[Bassman]

I just watched the first part of this (on Channel 5 last night at 8pm).

This takes 8 truckers and pits them on the "World's Toughest Roads". The winner is going to take home £100,000. The series runs for 8 weeks. The truckers are in pairs for the events, though next week sees the two slowest eliminated from the competition. There are truckers from the UK, Australia, Canada, USA and (?!) Sri Lanka.

Last nights episode saw the truckers contending with 300 miles of Australian Outback roads in 600 HP Kenworth Conventionals, hauling a double deck trailer with 50 head of cattle. The journey is over 3 days. Results are based on overall time.

One the first day one pair came across a Landcruiser that had rolled over and stopped to help (the time they were there was of course subtracted from their total run time). There were a couple of teams that managed to rkae a miss turns which of course did them no favours. The biggest problem was the lead team getting stuck on some sand. All the trucks caught them up (they start at 15 minutes intervals) and all timings stopped until they could be dragged up (it took a 40 ton Volvo Excavator).

Next week is still in Australia, hauling oversize loads across the Outback.