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The weekend of June 25-26th marked the 2nd WeRock rock crawling competition. We made the ten hour drive to Dayton, TN for a Friday and Saturday night competition under the lights. The comp was supposed to start at 5pm Friday night, but with the heat index and the drivers having to wear a fire suit, they postponed the start time to 7pm. Thank goodness they did. It was 90+ degrees outside and I had to put on a long pair of pants and a jacket!
We drew the number 4 spot in the running order, so we headed over to our first course, C1 to watch the rest of the competitors. This course started out with us climbing over a 4 foot tall rock. Once we were up and over, we had to take the rear Atlas lever out, so we could burn the front end around, and not lose points with a back up. Gate 2 was a side hill climb on top of rocks, with a ledge beside us. Our plan was to try and keep the rig up high so we wouldn’t hit any cones. Our back tire slid in the loose rocks and we ended up taking the cone. Just then, my spotter Aaron, tell me we are leaking fluid like crazy. Before he could finish his sentence, I could tell right away where we were leaking it from. Our steering box – we hit it on a rock and looks the steering shaft was working its way out. It was everything I could do to steer. But I fought through it so we could finish the course. We scored an 18 on this run. Thankfully, my good pal Larry from AGR, had already hooked us up with spare steering parts, so off to the pits we were to change the box. My great team had the new steering box installed in record time and we didn’t have to use any of our breakdown time.
Our next course was C2. This course had us climb a mild hill to get to gate 1. This gate was on the very edge of a 5 foot drop off. Once you were through the cones, we have to make a sharp right turn to line us up for gate 2. With this gate, we had to give it the gas a bit so my control arms didn’t get hung up on the big rock we had to climb over. We were up and over with no problems and then made our decent to the hill climb for our 3rd and final gate. This was about a 5 foot climb with a gap in the middle, so we had to make sure the rig didn’t fall into the gap, so we wouldn’t lose our grip. With these great G/2 5.13 gears we’re running now, the rig climbed this hill and made it look easy! We were out of the gate and finished with a score of 5.
C3 was next. The first hill climb through gate 1 gave us some trouble, but nothing the skinny pedal couldn’t fix for us. We were up and through and lining up for the side hill through gate 2. We had to side hill through gates 2 and 3. The rig started to get tippy as we were making our way through, but I gassed it and turned into it and was able to save the rig from flopping on its side. We made it through the bonus line on this course, so we picked up and easy -5 points. Headed back up to the top of the course, so we could go through gate 4. At this point, we had wasted so much time trying to get up the first gate, we were almost out of time to finish this course. When I made it through gate 4, I heard the judge say we had 30 seconds left, so I gave it hell to get to the bottom and get us out of the course, with seconds to spare. Score here: 17.
Our last course for the night was C4 and we were first on this run. The course started out with us climbing a series of rocks to get to gate 1. This gate was on the backside of a huge boulder. Once I got the rig lined up, I had to make sure we gassed it enough to get up and over, so our skid plate didn’t turtle us on the rock. We ended up hitting the passenger side cone, but we were through the gate with 3 tires, so we were off to gate 2. Gate 2 was at the top of a rock ledge hill climb with loose stone at the bottom. I told my spotter, once I get traction, get out of my way because I need to keep my momentum. And that’s exactly what we did. Once at the top, we had to burn the front end around so we were lined up for the descend down the hill. We had to take this easy because there were a couple rock ledges we had to climb down and we didn’t want to chance a roll over. Once at the bottom, we had to go through a rocky section and then we were out of the finish gates. Score on this course: 2.
To start the second day of competition, we were 16 points behind 3rd place. So our strategy was to run smart and our own race, not let the other competitors get in our heads. We were second on course C1. This was the same course we ran Friday but in the opposite direction. It started out with us going over a small rocky section and then we headed up a slight hill to get lined up for our first set of cones. We made it through the first set of cones with no problem. Lining up for gate 2 was a little more work. Aaron stacked rocks to try to keep the rig from sliding into the cone. This was the side hill climb and we were trying to keep the rig on top of this huge rock. The rig ended up sliding into the cone after all, so we had to just go with it. The last gate was on top of a 4 foot rock. Once I had the rig lined up, my plan was to gas it a bit so we weren’t high centered on the rock. As I gassed it, the rig was stuck on the skid plate enough to turn us in the air and we ended up hitting another cone! Disappointed we hit 2 cones, we made our way to the finish gates with plenty of time to spare. Score here: 12.
Course C2 was our next course and our best course for the weekend. It had 2 options for the first gate. We could climb a rock face for a 10 point bonus, or go around the rock face for a 1 point progression. Aaron got me lined up for the bonus. The Pro Comp Xtreme Mud Terrains hooked up and we climbed that rock like a spider. Once at the top, we had to burn the front end around to line us up for the climb down a 5 foot drop off. I was a little anxious going into this drop off, but I sucked my rear Warn winch in to keep the suspension from unloading and we were down the climb with no problems. Once at the bottom, I had to turn the rig around to head back up the rock face for the last 2 gates. We made it through gate 3 with no problems and had to put the rig in reverse to get us lined up for the last gate. Once we were lined up for the last gate, Aaron move the biggest rock I have ever seen him lift. He lifted it completely off of our course, which made the last gate perfect for us to get through. Score on this course: -8.
After a 2 hour thunderstorm delay, we were ready for our third course. The 2 rigs ahead of us didn’t make it past the first set of cones, so we knew this was going to be a tough one. We made it up the 4 foot rock face, with the help of the skinny pedal, to line us up to come back down the other side through the first gate. Once at the bottom, I burned the front end around to line up for the side hill climb through gate 2. This section was so tore up from the other competitors, there was no way we were going to make it. We gave it hell until our time ran out. Score here: 39.
Our fourth and final course for the weekend was next. This course started with us going over a rocky section through the first set of gates. The gates for 2 were in a tough spot. We had to get up and over a boulder and there was not enough room on the other side before you ran into another boulder. We worked this spot for a good while trying to get up and over both rocks without getting high centered. It just wasn’t happening. So Aaron had me back all the way around both rocks and try another line. This way we were headed straight through the cones, instead of over them. But this line also put us in a spot to take out a cone. We were ok with that since no one ahead of us had even gotten this far. We made it through there and lined up for the hill climb to the top, but after the rain, it made this hill impossible. Score here: 38.
We had thought we finished in 3rd place and was all excited to get on the podium and get a trophy. We headed back to the scoring trailer to find out, we actually tied with another competitor for 3rd. In WeRock’s rules, tie breakers are determined by the score we had on our first course. In this case, we had an 18 and the other guy had a -9. So we “technically” finished in 4th place. After two events, we are tied for 3rd place for the series. Our next event is July 24-25 in Hannibal, MO.
Click here to view all of the pictures from this event.