We competed against an Olympian, an overland industry expert, and a host of top automotive journalist talent in the media wave of the 2021 Land Rover TReK competition. And we came away victorious.
As the morning fog lifted off the nearby pond, I found myself dragging heavy oak planks with two teammates. We were building a bridge deck over a creek, which was also a puzzle with the Land Rover logo on it. The bridge had to support the fully kitted-out, bright-orange Land Rover Defender that was our adventuremobile for the day, and we were on the clock.
We had already navigated and run a few miles to find our Defender 110 and completed a difficult trailering challenge. So we were already huffing and puffing only an hour and a half into the 6-ish-hour competition. Even though we barely knew each other, we worked as a tight team and managed to complete the task in record time.
The stopwatch stopped and we were off, bouncing down a rough forest path toward our next challenge.
Land Rover TReK 2021
All of that was the start of the competition day of Land Rover TReK 2021 for Team No Time To Cry (Bond reference). The team consisted of Jeff Glucker of Hooniverse, Tommy Mica of The Fast Lane, and myself. Land Rover PR put our team together, as well as five other three-person media teams. We were on the media wave of TReK 2021, competing before the Land Rover dealer teams started to roll in the next day.
While it lacks the grandeur of the Camel Trophy, the TReK competition is held in its spirit and on the no-doubt grand Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. Land Rover specifically designed this event to experientially impart the brand’s signature adventurous off-road lifestyle to its dealer personnel. Seventy teams of three from dealers across North America competed in Land Rover TReK 2021, the largest field ever for the competition.
Land Rover said, “TReK allows [the retail staff] to experience the guts of Camel Trophy, the adventure of a genuine expedition, the freedom of exploring the unknown, the individualism of pushing oneself to the limit, the supremacy of competition, and the authenticity of the Best 4X4 X Far.”
The TReK competition started back in 1996 in the U.S. and has gone international. But the event has taken place only a handful of times since. Very few media have ever participated, so it was an honor and privilege to get the invite for this year’s media wave.