The Suffolk Land Rover Owners Club holds a variety of different driving events throughout the year for its members.

Please note that your vehicle must meet our basic safety standards and will be inspected prior to being allowed to participate. Seat belts must be worn whilst driving the course.

Club driving days

These are normally held once a month on either a Saturday or Sunday at our Newbourne off road driving site.  There are 5 courses here catering for novice to highly experienced drivers and standard or modified vehicles, including a winch section.  The courses are all one way only and are controlled by our own IOPD trained Marshalls, thereby avoiding the free for all often found at Pay and Play sites and making your experience much safer.

Novice drivers can also be given advice and tuition on these days.

Trials

Trials involve driving your vehicle over a series of pre-set off road courses marked by gates numbered from a high to low figure, normally 10 to 1.  These are termed “sections”.  There are usually 10 to 12 sections to be driven throughout the day.

Only one vehicle at a time is allowed on a section and the object is to drive the section as far as possible without stopping or touching the canes which mark the gates.  The number of the gate at which you stopped or touched is used to calculate the score.  The lower the score the higher you are placed in the overall results.  If, for any reason, you deem a section too be too difficult or fear it may cause damage to your vehicle, it is permissible to only drive to the point that you wish to or to miss the section totally.  This will however affect your overall score

There are different types of trials to cater for different skill levels and types of vehicle.  These are:

• Tyro Trial

These are set up to cater for novice drivers or those with vehicles whose owners want to avoid damage or scratches to it.  These are set with easier and wider routes whilst still presenting a challenge to the driver and vehicle.

• RTV (Road taxed vehicles)

These are set to allow road going vehicles to take part.  Providing the sections are driven with care, vehicle damage can be avoided.  Vehicles used must be road legal.

• CCVT (Cross Country Vehicle Trial)

These cater for all modified and non-road legal vehicles.  The sections are set over difficult terrain and are, therefore, more arduous for vehicles and drivers.

• CCVT and RTV trials may sometimes be combined, normally by making the last few gates of the section more difficult.  These may be bypassed by the RTV vehicles if the drivers wish to, but doing so will affect the overall score.

• Winch Trials

Usually consisting of 10 to 12 sections, these are set over difficult terrain requiring the use of a winch and an assistant to complete.  A score card is attached to the vehicle.  The section is marked by tape and the vehicle must be driven to a fixed orienteering type punch, which is then used to perforate the score card.  These punches have a unique footprint to ensure that the correct punch has been used.  There will be one or more punches per section, these will be given a score value depending on their difficulty and used to calculate the overall result.

• Team Recovery (or Team Winch Trial)

These are as Winch Trials above but consist of a team of two or more vehicles assisting each other through the sections.  Depending on the type of trial not all vehicles in the team will need to be winch equipped.

Winch trials may also be categorised as Tyro, RTV or CCVT in the same way as trials.