24 Hours Of Shitbox: Turkey Run

One night from Belgium to Turkey, self-guided, 2,440 kilometres in twenty-four hours, with a hotel room and a cold beer at the end.

The organisers’ case for this is as blunt as it gets: the route planner says it can be done in a day, so an old car can probably manage it too. Whether it manages it is the event.

The start is at Wetteren in East Flanders and the finish is in Turkey, 2,440 kilometres away. The route is left entirely to the crew, who can plan their own or follow another team and hope that team breaks down first. A minimum of two people in the car is required, which is sensible rather than arbitrary: twenty-four hours of continuous driving across most of a continent is not a solo undertaking. A hotel room is waiting at the destination, along with the beer, which after a day and a night at the wheel is the only thing anyone is going to want.

Getting home again is the crew’s own problem. The organisers offer one neat solution: their fortnight-long Caucasus event leaves from the same place later, running to Baku and back by way of the Black Sea ferry from Georgia to Bulgaria, so the two can be strung together. The team ticket covers two participants and the hotel night, with additional passengers at €50 each. Mid-September 2027 is the date, which keeps the Balkan and Turkish sections out of the worst of the summer heat. As endurance events go this is the cheapest in the database and among the hardest on both car and crew.