Port Elizabeth and the Pajero Club

These couple of days worth of blog are a bit hazy, as there was some booze consumed. We will jump straight into it though. We wake up and I clean a few items out of the wagon, mainly the blue boxes as everything else is bolted down as today is the day I meet the Port Elizabeth crew of the South African Pajero Club. With nothing loose in the wagon we head to Bush Pig Adventures and run into Marcus, Brydon, Shane right off the bat. It doesn’t take long and everyone has a beer in there hands as we discuss vehicles and talk about what is lined up, I see a sand track to my right.

3 shorties and a LWB

Stefan and His father Dirk roll up next, and we are almost ready to race, but first, we need hats and shirts to match the crew. Thanks Guys!! A few more roll in as we get ready to race, I sit and tell myself to take it easy, but a bit of liquid courage and the fact we are only 1000kms from Joburg short circuit me. I pull up the line and preload the wagon. GO! I am gone. That poor wagon, 2 laps of abuse still mostly loaded with our gear after 2 months on the road. But at the same time, what a tough unit.

Straight hammer down fully loaded abuse

Listen for the tyre coming off the bead just after the 2 minute mark haha.

After racing, I am not in first, I did a 2:04 vs the winner which was a lexus v8 shorty paj with a waaayyy lower time. We hit the track and its time to swap drivers, we come to a well rutted out hill climb and after watching land rovers struggle and all else I decide this a perfect spot for Asareh to have a crank. Her first hit doesn’t quite make it, so on the second one we tell her how to preload, and with boost build she rockets up the hill, Solid work. Back at the track we watch a ford get high centered then challenge the down hill drop. Not a problem.

 

That should be the end of it… but a few people are not happy with there lap times so back to the track we go, this round Asareh is in the drivers seat, I will add, basically 2 years prior to this, I have a video of me doing a hill climb and you can hear my cv crack… and this would be the final blow. She rounds the second last corner and looses all momentum. The cv has cracked the cage and spinning internally. But didn’t shear which was impressive. After an hour of struggle we get the wagon winched up and tow it out.

With the braai cranked up we all relax and enjoy a few beverages and some amazing cooking by the guys.

Serious shout out to the South African Pajero Club! Cant thank you guys enough for that experience.

 

We spend the next day at Dirks place where Stefan gave the wagon a wash and we got a great brekky. Then it was off to the shops to source parts. A local cv shop was able to make some aftermarket parts work so I could get home. I have since replaced it with a OEM unit for strength.

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