“When we physically took over the lead on the road we knew we had at least a 15-minute cushion for a flat tyre or something like that, which does happen. You would be amazed if you saw how fast these cars actually go through the rocks. It is amazing that the tyres even stay on the vehicle.

“On a couple of occasions we passed two or three trophy trucks at a time, basically by having good navigation tools and a navigator who could keep me on course. Think about aeroplanes – they land in the fog all the time, and we have the same technology with the off-road cars in the dust.

“The sport has gotten a lot more popular and with that many entries it was pretty impressive. Andy has a lot of off-road experience from over the years, though, and it was just a great run for us.”

The trophy trucks are unlimited production full-sized pickups sporting more than 800 horsepower.