WeRock Comp Dayton, TN

The weekend of July 31 marked the fourth and final WeRock event for the east coast series. This event was held in Dayton, TN and was something we never experienced before. It was a Friday and Saturday night time event. That’s right – we were rock crawling under the lights!

We arrived in Thursday night after a 10 hour drive. After a decent night’s sleep, we drove up the mountain to the competition site and checked in for tech inspection. With our number drawn, the running order had us starting second in our group.

Our first course was C4. On this course, we were starting at the top of the hill. It has us dropping off about a 5 foot ledge through gate 1 and then making a sharp right turn thrown gate 2 and an uphill climb to get through gate 3 and then the finish gates. We made the drop through gate 1 easier than I thought we would. I thought for sure we were going to go over. But our Full Traction suspension didn’t unload at all and we were able to keep the rig stable. As we made the turn to go through gate 3, my spotter Aaron stacked some rocks so we could get the rig up and over the ledge we had to climb. We tried and tried until we ran out of time. We just couldn’t get the grip we needed to complete this course. We scored a 38. As I was pulling the rig off of the course, I heard clunking, so to the pits we went. Upon inspection, we came to find the rear driveshaft had broken. It wasn’t a complete break though; it was the center ball kit in the CV end that was broke. Luckily, our friends at JE Reel hooked us up with some spare shafts. Our mechanic, Jason Layne, had it fixed in no time!

Our next course was C1. This course started out with a rocky entrance through the first set of cones. Gate 2 was on top of a rock that was about 4 feet tall. Once you made it over the rock, you had to drive to the top of the hill, do a 180 and come back down a ledge of rocks on the side of the hill. As we entered the course, we got hung up on our skid plate. Aaron stacked some rocks and with the help of the skinny pedal, we were able to bump the rig up and over, but we hit a cone in the process. As we approached the boulder through gate 2, Aaron stacked some rocks so I could get the front end of the jeep on the rocks to line us up for a bump up and over. As we bumped up and over, the rig slid to the right and left and we ended up taking out both cones! I took the rig on top of the hill, turned my 180 to line up to come down the rocky ledge. We successfully cleared this set of cones and through the finish gates. Score here 32.

Course C2 was next. This course looked like a mini-trail ride for us. It had 5 sets of cones. Gate 1 was up a rocky hill, which posed no problems for us. We were up and through in no time. We had to run along the top of the course to head to gate 2. This gate was about a 3 foot ledge climb up and then we had to back up at the top to turn the rig around so we could drive to gate 3. We were able to gas the jeep up and over gate 2 but I hit a cone as the tires were spinning. Gate 3 was a rocky ledge, nothing major here; we cleared it with no problems. We then had to drive back to the other side, along the top, and make a right hand turn to line the rig up to go down through gate 4, which was about a 4 foot drop. We cleared gate 4 and made the final turn to go back across the top of the other side of the course, to drop down through gate 5. This was another 5 foot drop but there was a rocky ledge hugging the jeep on the driver side, so that helped keep it balanced. We finished this course with a score of 15.

Onto our fourth and final course, C3. This course had us starting at the top of the hill like we did on our first course. Gate 1 had us coming down a rock ledge that had actually two ledges to come down over. Once we got the rig through both ledges, we were met with gate 2 and some huge rocks. We had to get a little off camber to go through gate 2 and just as I thought we were clear, I heard the judge say cone! We pulled the rest of the way through to line us up to back through gate 3. This took a lot of work, there were a lot of big rocks on this course. I shut off my ARB Air Lockers and worked my Atlas Transfer Case a lot to bring the jeep around for the perfect line. We finally made it through gate 3…but we were running out of time. The plan was to pull through and back up over the last set of rocks to line up through the exit gate. As I started to back up, I was hitting some rocks on my rear diff, so I started to get ticked. We were running out of time and getting hung up. So what was I to do? I know – gas it up and over! And that’s just what I did. I think I may have been going about 65 MPH up and over the rocks and we finished the course with 1 second left! The crowd was going nuts – what an adrenaline rush! We scored a 20 on this course. To top off the evening, we had fans coming up to us after this run with cash to give us for our cause. We raised close to $350 from people coming up, thanking us for doing what we’re doing and wanting to donate!

Onto day 2. We were still in the middle of the pack and we were running the courses we ran the day before but with changed to them. Coming into the day, we were sitting in 7th place, so we had some ground to make up.

Course C4 was our first course for the day. We started at the top of the hill and had to come down the ledge to the left of the hill. This was the part we couldn’t make it up the day before, so we had to make sure we had the right line so we didn’t get hung up on our front diff. We were able to make it down with no problem. Then the course got a little interesting. We had to make a complete circle around gate 2 then drive back up the hill to line up gate 3 and back through that gate to the finish. We did this course with no problems. Score here -2.

Course C1 was next and at this point, it started to rain. This course we ran the complete opposite of what we ran Friday. We had to go up the hill this time to get through gate 1. With it being lose dirt, which was now mud, it made for a lot of work to get up this first hill. With a lot of skinny pedal we made it up and over…but we also took out 2 cones in the process. We made the 180 turn at the top and cleared through gate 2 and 3 with no problems. Score here 21.

Course C2 was next and at this point, it was really raining. The start of this course had us climbing up a 5 foot ledge. Aaron stacked some rocks and I worked and worked the rig to try to get up this, but it wasn’t happening. We worked on it for the full 10 minutes, we just couldn’t climb this hill. Score here 40.

Onto our last course for the weekend. This course was set up almost the same as the day before, except this time, gate 2 was up and over a rock the size of a small car. Once you made it through that, you had to get around that same rock to make it through gate 3. As we got on top of the rock and were making our way over it, the rig started getting tipping. We stuck with it though. Working the cutting brakes, inching our way forward and taking our time, we were able to save a possible flop on our side and get us lined up to go through gate 3. We ended this course the same we did Friday night – in a hurry! Backing up over big rocks, that are hitting your rear axle and stops you gets frustrating. We finished the only way we know how to get up and over big rocks – the skinny pedal. Score here 11.

We had a good weekend. We finished for the series in 5th place. We are heading to Hannibal, MO in 3 weeks for the All Stock Nationals.

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