Andrew Gee and his fellow Central Zone Club Truckers ventured to their own ‘far north’ (Waiouru) on Sat March 23 for the fourth round of this season’s series.

Story & photo by Andrew Gee

For me, getting to this Desert Defenders Offroad Club-organised event is a four-hour bomb North on SH1 early on a Saturday morning. 

I get a lot of joy seeing the other weekend warriors heading off on their chosen leisure time option, it doesn't matter what it is, just the fact that you have got up and headed out somewhere.  

This particular Saturday there seemed to be a Drifting event at Manfeild, a drag race in Masterton, horses going somewhere, and mean mother truckers everywhere.  The other thing that makes me smile is the billboard in Hunterville for Peach teats, "calves love them!"

Looking back on it the big news at this particular event was just how serious our female competitors (aka ‘the girls) had become. Shona had given up smoking, Grace checked on the presence of her closest competition when she arrived on Sunday.  Kai started practicing on the hazards after the scoring rounds for a serious crack next time.  But it was Judith who did the best to be in second place on Sunday's scoresheet, having a phenomenal run in the Class 1 Suzuki where a lot of modified class competitors struggled to keep up.

No repeats

Mark, Rae, Mikaila and Stephen arrived on Friday and marked out a course of 14 hazards at the Donald's farm near Waiouru. The Club Truck Challenge was returning for a fifth time but using new parts of the property with no repeat use of any previous areas.  

We managed our own Brexit through the Swedes to head to the back of the farm while Ty and Kai spotted a deer crossing the picturesque river on the way down on Sunday morning.

The first two hazards added off chamber corners into long climb sections, scary stuff and no easy easing into the comp this weekend. However all the skilled pilots got as far as they could without incident except for Alan who broke a CV joint straight off in hazard 1 and retreated to the pits to make a replacement.  To make the job harder Alan and Shona spoke in French while they did it!

Hazard three then was a more straightforward descent and climb out through a bumpy slope which Judith avoided cross axling and got the Suzuki up to 20 points really well.  Brendan followed and punched the Pajero through the zeros but landed with a thud and crack as he broke another tie rod.  

At which point the knock-kneed Mitsi (see pic. Ed) was dragged to the side and he was on the phone trying to find a replacement there and then.  There were ideas of finding the closest Repco but in the end ever reliable Tracey bought a spare assembly from home and met Brendon in Hunterville.  

Repairs were made on Saturday, including pulling a swede out of the undercarriage and Brendan was able to resume and catch up on his missed hazards.

House-proud 

Ty and Kai were extremely house proud of their campsite: tent, dining area and decorated with potted flax plants.  I even saw Ty polishing the little pup tent on Sunday morning.   It was a convivial evening around camp looking at Central Zone matters with hope for good things coming up in the near future.  

I was feeling good in second place behind Dave McGinnity at close of play on Saturday and fastest Speed section time completely forgetting that Hintzy had blown a CV joint late in the day but carried on in three wheel drive until he got back to the pits and repaired it before Day two.  

Sunday started foggy again but became hot and dry, perfect for another seven hazards.  Lucky number 13 was a difficult looking hazard with a short climb into a tight corner along a wall of death into another rutted turn into an easy loop and finishing over a sharp gap. Consequently only three people got under 40 points.  

Mark Watchorn managed the tight turn that defeated most people and then impossibly saved a certain roll over by who knows what method to finally be stopped at the final gap.  No such problems for the Hintzs with Dave and Judith both getting a clean score in two completely different types of vehicle, a Class 4 (super modified) Nissan and a Class 1 (Standard) Suzuki.

The last hazard of the weekend was a speed section that was long and bumpy with two tight squeezes, the first between two boulders and the second between two fallen tree trunks.  The second wrapped up with no mechanical issues and a lot of happy campers, the happiest being Brendan Watchorn who not only became the only person to have entered every single round of the Club Truck Challenge, some 35 events over the last eight years, even better he took the overall win for the weekend.  

We look forward to the next round in the Wairarapa and another different winner, perhaps one of our keen woman, who are all looking good!

Event information, entry forms and series rules are on www.czctc.org.nz or post a question on the NZFWDA forum "Events" page.

Selected results

To read the full story in the May 2019 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (April 22) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.