the 18th & 19th of April on a rain marred slow season. This event with great anticipation dished out more than what the spectators expected.

This event was organized by the Four Wheel Drive Club(FWDC), in association with Nuwara Eliya Racing Club (NEM) and the Nuwara Eliya Municipal Council. A project initiated by the Mayor Mr. P.D. Chandana Karunaratne and councilman Mr. Mahinda Kumara in 2005 offering the track for various motor sports in this unique piece of land nestled by the lake Gregory.

The organizers were thankful for the two days of sunny weather which facilitated some good off road racing. The track was designed by the FWDC where 7 obstacles need to be passed by the competitors of which 3 were mandatory and the balance 4 had two choices each. Each obstacle had a point scheme ranging from 300 to 3200 points. If the competitor completes the obstacle in one go the full points of the obstacle was awarded, but if self recovered only 50% of the obstacle points were awarded. In cases that the vehicles were stuck they were given a 15 min time period to recover and when failed an excavator was placed with strap on its bucket arm to pull them out which resulted in a zero point for that particular obstacle. Hence on Day 1 the participants had to choose wisely to qualify to the top ten for the next day, which they will run a mandatory track set for them under the clock.

Day 1 turned out to be an action packed spectacular setting for the crowd. There were 22 competitors who were broken up into two groups to tackle obstacle 1-3 and 4-7 respectively and were rotated to both sectors of the track as they finished up one sector.
The 4x4 vehicle that took part were from highly modified machines to some standard vehicles that gave a good run to prove that 4x4 is more brains than brawns. Osanda Maligaspe and Indika Sanjaya, brought out their heavily modified vehicles that competed in Malaysia last year. Also equal to the task was Saranga Gunewardene’s modified Toyota Hilux and Amal Wickramarachi’s Nissan Patrol. Then you had vehicle such as the Discovery driven by Themiya Abeyewickrama and Denson Kumara’s Land Cruiser LJ79 which were part time school trip vehicles which put on a set of mud tires for the week end. Also there was a Pajero 4 Dr driven by Viraj Ratnathilake and a Montero Sport Driven by Sunil Abeyewardene which impressed not only the spectators, but the organizers and the co-competitors.

Osanda & Malintha qualified in their land rover with the highest points for day one with a clear margin above the others. The top ten spots went to 15 vehicles as there was a two way tie for second place, and two three way ties at 7th & 10th Place.

Day 2 the organizers set a track through the obstacles with marking tapes on both sides just allowing enough room for the vehicles to creep through. A garage area with marking tapes was set to start from and the clock stopped when the vehicles wheels came to a stop back at the garage. There were two marshals individually timing each competitor and averaging the time to avoid human error.

The defending Champion of this event from 2005 (2006 was abandoned due to rain) Mr. Indika Sanjaya, could only settle for second place with his perfect run with his co-driver Mr. Naveen Marapana completing the course with an excellent run without any debits. The third pace was snatched away from Deepti Perera & Navigator Shammika who drove a Jeep wrangler with 1 debit, by Ajith Fernando putting up a timing of a close 0.15 seconds apart. Ajith and Muditha took the Ex-Fire Engine Nissan Patrol through the obstacles as the previous owners would run after a fire. Behind Deepti & Shammika was Mr Osanda & Malintha, who posted a very good time but had to drop down to 5th place due to 3 debits which added 15 seconds to their timing.

Mr. Themiya Abeyewickrama and navigator Thilak Hettiarachchi, have been lurking around the podium for the past couple of years. Themiya a part time 4x4 driver, a full time pilot, has been the 2nd runner up at this same event in 2005, and 4th place at 2005 & 2006 4x4 challenge, humbly portrayed the skills of 4x4 driving to the delight of everyone. On day one qualifying at 6th place with calculated risks, saved his discovery performance for last posting the fastest timing of the day without any debits.

This event was main sponsor was Central Investments & Finance Ltd.(CIFL), and co-sponsored by Chrysler Jeep Division of Dimo’s, Mobil Lubricants, and Outdoorsman (Pvt) Ltd., agents for Mickey Thompson tires & T-Max winches.