Site Category : Adventures/Sports
The Kinabalu Four Wheel Drive Club (KFWDC) is making plans to shift the racing
grounds for this year's event namely, the 16th Borneo 4WD Cross Country
Challenge, to a new location. The Chairman of KFWDC, James Wong, said the new
venue will in the heart of Sabah. It is at the upstream of the Kinabatangan
River in the Deramakot Forest Reserve. He said this change is due to the
requests from the off-road enthusiasts who prticipated in past events. They find
that passing through oil palm estates and jungles year after year is no longer
thrilling enough for them. There are also other changes beside changing the
venue, the registration fees will be raised to limit the number of participants
because the event will be held in a forest reserve and damages to the
environment need to be kept at a minimum. With a large number of participants
this will be difficult to achieve. The number of vehicles will be limited also.
More tests and challenges will be introduced and this time they will be passing
through virgin jungles. James and a team who acted as path finder had ventured
into the planned venue to mark a new route for this event. They were very
excited at they found. The reserve covers an area of over 55,000 hectares, many
wild life habitants were encountered. There are estimated at about 1,000 orang
utans, wild bears, deers, elephants and many species of fauna and flora. Another
team of path finder is currently try to establish a route to link the forest
reserve to Donggu then connect to Keningau. So far they have come across some
small streams, but they will expect to discover a few unpoluted rivers in Tongod
during the next trip the team explores the reserve again. The 16th Borneo 4WD
Cross Country Challenge is tentatively fixed at October 29 to November 5 2006.
Teams from Japan, a regular in this event, have indicated that they will bring
along their own vehicles. Teams from West Malaysia and Sarawak are likely to do
the same too. Please register early to avoid disappointment!
