Big Red 4x4 - ASCC Round 1 2004 Comp Report

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Navigation: Home :: Comp Reports :: ASCC Round 1 2004

ASCC Round 1, 2004 - Comp Report

Dates: March 6-7 2004
Duration: Weekend

With the new season of competition come new rules such as rollbars, window nets, battery isolators, new tyre sizes and helmets so it was the usual mad rush to get everything ready on time!!

Brent from Wizard performance finished off my half completed rollbar which meant I had to relocate the air compressor solenoids and air tank, Brian from Beaudesert Exhaust Centre installed a custom 3” mandrel bent exhaust, new stickers made up for my new sponsors [ Beaudesert Exhaust Centre, Queensland Installations, Interlink and 4wdlinks ] and relocate the stickers of my older sponsors [ wizard performance and ARB Southside ] new 36” Super Swampers were fitted to the beadlocked rims and it looked like i would have some time left to give terry from www.4wdlinks.com.au a hand to finish his truck, as it turned out it was not to be!

I was almost ready on Thursday night and went to turn the truck around to install the plastic space cases and found both batteries flat.
When I tried to recharge them my battery charger died so another one was found and repaired but it died sometime through the night and a new one had to be bought next day and I still didn’t know if both batteries were o.k.
.
Friday night saw the batteries charged and the whole yard and carport about 6 inches deep in water due to an expected cyclone and was still raining heavily while I drilled holes in the tray to mount the gear cases and tie downs for the camping gear, I was completely soaked and to make it harder I had to use a battery drill to save being electrocuted.

My mate Terry had been working feverishly on his new creation [a chev V8 powered auto short wheel base Ute] and had it bodgied up and loaded on a trailer ready to go late that night so we met up and traveled up to Landcruiser Mountain Park together arriving around 1.30 am with the rain stopping not long before we got there.

SATURDAY :

Terry and I made the trip to the park office to sign in for the camping and terry had his first drive offroad in it by driving up camp road, the new exhaust made a huge difference to the low down power of my truck and I could go a gear higher without fear of bogging down so I was very happy but by the time we got to the office Terry’s SHUTE [SHorty UTE] was boiling.

A quick look revealed nothing wrong so we filled it with water and headed to the competition area to sign up with Shute boiling again.

Some more checking found that the head gasket was blown but terry had not done all that work for nothing and decided to compete anyway.

TRACK 1:
Terry and Andy was lined up second and Chris and I were eleventh in line, the Suzuki in front of Terry only made a few metres before having to reverse out so Terry has the dubious honor of being first to drive the track, first time driving shute in hard core terrain first time teamed up with first time navie Andy and first competition entered!!

Not only did he drive it but he bettered our score as well!!

Our turn finally came and we eagerly lined up, turned the lockers on and my old “bullit” compressor didn’t shut off.
Luckily we hadn’t started yet so we backed out to have a look at the problem.

We decided to swap the pressure switch with Chris’s and while he removed his I went to remove mine but it was thread locked in and as I tried to turn it the fitting snapped off flush with the surface….doh !!

I managed to jam a 10 mm bolt in the hole and pumped up the small tank manually and we reentered with the rear locker on, what we didn’t realize until after track 2 was that the solenoid was leaking the air out due to junk under the valve seat and the air lockers were not staying engaged as I had to switch the compressor off because the pressure switch was no longer connected.

We drove up the hill dodging the scattered boulders until one hooked up under the rear diff and stopped us, we reversed back and dodged around it to the first corner and shortly after tried to take a different line over the huge rock but ended up sitting on a metal stake and had to reverse out to avoid damaging a tyre.

We skirted around to the right of the rock like everyone else did and with a three point turn we lined up for the climb over the rock ledge and cleared it but when I turned on the front locker the pressure leaked out and the lockers switched off again and we got stuck several times.

Next obstacle was another huge rock and we were warned of a ribbon lying on the ground which we had to stay clear of or it was a special 30 point penalty [it was on the ground as the log it was previously attached to had been moved by previous competitors]
As I started up over the rock I could see the tape on the ground and cleared it easily but unfortunately the tape I saw was the wrong one and we copped the extra penalty because I ran over the right one!!

A flat run saw us to the finish of the course with a score of 135.

TRACK 2:
We lined up and terry lined up behind us and as we were about to start they announced that we were to be the last competitor for the day and terry would have to wait until the next day.

We turned on the rear locker and hoped the pressure was enough as we approached the first rock ledge, we turned sharp left and made it up and over and scooted across to the next ledge but slid sideways before we got to it and couldn’t climb the steeper section, we reversed back and made it up the lower section then dropped off the other side and drove across the side slope to the sharp left turn that took us into the hardest section.

I turned on the front locker and pumped up the system a fair bit then tackled the huge rocks and we slowly backed and filled, stacked and dodged and made it to the last ledge and was in a good position to drive it,we had the truck all lined up and launched at the rock but just sat there spinning with the lockers not engaged.

I tried to pump them up again but two more goes and they were still not working and we were told to exit to the right of the course with a score of 90 points.

A bit of checking found that the solenoid was leaking out the air out port probably due to me over pressurizing it or rust from my old home made tank.

SATURDAY NIGHT:

THE GORGE:
By 7 pm rain had started to fall steadily and mud was everywhere, after watching for a while we decided to line up and sit in the truck with the heater on to try and dry off.

Our turn arrived and I had been running the truck for a while to get rid of the “missing” , we started by dropping over the bank and semi sliding to the bottom before doing a sharp u turn and stopping at the bottom of the hill.

At the signal we launched up the hill with the swampers getting excellent grip but the truck started “missing” badly and I didn’t think we were going to make it, luckily it picked up again and we easily cleared the top, we then had to do another sharp turn before dropping over the bank again via a track with a steep ledge that saw the back wheels come off the ground if you failed to keep the speed down.
A turn to the left lined us up with a large drop over a log and as the front wheel dropped off the edge the chassis smacked loudly on the log and I “gave it some” to avoid getting hung up, when the rear slammed down on the log it really rattled my bones.

We crossed a muddy side slope with a tree on the down side getting mighty close then we turned hard left and stopped again half way up the hill at the direction of an official.

Once again we launched up the double jump up but the motor was singing sweetly this time and she sailed straight up with no worries then did another “U” turn and headed down again straight at the previous tree with the ruts guiding us round to the left.

The track went up the bank on the far side at an angle and you had to turn sharp onto the cut in track while missing the tree on the right, we only just missed it and then dropped into a large mud hole just before the log wall.

Our first try saw us get the wheels up a bit before losing traction and the second try was the same, for the third try we turned left and tried to climb the steepest highest section and gave it a real bootfull of throttle and to my surprise got a fair way up, some of the spectators must have thought so too and quickly scattered in all directions.

We reversed down and turned sharp right over the very muddy bank and slid to the bottom before crossing to the other side of the gorge , driving up to the dam wall and turning right made our exit to the top with a score of 0 along with three others, a much better score than the previous two tracks.

Terry was a couple of cars behind us and did really well except for his front Detroit Locker causing him to slide into the tree and he lost a few points getting round it, I think he ended up with a score of 20.

SUNDAY:

TRACK 1[for terry] :
After letting Shute cool down and filling up with water, terry was allowed to drive to the halfway point as another competitor was being extracted from the course further up.

His first corner and rock ledge saw him cutting close to a tree….as a matter of fact he drove about 2 metres up it before turning. He continued on to the rock slab and let it cool down while waiting.

When the track had been cleared he drove across the side slope and turned up the hardest part but didn’t make it over the rocks and ended up reversing on top of a large rock with the fuel tank sitting on the rock and the wheels only just touching the ground.

He was well and truly stuck so we ended up winching him up the track a bit and he exited the track just before the last ledge.
While he let Shute cool down I drove over to the gorge for Vertical Assault.

VERTICAL ASSAULT:

[This is a separate event to the short course]

When I arrived there were only a couple of cars there and quite a few spectators so I suggested to glen that I start off the vertical assault to give the spectators something to watch until a few more trucks arrived.

The first hill was started at the bottom then half way up and finally with the rear wheels at the bottom of the slope and with that hill conquered I moved on to the next hill and did the same thing, with no one else there I decided to go and play on the log wall for amusements sake.

The mud made the logs very slippery and despite numerous tries I couldn’t get the Ute up the wall.

Next I tried to climb the walls of the dogs bowl but again despite numerous tries of both sides I couldn’t make it up, by then a few more trucks turned up so I parked and watched the others have there goes at hills one and two.

After several trucks had made it we started hill three and as I drove past the rock wall [nugget hill] to get to the bottom of hill three I could see why les had snapped his rear axle trying to drive the huge holes below the first log.

With hill three conquered I drove back past the rock wall and stopped to suss out a possible line, glen indicated that this was to be hill four so I turned the lockers on and launched up and over the first log ledge but got hung up on a rock about half way up, a small reverse and a turn to the right got around the big rock and I continued on to the top.

Buddah had his turn but also broke a rear axle and by the sound of it a rear diff as well, several more tried the hill but it looked like I was in front until the jeep guys spent a few minutes making rock ramps in front of the log ledge and they sailed straight up like it was a highway.

To quite a few of us it seemed to go against the spirit of the Vertical Assault to make the hill easier but there’s no rules against rock stacking so they won it .

THE SHOOTOUT:

Paul in the STAIB RACING GQ Ute and Mick in the MR SHEETMETAL 40 series were on equal points for the overall ASCC win and they had a shoot off around the gorge, Paul went first and made the rock wall look easy this time as he drove straight up with hardly a wheel slip [had three goes to get up before the rockstacking] and had an excellent run around the course.

Mick was doing well until he bounced off line on the rock wall and ended up sideways across it with one wheel way up in the air, Paul soon winched him up the hill and the weekends driving was then over.

Shane Gerrish (AKA Big Red)

To see the Brisbane ASCC Results, Click here.

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