Bowled over

I knew we were in trouble because Dave had stopped speaking. Instead he was quietly arranging his limbs into what frequent flyers will recognise as ‘the brace position’. Extremities nicely folded away, head shrunk down, body bent slightly forward.

To be honest, when the back of the Bowler Defender had started to slide I’d figured we might be in for a spot of bother too, but it was the fact that Dave had cottoned on so quickly I found impressive. And just a little bit alarming. Dave Marsh is the head of Bowler Motorsport, its chief test driver and has been rallying for decades, so he knows a developing situation when he sees one hove into view.

He knew too the slide itself was not the problem per se. He’s probably spent more time driving in anger the rally version of the Land Rover Defender than anyone else, and would have known that, given time and space, even I would be able to corral the rear of the car back into line.

The problem was the ditch, specifically the ditch toward which said rear end of the Defender was heading with imprudent, some might say rash haste.