Pub workers gear up for record-breaking drive
A group of pub workers are swapping life behind the bar for life on the road when they try to break the world record for the fastest land journey to Cape Town.
Ben Worth, Tony Cole and Steve Hancock will drive a modified old Land Rover 11,000 miles through 21 countries on their way to South Africa.
Day 1 of 5 of the big push to get Snoopy roadworthy….. Tow bar with electrics…..check! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/5o4HdwYjvx
— Drive4Change (@TheDrive4Change) June 10, 2013
The trio, who work together at Admirals Table in Bridgwater, Somerset, hope to raise £10,000 (€11,600) for Bibic, a national charity which offers practical help to families caring for children with conditions like autism, cerebral palsy, and Down’s syndrome.
The men will need to drive for 24 hours a day to break the 20-year-old overland record of 14 days, 19 hours and 26 minutes.
The team will be joined by a security guard in the Middle East and Egypt, while they will have an armed escort through Iraq where they will face the danger of improvised explosive devices.
Despite these risks, Ben Worth, 26, said the biggest obstacle will be lack of sleep. “We’re driving 24 hours a day so one person will be sleeping in the back of the Land Rover whilst it’s going, one navigating obviously and the other one driving,” he said.
“We’re doing three to six-hour stints which means we’re going to have three to six hours sleep at a time so it’s trying to get over that initial fatigue, getting used to that sort of sleeping pattern and being awake enough to drive on difficult roads, dusty roads, driving at night.”
Bar manager Steve Hancock, 28, said he is “extremely confident” that he, Worth and team-mate Tony Cole, 34, will break the record. “One of the main challenges I think is going to be border crossings. There’s 21 countries to go through and some of these border crossings could take four to five hours each, so we’ve had to put that into the timings of our trip.”
The group is due to embark in October.
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