- May 7
- 4 min read

Benidorm or Bust 2024!

Croxdale Fast Fit are proud to once again be supporting local Durham family team ‘Blood Brothers’ on their way to Benidorm in the 2024 ‘Benidorm or Bust’ challenge!

Father and son team Steven and Sam Laws (above) and are taking part in the exciting event to raise funds for a great local charity – Northumbria Blood Bikes. Steven, from Newton Hall, a volunteer driver in his spare time - works for the charity to transport blood and other medical supplies across the region to help the health service.

Our Durham branch already look after the maintenance of some of the charity vehicles.

Northumbria Blood bikes is a very important local charity that delivers a vital service. Read more about it here.

If you’d like to donate, please follow this link which goes to their fundraising page.

Steven and Sam will be taking turns with the driving this year – no mean feat, with 1,500 miles to do in 4 days! Stevens brother Gary will also be on board to assist in driving. They will take turns to share the duties of Chief Navigator, Radio Operator, Photographer, Mini-Fridge Technician, Snack and Moral Support Providers!

The Benidorm Or Bust website and Facebook pages can be found here: https://www.benidormorbust.net/ and https://www.facebook.com/Benidorm.or.bust

What's the challenge?

The ‘Benidorm or Bust’ challenge has been going for several years. It invites teams to purchase or use a vehicle of very low monetary value and drive from the UK to Benidorm, in aid of charities of their choice. Teams enter from all around the UK, there will be over 100 UK teams going this year. The 2018 Benidorm or Bust event raised over £151,000!, up from the £100,000 in 2017. The event could not happen in either 2020 or 2021 due to Covid restrictions, but was back for 2022 and 2023 - a truly fantastic achievement for all of the local UK charities the teams support and represent.

There are estimated to be over 120 teams taking part this year in vehicles of all shapes and sizes.

Steven and Sam visited our Croxdale Branch last week along with Blood Bike Volunteer rider Chris (pictured), to pick up their car after we had given it a check over and applied the sponsorship decals. Steven added:

"This will be the fourth time we've attempted the challenge. We've been lucky enough to complete it successfully in 2018 2019 and 2022, each time raising thousands of pounds for the fantastic local charity of Northumbria Blood bikes"

We're taking part once again in the 4 day drive from Dover to Benidorm, We have bought an MOT'd cheap car for £500 (not an easy task in today's car market!) and plan to sell it at the end to raise even more money for Northumbria Blood bikes.

Northumbria Blood Bikes is a registered charity established by local volunteers to deliver essential blood and urgent medical supplies, out of hours, between hospitals and other healthcare sites in North East England. Their website can be found here: https://www.northumbriabloodbikes.org.uk/

They cover Darlington, County Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland.

We also visited sponsorship partner New College Durham https://www.newcollegedurham.ac.uk/

for more photos and to raise awareness.

How did Croxdale Fast Fit help?

This being their fourth trip – Steven was going to have a hard time finding a MOT'd car for £500. Previous cars were a Honda Accord, Ford Focus and Honda Civic. All cars needed a full Health Check and some replacement parts but all were able to complete the journey.

This time, it's been harder than ever before to secure a cheap but roadworthy car, everything is more expensive now and there are very few genuine 'cheap' cars around now.

However, Steve’s managed to find a 2007 Peugeot 307 Estate 1.6 HDi locally. Happily for the team, the AC works on this car. It also has a full length glass roof with sunroof! Lets hope for some sun!

Croxdale Fast Fit gave the vehicle a health check in readiness. We were only too happy to help and took the vehicle into our workshop for a thorough check-up, as part of our safety inspection we repaired and replaced some of components, gave the engine fresh new oil and oil filter, replaced bulbs, repaired the screen washers and polished up the weather-worn headlights. We also applied the decals for the sponsorship partners.

We found car was in a good general condition for the age but needed refreshing in a few areas.

Who else helped?

We turned to our graphics supplier Premier Graphics for an eye-catching design to display the charity and sponsor logos, we’re sure you’ll agree it’s a striking design.

Thanks of course to all of the sponsorship partners, some of whom are mentioned at the end of this post,

What happens next?

The journey will begin at 8.30am on 14th May! All preparation is done and the guys are on their way soon!

We’ll be keeping track of their progress with daily updates – so watch our Facebook and Instagram pages for more information!

Good Luck guys – all the very best for a safe journey from all at Croxdale Fast Fit!

UPDATE!

The guys did it! No problems and 1,500 miles! Fantastic achievement, well done!

DONATIONS UPDATE - 7th June 2024

Steve has been counting up the donations and the total this time came to a FANTASTIC £4,345 - the most of any of the runs!

Whether you're driving to Spain, Stanley or Spennymoor – get your Vehicle health check from your local Croxdale Fast Fit Autocentre.

Summer is nearly here – not just in Spain - so keep your cool and have your air conditioning system serviced at any of our autocentres: https://www.croxdalefastfit.co.uk/services/air-conditioning