A Tyro event opens the door to a whole new world of off-road adventure but what is it and how do you do one? Will Gray spoke to a Cross Country expert and three rookie newcomers to find out.

“If you can drive the car, you can drive the course,” says Andy Tong, the Club Secretary at Buchan Off Road Drivers Club in Scotland, when asked what it takes to try out a Tyro. These entry-point events are open to almost anyone, and with slow speeds and courses designed to be non-damaging, they are the perfect way to get a taste of Cross Country motorsport. Taking one on, Tong says, requires just a few basic skills: spatial awareness, to be able to manoeuvre around canes; an ability to read the ground and spot how to steer off the obvious route and avoid the bumps; and patience, because with no speed involved, you can go as slow as you like.

“The most challenging thing for beginners is understanding the steepness, the angles and the capabilities of the vehicles,” says Tong. “Learning how to judge the pace of driving correctly is also vital – because if you go too fast you won’t be able to turn tightly enough to get around the canes, but if you go too slowly, you won’t get up the grassy banks. For those driving a manual clutch control is another difficult one, because often people who are used to driving a road car think that when you put your foot on the clutch, the car stops. Whereas if you’re pointing down a steep hill, it continues to move and starts going faster, as you have no engine braking. My partner did that once in my Land Rover when she was a beginner, and it scared the life out of us!”

That is why most people start Cross Country with a Tyro – to learn those mistakes before the course gets more difficult. Those with previous motorsport experience can go straight into a Trial, or even a Comp Safari if they feel brave enough, but for those who are just looking for a bit of fun, or to test out a new form of motorsport, there really is nothing better than a Tyro.

“When people are first timers, we see them improving so much throughout the day on a Tyro,” adds Tong. “You can very quickly get a feel for how people drive and once you watch them you can see where they can improve. It comes very fast to start with and by their eighth course they will be much, much better than they were on the first. Some people want to figure it out themselves, others want their hand held, so after their first run we usually have a chat and give some guidance. In competitions, you’re not allowed to sit with somebody else, but on a Tyro, we encourage people to do that so they can learn, or we can even just walk alongside and guide them, because it’s run at a slow pace.”

The fact that pretty much anyone can compete if they have a road-going 4×4 makes it a perfect fit for StreetCar, and Motorsport UK’s Benny Smith explains: “This is accessible, affordable grassroots motorsport so it is perfect for encouraging newcomers to use their everyday road cars to compete. With no special equipment or training needed, a Tyro is ideal for off-road lovers who want to try an entry level form of grassroots motorsport and there are a number of Cross Country Clubs across the UK that provide the perfect starting point for people to get involved in one.

“Aylesbury Land Rover Fanatics, for example, are a new StreetCar Club who displayed just how exciting offroad motorsport can be when they attended the recent StreetCar Festival. Their ethos revolves around a family friendly community and hosting exciting off-road events to encourage newcomers to experience the sport they love.”

Tong says Tyros often appeal to people who have just bought a four-wheel-drive (4WD) vehicle and want to do something that stretches it a bit more. They also draw in people who want to switch over from other motorsport disciplines; teenagers want to try out some motorsport; and, of course, children who have grown up in the sport with their parents. To find out more, Revolution spoke to three different Cross Country newcomers, each of whom had a different reason to get into the sport.

The Father and Son: Malcolm and Lachlan Milne

Malcolm Milne has been competing in Sprints and Hillclimbs since the mid-80s and even met his wife through the sport, so naturally, he expected their son Lachlan to follow suit once he was old enough. When the time came, they gave him the option of doing so – but the response that came back was not quite the one they had expected.

“He had a think about it and said, ‘actually, no’,” Milne recalls. “He explained that if he had a junior sprint car, which is just a standard car, he would get to drive it maybe once a month during the summer, and that’s about it. Instead, because we have 15 acres of land, if he did off-roading, he would be able to drive the car and polish his skills pretty much every day. Lachlan has grown up around track-based motorsport – his grandfather has single-seaters, and I met his mum while she was doing sprints with her dad in a Formula Ford – but this made a lot of sense. I thought that was a quite a mature attitude, but before he got into it, I wanted to test it out for myself.”

And so, inspired by his son, Milne switched codes, and, helped by Andy Tong, who is a long-term friend, he took on his first Tyro. “I just went along in a completely standard Suzuki Jimny and I was absolutely stunned by how capable it was,” he recalls. “But for me, as a driver, there was a completely different set of skills required.

“Everything I’ve done in the past has been speed-based, except for, except for navigational Rallying, so it was a completely different concept. In some courses it’s an advantage to go first if the ground is going to cut up, while in a particularly difficult section, it is good to watch other people doing it first, so the running order changes through the day. You’re not always at the front and you’re not always at the back, but whenever you are out on the section it is just a question of picking your line. You can get stuck from time to time, so you need to learn how to approach obstacles or ruts and how to place the vehicle. I loved it – and I ended up doing half a dozen events before Lachlan got involved!”

He was not only impressed by the experience, but also by the low cost, adding: “Hill climbing tyres, for example, cost hundreds of pounds and a set lasts half a season; offroad tyres cost a lot less and can last years. Entry fees are significantly lower too, and you don’t have the expense of safety gear or a helmet, which is important because kids grow out of them quickly!”

Milne took his son along to several Tyro events, sometimes giving him the spotter’s job as a passenger, and when he reached the age of 13, the pair swapped seats for a treasure hunt, in which competitors drive around on off-road terrain to find several punch machines, tied to a tree or obstacle, which they then use to mark a piece of card.

“Lachlan has been driving off and on since he could reach the pedals, so the bar was quite high with him already,” admits Milne. “We had quad bikes, he’s a dab hand on a skid-steer digger and on our tractor. He had also driven the Jimny around a bit at home and although the land’s not challenging, it was good for him to get a feel for it. When we got to the start, he was excited and keen, no nervous, and he was on it all day long. His knowledge of what the car could do grew quickly and doing the treasure hunt was great, because although he didn’t have time to watch other folk from outside to see how they got it right or wrong, he got so much more seat time than on a normal trial.

“Sitting with him all day was genuinely a pleasure. Sometimes, when you have kids, you get taken aback at some point when they’re younger and they do something you didn’t teach them how to do. You just think ‘how do they know how to do that?’ and this was an entire day of that!”

Milne recommends anyone who wants their child to give it a try to seek out a local event and take a look. Having the right vehicle is also a must, and to do that Milne recommends checking in with a local Club to ask for advice on what you should get. This, he says, can also sometimes provide a line onto a cheap vehicle to start off with, as they often change hands within a Club for much less than you might expect. There is no looking back for this father and son pairing. Having not even considered off-roading just a few years ago, they are both hooked. Milne has bought another far more capable Jimny, and the pair have continued to take part in Tyros this year, meeting lots of new people through the Club and posting some good results – with plenty more to come.

“We like the treasure hunts specifically because of the extra seat time, and even when he’s not getting to drive, he’s sitting there getting totally involved and learning,” continues Milne. “He’s quite a people person too, and he has got on really well with lots of members of the Club, even though everyone’s older than him. Once he’s old enough and he gets a driver’s license, he can do bigger trials too. I’ve never done one myself but we would both be keen to do some of those. I’d imagine he would want to progress to Hill Rallies in future – although not in a Jimny, because it would probably fall over! – but at the moment, the Tyros are great and everyone takes him on as an equal.

“There’s definitely a bit of very friendly rivalry going on there too. At the first Tyro trial we did this year, for example, we met a new couple, also in a Jimny, and at the end I asked the guy how he’d enjoyed it. He said to me ‘absolutely loved it’ then, through slightly gritted teeth, added: ‘maybe I can beat your 13-year-old next time…!’

The Family Man: Kieran Hall

When Kieran Hall and his wife bought a Land Rover Defender during lockdown, they were keen to head off-road with their young daughter and explore the countryside. However, in their native Scotland, off-road byways are not open to the public in the way they are elsewhere in the UK, so there were limited options. Fortunately, once the pandemic was over, they visited a local car show and discovered that a Tyro would be the perfect solution. Not only would it give them a way of putting their vehicle to the test, but as it is designed to be a more slow and gentle form of the sport, it would also allow them to take their then three-year-old with them for the ride.

Tyro regulations are designed to make it open for all – and that means that even infants are allowed in the car, as long as they are firmly strapped in a car seat as they would be on the road. “The first one we did with her, she was really interested,” recalls Hall. “At that age, you’re just learning what the world’s all about, so it was a great life experience. We built it up as ‘this is a challenge we’re going to do; we’ve got to drive through those gates over there and let’s see if we can do it’ and I think she really appreciated it all. She’s five now and sometimes she is not so keen if it gets a bit bumpier, but because it is a Tyro, we are never in a situation where it gets too physical.”

Hall did an off-road course with his dad 20 years ago, where he was taught the basics by Ronnie Dale, of Camel Trophy fame. However, with no idea what a Tyro might be like, he sensibly headed to his first start line alone, leaving the family at home while he explored how he could handle the terrain. Beforehand, he and his wife watched a few videos on YouTube – which would sound like a great idea for any beginners thinking about giving it a go. However, Hall is quick to put a heavy caveat on that presumption – because after watching videos of cars driving around on grassy fields with flags, the Tyro he took on was rather different.

Hall explains. “The one I started with was a lot more challenging and it was a real learning curve. At the start, I was put at the back of the queue, so I could see what was going to go on and that really helped me to build my confidence before I got out there. I was surprised what the vehicle could do. The Sections were similar, with one or two much tougher ones, but the organisers gave you the option to say, ‘no, I don’t want to do that, that’s too tough for me.’

“It turned out that the first one was on a particularly challenging site, but I really enjoyed it, and once I knew the next one was easier, I felt more confident, I wanted the family to come with me. It was a nice welcoming community, and I just thought it would be a good way to spend a day out together. My wife was keen to understand it as a new experience too, although she was nervous, that is fair to say. But there is a magical trust you have to put in the people that have organised the event and you just have to be confident that they know what they’re doing and that you’re not going to get into trouble.”

Hall and his wife are both office workers in Aberdeen, so joining the Club and going out on Tyros has not only given them the chance to connect with the local countryside, but also to meet and make friends with people who live and work there. It has also proven to be a real character builder for their young daughter.

Parents are often encouraged to take children to places where they can have sensory experiences and while this one can sometimes be a bit of a bumpy one, it has made its mark. “It all comes under the category of life experience,” explains Hall. “She can see it’s okay to fail, not get through a gate, then to try harder or try a different way. She is now an active spotter in the back and we also do treasure hunts, so she’s getting more and more involved and can be a real help on those and it is a lot of fun for us all. She’s also out there meeting new people, so it’s good for her social skills – and recently, when we helped out at a trial, she helped out too.”

Hall is enjoying the sport so much he is now a Club committee member, and he feels the events are becoming even more family friendly, adding: “I am sure that seeing our daughter in the car with us has inspired other people in the Club do so too, because they started to turn up at other Tyros with kids as well.

“We are definitely intending to continue doing Cross Country, but it has also widened our motorsport net further, because my daughter has just had her first try-out on a Bambino kart. That is another discipline to investigate now – and she might not have had the enthusiasm or interest to do that if she hadn’t been involved in this.”

The Lifer: Chloe Bayliss

Chloe Bayliss was just three days old when she went to her first Cross Country Event. Literally born into the sport, she grew up spending her weekends in fields or forests in the middle of nowhere. As she got older, come rain or shine, she was there helping her dad, long-time off-road competitor Phill Bayliss, to compete and win at the highest levels of UK competition.

She learned to drive at an early age, getting behind the wheel of her grandad’s Land Rover Discovery 2 on some family land as soon as she could touch the pedals. Even with all this heavy involvement, influence and encouragement, it is never a given that a growing teenager will continue on the path laid out in front of them. “There was never a question, because I just loved it,” she counters. “I found the whole thing really exciting, sitting in a field hearing loud V8s going round, and as soon as I had learned how to drive around the yard, it was just a waiting game. When I reached the age that I could start to do it myself, it was during Covid, so I had to wait even longer!”

Bayliss spent the pandemic years searching and searching for events she could enter until, eventually, when the world reopened for business, her opportunity came. The Lincolnshire Land Rover Club, of which her dad was a member, put on a Tyro in Stainby and, at the age of 16, she was finally at the start line for her first event. So, how did it go?

“I stalled it,” she recalls. “Literally, on the start line of my very first section, I stalled it and burst into tears! Sitting behind the wheel for the first time had made me really nervous and my first thought was ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ I was crying my eyes out, but my dad just came over and said ‘you’re a Bayliss, just go and do it’ and that was that.”

Fortunately, having had some outings as a passenger with her dad prior to her first event, and plenty of advice from her mum too, she did have some idea of what was ahead of her. So, she re-started the family’s Land Rover Freelander 2, set off and rattled through the first section – an easy open-field test – and she immediately felt at home.

“Once I started moving, all those nerves just went and I knew I just had to focus on what I needed to do – which was trying to beat one of my mates,” she smiles. “Each section got more challenging, with different skills, until the last one, which went up a hill with mud, puddles, and more difficult angles. When I got to the finish, I was just over the moon! It was great because each section gave you something to learn and it all came together at the end – and because it
was the first time anyone had done it for a long time, they let us practice again after the event. I did a few more runs on the section I’d struggled on with a licensed person alongside me and that helped me improve very quickly.”

The biggest challenge of the day, she recalls, was the one that reared its head right at the start: clutch control. Many beginners – and even experienced drivers – will chose an car with an automatic gearbox to avoid this, but this was not an option for Bayliss, who explains: “I’ve never done a Tyro in an auto because my dad won’t let me. Because it’s easier! I had to learn the hard way.”

The time she spent working on the spanners for her dad before getting behind the wheel have now led to an apprenticeship with Jaguar Land Rover, while out in the fields and forests trails she has already moved up to the next level, taking part in competitive Trials and Comp Safaris. Her sisters are also following in her footsteps, helping her along the way. Her aim is now is to hit the big courses and to compete against her dad in the British Cross Country Championship (BXCC).

“The bigger events are just a lot faster,” she says. “It is the same principles, but you just have to think more quickly. I remember on my first Tyro, my mum said to me ‘don’t worry about other people, it’s your competition’ and that is now always in my head, whatever category I am in. Now, I just want to keep getting faster and get more like my dad. But better!”