LeJog 2025

Many classic car enthusiasts yearn to use their cars beyond the show and shine parades in the park. Perhaps one of the most ambitious events to tackle would be LeJog where half the competitors were new this year. It covers 1500 miles so you will need a car you can be confident in and a navigator who can read the maps. But these are well organised and supported events and suitable for the enthusiast looking to raise the stakes a little.

LeJog 2025 was back after two years away, marking its return as a record-breaking rally with incessant rainfall, making it the wettest and hardest for 15 years. Also, two prominent crew broke their own shared record of seven gold medals each, to make it eight!

Iain Tullie and Andy Lane seemed to glide over the torrents of water, mud and potholes that accompanied the wettest one yet, as their Mazda Eunos Roadster effortlessly dealt with adversity whilst others literally sank. The combination of Lane’s driving and Tullie’s innate navigational skills brought them their eighth gold medal each in Europe’s hardest endurance regularity rally which is labelled a ‘Reliability Trial’ for good reason.

Fifty percent of the field were new to LeJog, many were amazed at just how hard, yet addictive the event is and have vowed to return. With a 1500 mile route from the toe of England in Land’s End to the tip of Scotland in John O’ Groats, this endurance rally is not for the faint hearted, yet it holds cult status in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland where the bulk of the European entrants hail from.

Guy Woodcock explained

“There were some standout performances, I think Andy Lane and Iain Tullie were exceptional as they nailed it again for eight gold medals. There was disappointment for Andrew Boland who missed out. Missing a secret check was awful for Andrew Duerden as he and Michael Rodel also lost gold as they fell foul of a secret route check, so it’s never over until it’s over. Our Bob Rutherford Scholarship winner Miles Fieldhouse was parachuted in half way through to take over navigation in an open top Vintage Bentley in the dire conditions and excelled with driver Shaun Harborne. Shaun dropped a wheel into the soft stuff on the Loch Ness Monster regularity on Monday night and they were nearly out of the rally, except Miles ran off and found a farmhouse, waking the farmer at 3.00 am! He persuaded him to come and tow them out. Luckily the farmer liked old Bentleys!

“There were many new crews and many great stories as they made it all the way to John O’ Groats, for so many it was about reaching the finish line – for others it was a special event for charitable causes.”

The big story was the impressive record breaking by Andy Lane and Iain Tulley to raise the record to eight gold medals for LeJog, which is a great achievement.

Iain; “It hasn’t sunk in yet, but we are just delighted to get it to the end, as every year you know, it’s a bit emotional. It might be one of the bleakest parts of the country to come to, especially in this weather, but it’s always emotional to get here. We managed it in another different car too, the Mazda which Andy’s driven sympathetically and as well as ever.

John Lomas was on his first ever LeJog, and not only did he get a silver medal alongside Peter Johnson, who has won gold in the past, but John got best new driver on the event at the awards ceremony in Wick. Pete is also in contention for the annual navigator’s championship to win the coveted Golden Roamer Award and LeJog counts in the annual points.

Peter said; “It was hard, I mean really tough. Whilst we’ve still got the silver medal, we didn’t  have a good run overnight really, so I don’t think the points will be enough for the Golden Roamer Award, but then it hasn’t been totally calculated yet.”

It was so tough that just four gold medals and three silvers were awarded, but the other golds were earned by some really great team work on both sides of the car in many different conditions, day or night.

Kevin Haselden and Ryan Pickering were quick and consistent on the regularities and tests, despite water often filling the footwells of the Mini Cooper S. Both have had gold before, but Ryan’s problem will be with his daughter when he gets home. She told her Dad not to bother with gold as he already had one of those, she ordered a silver so she could have the complete set at home!

Mark Godfrey and Martyn Taylor were really impressive as they took their gold medals in Mark’s MGB. Mark said: “I believe it’s been hard earned. We’ve got it now, and it’s been an outstanding event but the weather’s been against us and made it much tougher. LeJog was very well run and organiseed by a fantastic group of people. There were some great sections in Wales, on Saturday, although the wipers haven’t been off since Saturday morning. The longest we’ve had them off was for about an hour!” Martyn was so good in his navigation that he won the Clockwatcher’s Award for the best navigator on LeJog as well, it was tremendous having him alongside me.”

Eric Michiels from Luxembourg and Belgian navigator Aswin Pyck, were just brilliant and won gold medals in Eric’s Porsche 924S, which even has a Le Jog licence plate!. Eric, as ever, waxed lyrical about medals and LeJog, comparing Spandau Ballet’s song in the 80s, ‘Gold’ to him and Aswin winning their own gold medals again.

Equally there had been crews who were in the gold and silver medal rankings but just dropped out over the last 24 hours. Hampi Durrer and Henry Carr were in the fields of gold only for their fuel pump to go, whilst poor Andrew Duerden and Michael Rodel missed a hidden control when they had been almost certain to achieve gold medal status in the big Mercedes W115 230. Swiss Christian Dillier and Tony Brooks were there covered in gold too, until the tortuous Loch Ness Monster regularity in the dead of the final night lured them into a ditch putting the 1930 Ford Model A almost on its side. They got out and back in the rally, but their gold had evaporated in the rain.

In that same relentless and demanding Loch Ness Monster, a family team of two sisters, Texa and Danna, with their father Andy Sim perched in the dickie set in the back of their 1957 Sunbeam Rapier, became heroes as they helped seasoned crew Kevin Haselden and Ryan Pickering to go onto gold! Danna and Texa helped push the Haselden Mini up a hill as it struggled for traction, and was suffering some clutch slip.  As total newbies, this was a generous act when they were sometimes floundering themselves, but in the end, they loved the experience.

we’re complete novices”. Danna; “Essentially, we think we did okay, we split the loads which we managed pretty well between us all. So, yeah, it was great, actually it was amazing!

Andy, was so pleased that his daughters had done so well on such a tough event; “They have done extremely well, they were fantastic, I’ve just sat there in the back, as I said, I’m ballast, and unfortunately, generations of undernourishment makes us small, you see, and we can fit in, but I had a ringside seat watching the drama unfold. Anyway, to the organisers who have excelled themselves and helped us out on two occasions, we say a big thank you.”

For their efforts, the Sim family were awarded the ‘Spirit of the Rally Award’ at the black-tie prize giving dinner in Wick.

In the same Special Awards section, another newbie team of the tiny Fiat 500F of Tim Lawley and Nicu Mladin, was presented with the ‘Against all Odds’ Trophy by FIVA’s Kurt Staud for their persistence and doggedness – even after Tim put diesel instead of regular petrol into the fuel tank when he was ‘totally knackered and not thinking’ as he said. The crew also raised a huge amount of money for the Evie Charity. 

Pictures are by Will Broadhead