The final round of the Central Zone Club Truck Challenge (CTC) was hosted by Ross Gregory and the Wairarapa 4WD Club in the Whangaehu Valley near Bideford on  Sunday April 28. Naturally, a good time was had by all. 

Yes, it was quite the coincidence that we held the second-to-last round of the CTC at a different Whangaehu Valley near Tangiwai.

Not to worry they were both great spots, thanks to Hugh Neal for the use of his land. I love days out with the Wairarapa 4WD Club; their roster of members has an amazing combination of old timers and keen next generation wheelers that few other clubs can match these days.

The current President, Hamish Wilson, has been around different 4WD clubs forever and involved with the NZFWDA since the early days. Hamish didn’t compete on this day but has in the past. He did the drivers’ briefing and marshalling during the event.

Gail Smith has been the club secretary for the last few years and also heavily involved in the Central Zone; in fact she encouraged me to start going to CZ meetings back in the day. A number of their Trials competitors set out the hazards the previous day and then chose to compete at Club Truck rather than go to watch a Trials event that was on in Wanganui on the same day.

So thanks Peter Pope, Kevin the Hulk, Brendan Watchorn, Peter Gray, Mike Wald, Brent and Mike Ward for your hard work. On the day a good number of the competitors were from the local club and part of new, er, demographic, of younger drivers all eager to drive, learn and compare different tyre designs and driving techniques.

Clean ‘n green

This day was also run from a new environmental sensitivity perspective with no single use plastic bags and no plastic drinking straws to endanger any sea turtles. Pretty sure I saw John Hintz tiptoeing between hazards as he spectated during the day as well.

The Wards, Brent and Mike, also made every drop of fuel count by insisting on running supercharged engines while the rest of us struggled with natural aspiration and uneconomical auto transmissions. 

I imagine we will be running catalytic convertors for next season, well for non-electric vehicles anyway. 

Grace Hintz, meanwhile, was excited as any kid in the school holidays, the fact we were wheeling didn’t seem that important to her, she has the team spirit to kick along Dad and Grandma to give their best.

Lock tight!

The hazards were deceptively hard and not at all straight forward with cunningly placed pegs ready to grab your wagon as you moved through the hazard. It had taken me all season to sort my suspension and locking differentials which had been extremely unreliable and were now just unreliable. 

Sadly, there were no straight hill climbs for me to take advantage of with my rebuilt locker; typically they were like hazard 10 with an bumpy entry to cause cross axling, into a 90 degree turn to start a hill climb with no speed or momentum.

Having to get around the tight turn negated any advantage that a Class 3 or 4 wagon with a locking diff could have, (and) while you could get across the bumps, the locked axles won’t help you turn. 

Chris got the ‘you beaut ute’ up to the top of hazard 7 but then bellied out at the top of a cliff and needed to be pulled off. That said, at lunchtime Steve Stewart was having a good day with no penalties on his score sheet. 

Two groups

We had split into two groups and had good trouble free runs through the day with maybe only two recoveries meaning that we finished very early in the afternoon. 

Dave McGinnity took the win for the day, striking another blow for Grey Power by beating Hintzy into second place some 40 points behind. While Matt Liang punted an unmodified class 1 Nissan Patrol to a good clean day with careful line picking and just one lurid wheel stand to finish 4th.

Ross shot off early saying he had to go home and rip his wife’s knickers off... because they were killing him! But he left Hamish to smooze with the visiting competitors as we packed up our pits for the last time this season. 

And so it is Aroha Nui until October in the Taranaki when the new season is due to start. As always event information, entry forms and series rules are on www.czctc.org.nz or post a question on the NZFWDA forum “Events” page.v