Borneo 4WD Cross Country Challenge

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!