LE-JOG 2025 - Leg Four, Gretna Green to Fort William

“We are determined not to lose any more regularities” said the LeJog Clerk of the Course and HERO-ERA Competition Director, Guy Woodcock. Halfway through Leg Four of LeJog at Castlecary as he took stock of the flooded road to the start of regularity four, Loch Coulter, which was closed. Guy and his team re-routed the rally, bypassing the flood to start in a similar position and not lose any mileage or the regularity!

The weather continues to disrupt, as the medal list is now down to nine. There are six Gold and just three Silver medallists left in contention, there are no Blue Riband or Bronze competitors left on the list! The biggest drama was to hit Silver medal men John King and Mike Cochrane right after they left the Time Control at Tyndrum into the dark of Glen Orchy as a con rod let go in the engine. This is a sad end to the efforts of the Lotus Elan Plus 2 crew, who even survived an engine drowning in a ford in Wales, the question has been asked as to whether damage was done then, but either way their LeJog trial is over.

Henry Carr and Swiss Hampi Durer dropped out of the Gold positions in their Volvo 121 after fuel pump failure, and sadly so did Dominik Lingg and Kaspar Wittwer after they missed two timing points in their Fiat 124 Sport. Christopher Winter, a previous Gold medal winner and Duncan Stonier were the most recent retirements in their Volvo 144. However, the great news is that Andrew Duerden and Michael Rodel entered the Gold category in their 1974 Mercedes Benz W115 230.4 and they are hoping to hang on to the coveted Gold by the time they finish in John O’ Groats at approximately 11.00 am on Tuesday.

Although it has largely stayed under the LeJog radar, there is also a battle going on for the Golden Roamer Award, for the winning navigator of the HERO-ERA season long championship. Harry Baines, who is not entered on LeJog, but which also counts for points towards the ‘Navigator of the Year’ award is leading, but Pete Johnson could just pip him to the finish line by one point if…. Pete Johnson explains. “I would need 60 points off of this rally to beat Harry by half a point, so it is very unlikely. This rally is split into five individual Legs, we'd have to be second on them all or higher in class, which, I may add, is very difficult when you've got Andy Lane and Iain Tullie in your class!” However, Pete is still hanging in there driven by John Lomas in his VW Golf GTi.

There are many just hoping to cross the finish line in John O’ Groats, and some praying to keep their medal places, but it will be a tough night and early morning – right through.

As weary crews arrived at Fort William for a bite to eat and to snatch some brief sleep on the floors or chairs of the Ben Nevis Hotel before the big final push, Guy Woodcock explained what is in store for the Joggers!

“Some interesting regularities as we are in the Highlands now, so a lot of the roads are single track. Fog, rain, no snow, unfortunately, which is most annoying, but we've still got big problems with flood water, which is causing us a lot of reroutes, one of which we just sort of saw ever after lunch today! But other than that, it’s going well, everybody seems to be enjoying the Reliability Trial and somehow smiling.

“Still, we have the Loch Ness Monster in prospect, it's not the full monster this time, it's only an hour and 48 minutes long, but it'll be a lot to keep crews occupied through the middle of the night. And if they get through that and they think they're almost home, there may be a trick or two up my sleeve. So yes, get through the monster, but you've still got another five regularities to do! It’s LeJog!

Even then, as tough as it may be, probably LeJog’s biggest fan is Eric Michiels of Luxemburg, who with navigator Aswin Pyck, is still in the gold medal placings in their Porsche 924 S which even has a licence plate Le Jog!

“Yes, I'm a big LeJog fan, I sometimes call it a disease, because it's so addictive, and yet, during the rally, like now when we are so tired, one wonders from time to time, what am I doing here? Why am I under such stress, why do I like to do this? But then when you get home Thursday morning, then you say, oh, when can I register for next edition?

Being in the gold medal position now, can cause stress because now you know what you have to lose during the night, but I am confident because my navigator Aswin Pyck is brilliant. He is really in the Champions League of navigators. Obviously, there's quite a few other navigators here which are also in the Champions League, but Aswin really is tops.

He's a young guy, only 32 years old, but he has over 200 rallies under his belt. It's so reassuring to drive with a good copilot, where you don't need to double check, you can just follow his advice, and he can calculate literally three things at a time. It's amazing, he has a way of calculating and deducting, and he makes all sorts of calculations in the car that give me driving aid.

He is a human version of an ECU!

Some are just hoping to finish, especially the newbies on LeJog, and fifty percent of the entry were first timers. The Bavarian crew of Felix van Haniel and Max von Doderer are doing really well on their first ever LeJog but are hoping for a finish. They are in an unusual rally car too – a 1967 Jaguar S Type 3.8 litre.

Max: “We very much love British cars, yes, and the Jaguar comes from Germany, well, it lives in Bavaria originally. I take care of it in Bavaria which is a national state, which we are very proud of. This is our first time on LeJog, we are very inexperienced with maybe two or three other rallies beforehand, so to finish would be just great!”

The same goes for the intrepid Sim family of two sisters Texa and Danna with Dad Andy Sim travelling in the back of the 1958 Sunbeam Rapier. They just want to complete the motorsport adventure, their first ever LeJog.

Texa; “We were pretty nervous before the start, and Dad shouldn't have been plotting the maps, but he was checking our route over just to make sure!

Danna; “Dad has been great, making it a real family effort in the Sunbeam Rapier which is slightly older than both of us and Dad! It has been in the family for a while and we've done three other events in it; this is the fourth event that me and dad are doing. And then Tex did one other event in 2007 so yes, there's a bit of history with the Sunbeam.

“I have done a lot of kart racing. We're kind of a bit of a motor sport family, but not as serious, just for fun. But the Sunbeam is interesting, it was actually returned to us. It got sold, and then dad couldn't bear thought of parting with it and rebought it soon after. So it actually

came back to us, yeah, and we should add, the reason that we're into motorsport is because of Dad, he was a racing driver in Formula Ford and Formula Lotus as well.

“I think that's the biggest hurdle for us is probably going to be the sleeping. For this endurance event the car is mainly filled with Red Bull and sleeping as much as possible as we tried over the last couple of days. Hopefully tonight, we can get through and reach the finish, it would mean an awful lot to all three of us!”

There are just seven regularities, and one huge Loch Ness Monster to go to complete the 1500-mile four-day endurance reliability trial – the toughest in Europe. Good luck to everyone, the finish line is in sight.