One Life ... Live It: Defender Trophy 2026 - Day Two
Over breakfast of oatmeal or dehydrated eggs and sausage (I chose the oatmeal for obvious reasons) you could tell who was from what part of North America depending on how they said they slept. We were provided two season spring/summer tents and -20F* bags. Those of us from colder climates who were used to some winter camping didn’t seem to have too bad of a night. Those from places like south Florida or Texas seemed to have a bit of a chillier experience. But regardless of how cold everyone was or wasn’t overnight, the previous day's exertion had wiped us out and I don’t think anyone failed to get a good night's sleep.
After breakfast we gathered for a briefing of the day's activities. We’d be broken up into groups of four and assigned to ten Defenders. I was again Group E, but with some different people, and assigned to vehicle 10. We were then told to load up all our gear into the Defenders as we were not going to be returning to camp. I threw my gear into #10 and climbed into the back seat. Two guys from the previous day’s Group E, Pierce and Gei, were in there too along with a gentleman named Brett from Tuscon by way of South Africa. As the convoy got underway we were split again. Vehicles 1-5 headed up the mountain, 6-10 headed out to the mud flats for our first round of tasks.
This is the day I was looking forward to. Day one had been interesting and fun, but I’m not an “athlete”. I’m a driver, a 4-Wheeler. I wanted to do tasks involving the vehicle, and today was the day that would deliver on that.
Our first task was called “Parts Exchange”. We had to back our Defender up to a trailer and get it hitched. Then we had to run around the beach to collect six car parts strewn about, bring them back to the trailer and throw them in. Then one person had to back the trailer through a course marked by pylons, then return the vehicle and trailer to its starting point all in 15 minutes.
Before we started, we determined who had the most trailer backing experience. Pierce informed us that he’d been backing up boat trailers his whole life, so he was our driver. He and I quickly got the trailer hitched while Gei and Brett opened up the trailer lid. Then he scoured the beach for the parts, got them in the trailer, and Pierce took off. I think we finished everything in around 7 minutes.
Once we completed our first task we had to wait for vehicle 9 to finish the Auto Test on another part of the mud flats before both of us headed up the mountain to the DC Off-Road Park for our second task. When we got there we were directed to pull in next to a deep pit. At the bottom of the was water, and in the water were two wheels floating on foam “sleds”. Next to the pit were six logs, rope, a soft shackle, recovery ring, and a breaker bar with a socket on it. This was the “Change a Wheel” task!
What we had to do was drive our Defender up on some mounds of dirt so that our left rear was in the air, build a tripod with a pulley attached, then one person had to scramble down into the pit and retrieve the wheel, attach it to the rope, and then all four of us had to be on the rope to pull the wheel up. Next we had to swap the wheel on the left rear with the one from the pit. Finally, we had to reverse the whole process. We had 20 minutes to complete it.
I hopped in the car and parked it with the wheel in the air.
Pierce volunteered to wade into the pit and get the tire, so we threw the end of the rope to him and then we started lashing the tripod. Brett was a master of the clove hitch, so we had the tripod together in no time.
Once we got the tripod set up, a lightbulb went off, “The rules didn’t say you couldn’t take the wheel off the vehicle before you had the spare pulled out of the pit!” So I grabbed the breaker bar and socket and ran over to take the wheel off while Brett and Gei worked on the pulley.
I got back to the tripod at the same time as Pierce was coming back from being in the pit. We hauled the wheel on its sled out of the pit, untied it and we ran it over to the Defender and put it on. As soon as the scrutineer verified it was on, we reversed the whole process and put things back the way we found them. We got done in under 15 minutes. And I don’t want to brag, but car 9 next to us was just barely pulling their wheel out of the pit as we were sending ours back down. This was a fun task and because of excellent team work and communication, we absolutely killed it!
For our third task Defenders 9 and 10 joined forces for “Peak Performance”. Here we had to build and unbuild a three tiered pyramid using the vehicles as movable anchors connected to a block and tackle hoist. Then there were four ropes on the hook to help guide it through the wire on each of the three parts of the pyramid stack. There were three boxes you could put the pieces into while you moved them, and you could not put a bigger piece on top of a smaller piece at any time. So it was a dance.
Two people in the vehicles, four on the ropes, and one person acting and liaison between the groups. After each successful build, everyone had to rotate places. This task was all about communication and we had 50 minutes to build and unbuild the pyramid as many times as we could. And if you began unbuilding it, you had to finish building it again, so if you went over the 50 minutes, you’d be penalized.
This really showed who was good at communication and who wasn’t. Ostensibly, we’d agreed that the people on the ropes called to the liaison who then instructed the vehicles to move forward and back as needed. We did pretty good, completing the pyramid five times in the time limit. We might have had time to do it once more, but we didn’t want to risk a penalty.
After a mediocre boxed ham and cheese sandwich, we moved on to the task I think everyone was the most excited about, the “Trials”. This was the actual off-road driving task. Broken up into eight segments, each vehicle had to go drive over a log bridge, an offcamber hill climb, a stacked log crossing, a “ditch drive”, a series of whoopdedoos, a water crossing, a “canyon climb”, and a rock garden. Each person had to drive two segments, and you had to have a spotter the whole time. In each segment was a hole punch that you had to use to punch a card on the front license plate. We had 20 minutes.
The first order of business was building the bridge. One length was already built, so we had to build the other half. Working with the guys from vehicle 9, the eight of us set about hauling the logs out of a ravine and lashing them together. We got top marks because we did it quickly, and of the four groups that’d come ahead of us, we were apparently the only ones to stuff rocks between the logs to ensure they wouldn’t spin in the lashings. Pays to have watched a lot of Camel Trophy videos I guess!
After each vehicle crossed the bridge, we were sent on different paths through the trials course. The guys from vehicle 10 got together and I asked, “Who’s driving, who's spotting?” Everyone pointed to me and said, “You should be our spotter, you have the most experience.” No problem, so I climbed up the hill and guided the first driver up. And so it went, we had two more driver changes, and I kept spotting.
Finally we got to the last two segments, the canyon climb and the rock garden. Suddenly I realized we’d made a strategic error. I had to drive, and these were the two segments that I absolutely should have been spotting; not the water crossing or the stacked logs.
I hopped behind the wheel and Brett said he’d spot me through the tough bits. The canyon climb was pretty straight forward, just needed a pair of eyes who could really tell you where the tires needed to be. The rock garden, that was trickier. Brett did great with the experience he had, but we tagged the skid plate on a rock. Not bad, but enough that the scrutineer shook his head and made a mark. That was a two minute penalty. Oh well, we tried our hardest and had fun doing it.
After shaking our heads and making a lighthearted argument to the scrutineer that skid plates are there for a reason, we headed back down to the mud flats for our last task team task.
This was the “Auto Test”. A series of L-shaped gates were laid out on the beach and each gate had a letter assigned to it. It was a two person task with a driver and navigator. The navigator was given a sheet that showed the order you went through the gates on one side, and on the other a diagram showing the gate with an arrow showing which side you entered. For example, the navigator would say, “Gate Kilo, enter from the right”. The driver would then have to find gate K, and enter from the right hand side as you approach it.
Nate and I went last, and Nate chose to drive first. We hopped in the Defender and took off, finishing in 3:07 with no errors. Excellent. Now it was my turn to drive. The whistle blew and my autocross brain took over; you’re either full on the gas, or full on the brake. “Bravo, enter left”, got it, found B, slammed on the brakes to make a sharp right out of the gate, then full throttle kicking up a rooster tail to the next gate and on it went. We finished in 3:05, no errors. BUT, we went through the same gate twice! The scrutineer said, “No one's done that before! No penalty, but you probably lost around 20-seconds on your overall time which might have been the best time of the day.” Damnit! But Nate and I just laughed. When else are you going to be told to take a $130k car and just flog it around a beach? Probably never.
And with that, all ten cars gathered at the entrance to the beach to await the “Final Task”. As we stood around waiting, everyone started guessing what it would be. I was convinced we’d have a navigation challenge followed by a vehicle recovery that would involve multiple Defenders and all of us working together. And I was pumped for that!
When the convoy mounted up, they started leading us toward the lake. I was driving and joked to the guys in the car, “Are they going to make us build a pontoon and load a Defender on it?”
Nate replied, “Oh man, that’d be awesome!”
A moment later we discovered we were half right. As we crested a ridge and started dropping toward the shore we saw two pontoon boats with Defenders already loaded on them.
We lined up all our Defenders in a row facing the beach and gathered to hear what our Final Task to be. We’d be split in two groups, and then we’d have to row the pontoons around a set of buoys in the middle of the lake. Fastest team wins. No points, just pride (and lots of PR photos!). So we donned our life vests, grabbed our oars and climbed aboard.
Behind the running at the end of day one, this was the most physically exerting task we did. It sucked. But it was also fun, everyone was laughing and having a good time. I was on the boat with the yellow Defender, and we were decidedly less coordinated than the green team and finished minutes behind. But hey, what a way to end the competition.
With that, we lined up in front of the boats and then in front of all the Defenders for a bunch of photos. Then we climbed into our rigs for one last drive to Zajac Ranch.
