A successful first event bodes well for the future of the Tararua Winch Challenge. Story & pic by Ashley Lucas.
It was his last stage on day two and the recently, imported from Europe, awe-inspiring LS powered Ultra 4 buggy of Brent Holden, roared up the steep slippery climb and reared up on the last step at the top and tipped sideways a little and settled there.
A short winch over the brow should see a reasonable time but once up the engine was silent and the bonnet up; the V8 had thrown the drive belt. It would be over eight minutes before they had the belt on and back to completing the stage in a time of 11 minutes 35 seconds, but how costly would that delay be to their final overall position?
This was the inaugural Tararua winch challenge held at the Turakina property of Dan Cowper and home of the Suzuki Extreme 4x4 events. Organised and run by members of the Tararua 4WD Club with Chris Simpson at the helm, it was held in the same gully and hills that the trials events are held.
It was a little worrying for a few winchmen when they realised it was open farm land and no trees as anchor points for the winch, but for most instances the Tararua team had put in anchor points at the top of the hills.
Wet ‘n wild buildup
Leading up to the weekend the weather had been wet and wild but the forecast was for improving conditions at least for Sunday. As it was, the only rain was later Saturday night after the night stages had finished and was gone again by first thing Sunday morning.
All-up there were 18 competitors in three classes from as far north as Auckland and even from Christchurch; there was even a former competitor from nearly 10 years ago in the form of Nigel Reid and Steve Franklin from Hawke’s Bay in Nigel’s familiar red Suzuki SJ413 in the challenge class.
A real plus was that all the stages were in sight of each other and within 400 metres or so of camp and being open ground was easy to see several stages at once.
The big long hill climb stages got worse during the day and got very slippery. A couple of them caught a few out when the hill was over 60 metres to the anchor point yet they only had 30 metres of rope on their winch.
Several times you would hear the call we need another three or five metres even after using their extensions. The co-drivers needed to be fit to get up and down those hills.
Challenge extras
There were even a couple of interesting ‘challenges’ that they had to complete. On Saturday one stage was a short drive up and around back to the start point when they had to jack up the vehicles using the hi-lift jack and base provided, remove a wheel, roll it around the vehicle and then refit before getting back in with seat belts on.
Of course those who were cunning enough to have battery rattle guns and only five wheel nuts had the quicker times.
The other stage was one of the night stages, where the team had to set up and demonstrate a reverse winch with the forward mounted winch. All the gear, pulley blocks shackles etc were provided along with a diagram of how to set it up with the instructions that all the gear had to be used. Some had a problem with what to do with the snig chain provided or incurred penalties for stepping over the rope once connected.
It didn’t take long for many of the vehicles to be unrecognisable due to the amount of mud that plastered them with a couple of stages, long mud bogs of varying depths. Stage 7 was either difficult or easy depending how you approached it with times ranging from 2m 19s by Brent Holden to 21m 11s for Scott Withers and Jessica Gunton who were competing in their first ever event in an ex trials Suzuki. For Luke Vitasovich it would be his first and last stage of the event ending with a DNF and irreparable mechanical issues.
Over she goes
The day didn’t start too well for Dean Currie and Ashley Goddard in the club class Nissan Safari when on Stage 2 Dean cut the corner and rode up the bank and tipped it over into the creek. While on its side, mud and water had entered through the raised air intake and once recovered out of the stage the pair had the job of stripping off the turbo to ensure water hadn’t got through. An hour or two and they were back playing catch up for the day but were plagued by hub and CV breakages.
There were several, for which this event was their very first winch competition and another such competitor was Rohan Hooker and Roi Huka from Manukau in Rohan’s Chev-powered Land Cruiser special. They managed a respectable 11th in class and 12th overall but were chosen by the marshals for a special recognition as being the mostly friendly competitors.
A pleasure to watch
They were always smiling and Rohan was more often out of the vehicle helping Roi with the winch rope and ground anchors. They were a real pleasure to watch and whilst their times weren’t the fastest, they never received a penalty point all weekend.
The only other competitors to go the full weekend without penalties were Stan Goodman and Chris Golding who were sitting in fourth place at the beginning of Day 2. Unfortunately disaster struck the Land Cruiser on stage 11 when in a determined effort to drive the hill; the rear drive shaft was left on the hill broken. After winching up to the top the full extent of the damage was apparent with the rear A-frame balljoint having broken apart allowing the diff to rotate, snapping the diff pinion allowing the drive shaft to fall off.
The organisers had arranged for the local Turakina School to fully cater meals for the competitors and marshals including a full cooked breakfasts, lunches and dinner on site. The marshals were well looked after with hot chips and hot dogs during the day as well.
On Saturday one stage was a long mud run in very sloppy mud and depending on how it was tackled required a couple of winches or one very long one. For Phil Barnard the mud and water got to his crank sensor on his Lexus V8 killing the engine and it refused to restart. They then chose to dead winch into the finish box with Steve Kingswell pushing behind to finish with a respectable time of 11m.19s.
Good entertainment
Stage 11 seemed to provide some good entertainment on Sunday, possibly because the start finish was right at the base camp. The challenge was on to actually drive the hill, especially after Mitch Caldow managed to do so in his GQ LWB Nissan but his time of 3m.27s was only good enough for second fastest on the stage. The stage win went to Robin Scaife and Paul Kelly with a time of 2m.47s even though they had to winch after only getting the front wheels to the top.
The scores were tallied and checked and we waited in anticipation to see if Brent Holden had done enough to hold onto his slender four point lead going into Day 2 or had that thrown drive belt on the last stage impacted on his chances? It didn’t take long to find out that it had.
Robin Scaife had just managed to edge ahead ending up with 1367, just seven points clear of Brent Holden on 1360 points. And since the points were so close penalties also played a part as well with Brent receiving four penalties over the weekend against Robin’s three. Again one less penalty would have made a difference.
After such a successful event, hopefully Tararua Club will hold another one next year.
Ends
2017 Tararua Winch Challenge
Results
Modified Class
1. Robyn Scaife and Paul Kelly 1367
2. Brent Holden and Aaron Blomfield 1360
3. Sam Thomsen and Alistar Duffy 1221
4. Phil Barnard and Steve Kingswell 1170
5. Tim Randall and Carol Le Gallais 1151
6=. Bernie Konz and Ant Tangye 1137
6=. Mike Inns and Neil McConnon 1137
8. Mitchell Caldow and Jamie Elms 1125
9. Peter Haigh/Nathen Phillips 1070
10. Stan Goodman and Chris Golding 934
Challenge Class
1. Nigel Reid and Steve Franklin 460
Club Class
1. Michael Thomsen and Tony Van Vroonhaven 1320
2. Dean Currie and Ashley Goddard 685
To read every story in the September 2017 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (August 18) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
