Sunday, November 23, 2008

SSS Winch Challenge round 3 2008

Mickey Thompson
SSS Winch Challenge
Round Three 2008 Landcruiser Mountain Park

The Final Round of the Inaugural Mickey Thompson SSS Winch Challenge started off with a field of 22 extremely keen teams ready to battle anything that Peter Stirling and his band of dedicated helpers could throw at them.

Competitors and Spectators alike were kept entertained on Friday night with challenging tracks in, out and along the gullies featuring tight uphill turns, deep water, extreme side angles and large tree roots on vertical banks.

More than one competitor had to anchor themselves to avoid tipping on their sides in the muddy water at the bottom of a steep climb on one of the tracks with the vertical climb up the bank over a large tree root on another track only metres away causing all sorts of mayhem, the competitors stuck on one track had a birds eye view of the action on the other track while they waited for their Navi’s to hook up the winches.

The sight of powerful lights spearing through the darkness and the bellowing of high revving V8’s echoing around the hills made for a very entertaining night’s racing.

Saturday Morning saw most of the Teams repaired and ready for another day of tough and unrelenting winching.
Two of the tracks were staged on the side of a very steep slope forcing the competitors to winch up, then winch back down again followed by winching up again on the N shaped left track whilst on the A shaped right track the competitors had a much simpler winch up and back down again section.
These two stages were so steep that the Navi’s had extreme difficulty climbing them and the vehicles had trouble reversing down and across at the same time as they were virtually hanging by their winch ropes.

Two of the tracks dodged in and out of one of the gullies with plenty of wheels in the air action much to the appreciation of the crowd.

Just to mix things up the other two tracks were a short and a long high speed run to really blow the cobwebs out and once again the hills were alive with the sound of V8 and Turbo Diesel music.

With the stages run and the scores being tallied it was time for Peter to unveil the secret stage 11 … this time it was a timed run around the Mud Pursuit track but with a twist … recent rain had filled one end of the track with a couple of metres of water and you had to maintain a fast enough speed through the shallower water at the top of the banked corner to prevent sliding down but as Robbie Marshall found out, if you went too fast the front right wheel grabbed in the water and pulled you in to the deep, luckily his sideways slide stopped him and he was able to reverse back up to the top of the bank and continue on.

With the fun over it was time to get ready for the presentation dinner where the Third Round Trophies were handed out, Congratulations to Wil Neilson and Chris Brame for fighting off a determined attack by Greg Jackson and Brent Griffin in second followed Robbie Marshall and Glen Macdougal in third.

The Trophies for the Overall winners of the 2008 series were then announced with Greg Jackson and Brent Griffin taking out a well deserved win from Robbie Marshall & Joel Jeffry/Glen MacDougal in second place and Jason Wotherspoon & Errold Misso/Anthony Stout in third.

It has been a fantastic Inaugural year for the SSS Winch Challenge with a number of innovative ideas tried and improvements made throughout the year, I’m sure the series will continue to grow and provide some more awesome action in 2009 !

.Shane Gerrish



Darren Blackburn launches the Navara...






Robbie Marshall loses it sideways into the deep water at the end on the mud pursuit track.




Round 3 Special Stage Winners:
SS1 Wil Neilson & Chris Brame
SS2 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin
SS3 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin
SS4 Wil Neilson & Chris Brame
SS5 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin
SS6 Nathan Barrett & Danny McDonald
SS7 Michael Camac & Jason Enright
SS8 Christian Trusz & Terry Kane
SS9 Wil Neilson & Chris Brame
SS10 Robbie Marshall & Glen MacDougal
SS11 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin

Overall Scores for Round 3:
1 Wil Neilson & Chris Brame 857
2 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin 791
3 Robbie Marshall & Glen MacDougal 757
4 Christian Trusz & Terry Kane 657
5 Jason Wotherspoon & Anthony Stout 645
6 Michael Camac & Jason Enright 609
7 Mike Clayton & Samantha Clayton 589
8 Peter von Pein & Jane von Pein 581
9 Brad Drummond & Phil Macready 550
10 Nathan Barrett & Danny McDonald 543
11 Darren Blackburn & Mark Biezl 539
12 Brian Gregg & David Gregg 530
13 Ashlie Enright & Michael Baucock 441
14 Karl Chaney & Mark Stringer 400
15 Kirby White & William Dolan 361
16 Mark Fowler & Dean Grills 350
17 Joel Thomson & Paul Espig 215
18 Brad Dukes & Robbie Weller 177
19 Ashley Bunney & Warren Bunney 83
20 Shawn Swaffield & Phillip Benson 77
21 Bob Dunsmore & Damian Henningsen 67
22 Brad Cooper & Kevvy Knott 40
First Place

second place

third place

OVERALL RESULTS FOR 2008

1 Greg Jackson & Brent Griffin 2454
2 Robbie Marshall & Joel Jeffry/Glen MacDougal 2260
3 Jason Wotherspoon & Errold Misso/Anthony Stout 2096
4 Christian Trusz & Terry Kane 2087
5 Brad Drummond & Phil Macready 1872
6 Ashlie Enright & Michael Baucock 1825
7 Michael Camac & Glen Hollings/Jason Enrigh 1791
8 Peter & Jane von Pein 1780
9 Brian Gregg & Wil Neilson/David Gregg 1741
10 Derek Priestly/Joel Thomson & Paul Espig 1654
11 Scott Purkis & Josh Foster 1518
12 Wil Neilson & Glen Teichman/Chris Brame 1507
13 Ashley & Warren Bunney 1243
14 Darren Blackburn & Karl Chaney/Mark Biezl 1089
15 Mike & Samantha Clayton 1055
16 Mark Fowler & Mark Biezl/Dean Grills 1003
17 Nathan Barrett & Danny McDonald 995
18 Bob Dunsmore & Damian Henningsen 763
19 Kevin McCord & Glen MacDougal 547
20 Danny Moore & Matthew Sawyer 511
21 Wally Rhodes & Troy Callinan 507
22 Andrew Stark & Craig Linnane 493
23 Robert & Michael Marx 432
24 Karl Chaney & Mark Stringer 400
25 Kirby White & Kodi Zabel/William Dolan 379
26 Dave Metcalfe & Chris Wood 252
27 Brad Dukes & Robbie Weller 177
28 Robbie Weller & Anthony Stout 129
29 Shawn Swaffield & Phillip Benson 77
30 Brad Cooper & Kevvy Knott 40

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Superior All Terrain Challenge round 3 2008

SUPERIOR ALL TERRAIN CHALLENGE
ROUND 3 AND SERIES FINALS

Once again Landcruiser Mountain Park played host to the Superior Alignments All Terrain Challenge.

This event has grown to become one of the major drawcards to the Mud Bulls and Music event weekend held at Landcruiser Mountain Park in the first weekend of November.

Spectators crowded to the Rock Arena to watch the heats on Friday before coming back for the finals on Sunday.

THE HEATS:
Competitors lined up side by side on separate tracks using the same countdown to launch their vehicles at the unforgiving obstacles with the Superior Alignment team once again coming up with some new approaches to the obstacles to keep the tracks new and interesting for the competitors.

The mud hole was partly emptied of the recent rain and it didn’t take long before the logs placed lengthways out of the exit became slippery with mud making everyone use as much momentum as possible to make it up to the rock garden at the top.

With breakages and strandings bound to happen at this level of competition it was great to see the Ozcat excavator standing by to extract the stricken vehicles quickly and safely.
The author has often been on the end of this machine being removed from the top of a large rock or putting the wheels back where they are supposed to be … on the bottom side of the vehicle !!

Stuart Parkes made good use of Ozcat’s services after breaking a hydraulic component and was lifted out of the track area to make repairs.

Robbie Marshall took a different approach to the cones on top of the mound, he drove past the cones then reversed back to get a better line so he could miss the inside cone that everyone else was hitting but unfortunately went back too far and the right rear wheel went up the bank and his GQ ute slowly and gracefully rolled right over ending up on the right hand side with Robbie still trying to use the momentum to get enough drive to get it back on its wheels.
He was soon put right way up and ready for the next track.

The sound of crunching metal echoed over the competition area as the competitors tackled the mound of rocks at the bottom of the course, the one metre high rock at the end had most slamming down on the chassis as they powered off the top to avoid being stranded with wheels hanging in mid air.

The rocks were not the only metal crunchers with a large tree leaning over in the gully ready to take out the roof of the vehicles as they went past.

As the shadows lengthened during the afternoon and the heats drew to a close most competitors were wondering if they went fast enough to get into the finals on Sunday.

There’s a fine line between breaking your truck and going the quickest you can with most taking the safe route during the heats although you wouldn’t know it going by the amount of air time the wheels were grabbing, I’m sure the spectators appreciated the action as they were kept enthralled by the action going on just in front of them all throughout the day.

THE HEATS:























Robbie Marshall reversed up the bank to get a better line but went a bit far and rolled it right over.















THE FINALS:

Sunday dawned with some cloud cover to help keep the sun’s bite at bay and the 5 finalists in each class lined up to find out what they had in store for them.

With the score reset at zero it was the best run today which would take out the honors in each of the classes and the teams stepped up the pace accordingly

The course was divided into two section with the first section in the top end of the gully then after a short stop to make sure the second half was cleared the competitors tackled the second section in the main competition area.

A couple of teams took the opportunity to repair their vehicles between sections.

Keith Bignell made it almost all the way through to the end but rolled his bundera bodied holden powered GQ on the finish line … to say he was elated to find out it had rolled past the finish line was an understatement!!

Damien Edwards broke an oil filter or component in the red landrover buggy but refused to give up and battled on with the motor knocking and steam pouring out all the way to the finish line where he took a well deserved bow from the roof of the much abused Buggy.

In the end Ben Van Gestal brought the Rangie in for a win in the Modified class, Brad Bernard punted the Scout into first place in the Super Modified class and Roger Edols scored a fine win with his blue Buggy in Outlaw class.

ROUND 3 RESULTS:

MODIFIED
1st PLACE Ben Van Gestal
2nd Ken bain
3rd Brian Langbein


SUPER MODIFIED
1st PLACE Brad Bernard
2nd Carl Chaney
3rd Keith Bignell


OUTLAW
1st PLACE Roger Edols
2nd Damien Edwards
3rd Rhett Bryant


THE FINALS:



Keith rolled on the finish line but the vehicle stopped after the line so he was elated that he had finished.






















KING OF THE MOUNTAIN:

Once the score from the finals were worked out, the overall placing for the year were worked out and the top 3 vehicles from each class were pitted against each other to determine the overall winner for the year.

Once again the competitors were lined up and they launched themselves in a no holds barred attack on the course… no one held back and the battered and bruised vehicles were pounded over the obstacles unmercifully but in the final wash there can only be one winner and Damien McCotter took out the coveted trophy in his yellow buggy.

The Superior Alignments All Terrain Challenge has grown and improved over the last couple of years with the times getting shorter and the trucks getting tougher but the one thing that has not changed is the fun and friendly way in which the competitors and marshals enjoy the weekend, everyone is sure looking forward to the next one!

2008 OVERALL RESULTS:

MODIFIED Ken Bain
SUPER MODIFIED Keith Bignell
OUTLAW Stuart Parks
LADIES Lynda O’Reilly


2008 KING OF THE MOUNTAIN:
Damien McCotter

The KING OF THE MOUNTAIN for 2008 is:
Damien McCotter