Test Tracks & Back Roads

A Behind-the-scenes Look At What Goes Into Conducting 4x4oty.

- Ron Moon

THE RAIN was pelting down, the dirt road quickly turning to mud, while any semblance of traction as we crossed the black soil and the occasional low lying claypan, east of the Darling River, was quickly going out of the window. That was especially true of the four-wheel drives with road-orientated tyres – and that was most of the vehicles we had in our group for this year’s annual 4X4 Of The Year test. Only the Ford Raptor had rubber that was really suitable for these conditions, while the HSV SportsCat+, with its relatively good off-road tyre combo, wasn’t as well set-up for these slick muddy conditions. The other vehicles were worse off.

Then, just as quickly as we had hit the wild weather, the rain stopped and we were back on tracks that first sprayed drying clumps of mud everywhere and then became as dry as a chip, with a dust cloud billowing behind each and every one of us.

Our testing, though, had begun when we had met a day earlier at the Melbourne 4WD Training & Proving Ground out at Werribee. The morning started off raining, but then abated to a cool, windy day, so the tracks were damp and a little slippery. With our time limited to a day at this location we kept to just a couple of the hill climbs to see which vehicle performed the best in these conditions.

There is nothing quite like a man-made set track to test the capabilities of a range of vehicles. It’s no surprise, then, that it is the main reason we come to this proving ground where there are a variety of tracks and obstacles to test a vehicle’s prowess and to compare it with others in exactly the same situation.