Harket: Soon enough my “exceptional navigational skills” got us in some hot soup, because I made the mistake of guiding Ryan from only one side of the track, meaning I missed a boulder on the far side. This resulted in a car that was firmly lodged over a piece of rock. Unbudging. Even the Thar’s 247 Nm of torque wasn’t sufficient to un-wedge the car without causing damage to the diff. No amount of strategy on our parts was able to alter that in the limited time we had for this challenge. Not the most auspicious of starts then.
Ryan: Our next challenge was called ‘Ball in Mouth’, and, trust me, it certainly lived up to its name. The challenge required the Thar to climb up a steep incline and then make a sharp U-turn and descend down the same slope. I was the last driver to participate, and by that time huge ruts had formed on the course, making it difficult to go any further than halfway up. We had devised a strategy beforehand, though, so when the inevitable midway stick happened, I quickly reversed back down to the starting point and began the climb again. This time, as soon as I gained some momentum, I shifted into the second gear, which resulted in less engine braking so I could cross over. At last, using all the torque available, I jumped the last rut, took the U-turn, and finished the challenge before the stipulated six minutes ran out.
Harket: For my part, apart from the “roll back down” strategy that we devised earlier, I didn’t have to do much in this challenge. I mostly yelled advice and encouragement from the sidelines; yells that I later found out were drowned by the engine noise anyway! We were the only team to actually finish this course, and Ryan takes all the credit for this one because his skill and control behind the wheel were exemplary.
Ryan: The “Pond Splash” was our next mission. This required me to first walk up a slope, get into the Thar, come down the slope into a wet, slippery, mushy, muddy pit which I had to cross, take a U-turn and come back through the pond of water on to a dry patch and up the slope to the finish. The pit was really soggy and everyone in our group got stuck and had to be winched out. Well, I was no better and got stuck smack in the middle. To have some fun I put the Thar in first and splashed muck on everyone around, and while it resulted in excellent photographs I was also covered in mud from top to bottom – it was as if I had had a mud bath.
