Story and photos by Vicky Newport

So that’s it then the 2018 Season is all done; meaning five rounds of competitive challenges, and some great teams featuring all sorts of different combinations (fathers/sons, partners, friends and  work colleagues etc, etc).  

Round Five, the final round of the 2018 Superwinch Mainland Challenge was held in in Dunedin in mid-October.  We had 20 entries, 17 series entries and three non-series.  It was cold and light snow  actually fell on the Friday night, and a cold wind blew on  Saturday. Though, as the locals helpfully pointed out, it wasn’t raining and the sun was out!

Teams from all over the South Island started arriving on site mid arvo Friday with most dropping their trucks off and heading to Dunedin to sort accommodation. By 4.00pm most were back for their vehicle checks and the annual series AGM, at which I am pleased to advise that the current committee are  to stand in for another year, meaning Malcolm Wells as President, Rick Crosbie as vice president and myself (Vicky Newport) as secretary.

Night moves

AT 7.30pm a quick drivers brief was held after which the teams lined up and by 8.00pm they were gone, with four stages to complete.  Because it was cold and sleety it wasn't a very good night for us to be hanging around watching night stages so we (myself, Megan and wee Archie) headed back to our motel in Dunedin with Buzz for a warmer night in front of tele.

By 10:30pm our (Nelson) teams arrived back at the motel with reports of a couple of breakages.  Adam Wardle had been working on his Hi-Lux right up to 4.00am on Friday morning getting ready and unfortunately the factory CV they put in at last minute only lasted the night  stages.

Luckily enough they were able to borrow one off a fellow competitor and mate and were ready for Saturday morning.  Tony O’Donnell  and Russel Lodder from Nelson DNFed their first night stage and were hoping to get parts for the diff in Dunedin on Saturday morning but that didn’t  happen.  Real bad luck for these guys.  Good sports they are they stayed Saturday and cheered others on. 

Come Saturday morning and the teams were a bit unsure of start times but most were on site around 9.00am and it was great to see a few of our teams who weren’t competing this round step up and marshal some stages.  Special thanks to Mike Holmes and Richard Gifford, all the way from Blenheim. 

Clubman battle

The two teams left in Clubman (both from Central Otago) battled it out all day. Ben Simmons won six of the 14 stages they competed in but DNFed four of the others. Lockie/Jake won the other stage but DNFed six of the others, the high number of DNFs maybe showing that some of the stages were a wee bit hard for a club class truck; or maybe the guys just needed a bit more time. 

The end result was that Ben/David claimed he round win in the Clubman class  with 1025 points.  Second went to Lockie/Jake with 790 points and third to Tony /Russell with 20 points. 

 Open up

Open Class  had seven entries, all Series regulars at that. This was Richard Robb’s home ground and first round of the season for him, and did well  to get third place.

Nathan Hammond and Brock Welsh have been going head to head all season but with Brock already winning four of the five class rounds he decided to step up to Outlaw this round which left Nathan battling Rick and Brian  for first place in this round. 

This would also decide the second position in the Series. To Nathan and Daniel’s great delight and hard work this round they came away with the class win.

With Adam Wardle breaking a CV on the night stages it was good to see him back in the running for day stages.  It was Nathan who gave him a CV to use on the condition if he needed it he would have to return it!  Adam and Josh came in at fourth place.

Rowan had a new co-driver for this round, Chris Baird, who co-drove for Neil Albury a couple of seasons ago. However their first day stage didn’t quite go to plan.  Half way through the stage they slipped and rolled one and half times. 

They recovered from that but didn’t manage to finish the stage on time. Nevertheless Rowan and Chris came fifth for the round.  Greg and son Callum in the Suzuki and still on 33" tyres struggled with a few stages, and getting three DNFs wasn’t much fun for them.  The tracks in Dunedin are pretty rutty now so the small tyres struggle. Greg and Callum got seventh.

Rick Crosbie and co-driver Brian were  happy men, however, managing to keep the Jeep going and complete all 15 stages without a DNF.  A much better round for them and they were smiling with second place.  Steve and son Matt got a couple of good times during the round with a couple of seconds but due to two DNfs and  two DNSs they ended up in sixth place. 

The placings in this round really juggled up the final Series results.

Out there

Outlaw Class boasted 10 teams, but three weren’t getting scored in the final Series results.  Alistair Robbie and Ben Miller, both from Southland,  were just doing this round, while as I have already mentioned, Brock Welsh and co-driver Nick Scales were stepping up from Open. Watching them at Dunedin made me think maybe we will see Brock step up to Outlaw next season, after-all winning five of the 15 stages wasn’t too bad an effort. 

Pushing the Jeep at the end of the day and not enough time to fix the problem before the 4.30pm cut-off Brock decided to take the risk and headed into the final stage and give it a go......a gamble which paid off with third place for the round.

With three wins and a second place from their previous four starts this year, Scotty Newport and James Keys were series winners in waiting but always out for a challenge they weren’t keen to drop the ball at the final hurdle!

Though only winning three of the stages they kept good average times on the others, meaning they kept their points up in the top three times most of the day. Not that it was a cake walk by any means, however.

At one point Scotty put the Jeep up on a nice angle with two wheels off the ground; which caused the auto to play up so thinking they had stuffed that one up they called a DNF.  To their horror - or relief, depending who you talked to  - when driving out of the stage it came right again. 

As if that wasn’t enough, in their next stage Scotty took James’ advice on a line which didn’t work out for them and the Jeep ended up on its side. While they recovered and finished that stage in time, on their second to last one (where Mike Holmes just happened to be marshalling) they winched through the last bog, but managed to bend their ground anchor. 

With not much time left to cut off (4:30pm) they fixed it as best they could and headed to their last stage.  Getting that stage done gave them second place for the day.

Locals Mike McCarthy and Tom Hayes broke their buggy after eight stages, leaving them in eighth place. Nick Aymes didn’t start any night stages but did four day stages only to DNF the fourth and was out for the day resulting in 10th place.

The three Wellington teams, all have competed all five rounds this season, ended up line-astern in fourth, fifth and sixth positions, a good effort from all involved.

Robin Scaife and Paul Kelly, in the buggy, competed all 15 stages, with no DNFs and went home with fourth place.  Stan Goodman and Chris Golding had two DNFs for the day and got fifth place.  Lance Goodman and Danny Richards had two DNFs and one DNS but still went home with sixth place.

 Andy Reeves and Arron Eades in the Moon Buggy (as it has been nick-named) got through 13 of the 15 needed stages close to cut off at 4.30pm.  The organisers decided to  let them and a couple of other teams into  stages after cut off.   If this had not happened the final results would have been a lot different for both Open and Outlaw Classes.  Andy and Arron came first for the Round, the Moon Buggy giving a good display in one of the boggy stages going right up in the air but luckily landing back (upon re-entry!!Ed) down on its wheels and not the roof.     

Looking forward

It’s been a huge season, with five rounds (Maruia, Alexandra, Christchurch, Nelson and Dunedin) and of the 34 Series entries eight teams did all five of them.  If you completed all five Rounds the worst round was to be dropt from the final score. 

If anything the 2019 Season is promising to be even bigger. At present we are looking at six Rounds ( Dunedin, Blenheim, Alexandra, Timaru, Nelson and Christchurch) with dates to be out before Christmas. If you require more information email Vicky on mainlandwinching@gmail.com  

Thanks to one and all!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my stories on the 2018 Season.  Thanks to all our supporters, marshals, organisers, land owners, competitors, crew, NZ4WD mag, Lex Bloomfield (video), RYCO 24-7 (series trophies) and to Megan our scorer.  Without any of these people we wouldn’t have a Winch Challenge.  Remember we are not out there racing,  we are competing in a Winch Challenge. 

The last person I would like to thank is our sponsor Paul from SUPERWINCH .  Thanks for believing in the "Mainland Winch Challenge".   Superwinch has provide prizes to each round,  we have given away six Talon Superwinches this season along with compressors, winch rope, light bars, pulley blocks, dampners etc.  Superwinch also gave us an extra Superwinch EXP Series winch to give away at the final round.  Congrats to Lance Goodman from Wellington for winning this.

  2018 Rnd 5/Series

UND 5  RESULTS

SERIES  RESULTS 2018

To read the full story in the December 2018 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (November 17) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.