Driving partners make or break trips

Englishman Mac Mackenney is the kind of guy you want on your side when dealing with anything from moving household furniture to extricating yourself from a barroom brawl.

Fit and friendly with plenty of road smarts behind the wheel of anything from a race car to an 18-wheeler, Max Adventure, as his Web site dubs him, is the kind of guy anyone setting out on a grand international road adventure should consider partnering up with.

So when Mac's e-mail the other day announced he was preparing to lead a team of six in two Land Rover Discoveries for a shot at the land-speed record between London and Cape Town, South Africa, he got my attention. The record the teams will try to beat was set by Eric Jackson and Ken Chambers in 1963 after the duo wrapped up the daunting journey in 13 days, eight hours and 48 minutes.

Mac has some high-profile folks as honorary patrons for his London-to-Cape Town junket in the likes of racing legend Sir Stirling Moss and British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Considering the advances in vehicle technology and the improvement in roads through Africa in the past half century, I suspect team Max Adventure has a good chance of setting a new record and in the process wheeling a little fun into the minds of the Brits who are in the midst of a nasty economic downturn. Nothing like watching some blokes go for broke on a grueling road trip through the African savannahs and jungles to rev up the banter in the local pubs.

Of course I couldn't help but feel a little jealous when I read about the plan. After chasing the clock on four grand adventures myself, including two record-setting around-the-world drives, announcements like his remind me of the ups and downs of those trips. Developing the concept, lining up sponsors, the route, a public relations plan along with the gazillion things related to getting a vehicle from Point A to Point Z safely in record time.

And then of course, getting the team together. Hmmmm. Now there's the key element to any adventure worth its salt.

During my second drive around-the-world, a 23-day circumnavigation dubbed the Frontera World Challenge, team selection was not entirely up to me.

I pulled the plan together after the folks at the Guinness Book of Records had, for reasons that have never been explained, decided to change their criteria for global circumnavigation by car. Although the new rules still spelled a major undertaking, it had become easier than the parameters in which my partner Ken Langley and I had first driven into that record book by driving our Volvo DL station wagon around the world in 74 days, one hour and 11 minutes in 1980.

Aside from ricocheting off a kangaroo in the Australian Outback, the outbreak of a couple of wars and vicious bouts of dysentery, that adventure had gone according to a plan we had worked on for two years. And best of all with the exception of one sleep-deprivation fueled three-minute screaming match, the details of which are lost in time, Ken and I got along just fine.

Quite a different story 17 years later on the Frontera World Challenge though. Although I had veto power on team selection on that trip, since the sponsorship was sourced in the United Kingdom, a start-finish location in London as well as two British teammates were deemed essential. Brits wanted to promote Brits so, hey, you do what you have to do.

Problem was even though the drive was executed two days quicker than our goal of 25 days, the personal tension in the Vauxhall Frontera sport utility vehicle turned what should have been a session of male bonding, camaraderie and glory into one of brooding and waiting for the finish line.

I suppose if you talked to any of us now, 12 years later, we would all have someone to blame other than ourselves but the point is team selection plays a critical role when you are about to strap into a motor vehicle to take on an epic driving expedition or even something closer to home. How about that drive back from the cottage or the trek to the in-laws after a malicious row with a brooding teenager or the spouse? Nowhere to go but down the road poker-faced.

So as I read Mac Mackenney's e-mail about his plans to eclipse the driving record from London to Cape Town in January 2010, I silently thanked him for allowing me these reflections of Battles on Board.

Sure, I will provide the endorsement he asked for and I wish he and his teammates the very best along the way. But the best bit of advice I can give him, or anyone about to set off on a major road adventure, is to have a good look at the person you will be sitting beside. Because he or she is the backbone of the classic go-for-broke road trip.

Garry Sowerby, author of "Sowerby's Road: Adventures of a Driven Mind," is a four-time Guinness World Record holder for long-distance driving. His exploits, good, bad and just plain harrowing, are the subject of World Odyssey, produced in conjunction with Wheelbase Communications. Wheelbase is a worldwide provider of automotive news and features stories.