Story by Vicky Newport, photos by Vicky & Megan Newport

Alexandra was the venue, the Shotover 4WD Club the hosts,  and the event on May 19^th and 20^th kicking off the popular annual Mainland Superwinch Series a month earlier than in past years. 

Despite that on the Friday night we got rain, wind and it was freezing and on Saturday we woke up to see the trucks had a dusting of snow on them.  The day started out a bit bleak too, though as the morning went on the blue skies came through and it warmed up.

Night stages

Drivers’ briefing was held about 6.30pm then the teams were sent off to the three night stages at 6.45pm.  It was cold, windy and wet so I was hoping this wouldn’t take long, however with 24 teams (19 Outlaw, 5 Clubman) entered it was a distinct possibility and I really felt for those in trucks without doors, windows or heaters.

The first of the teams were finished at around 7.45pm (lucky I was with one of them) but the last were out to around 10.00pm.

Saturday

Alexandra is a great place to start the season off, with not too many hills but enough bogs to test your winches out in. Drivers also got to show off their skills. A sure sign of the popularity of the sport right now is that we 10 new trucks doing their first ever Mainland Superwinch Challenge event. Some were new to the series, there were a couple of ex-trials trucks, plus a couple of new builds. 

Stage cut off was 5.00pm with prize giving on Saturday night at a local hotel.

Once all day stages had finished we all headed to the local hotel and waited for prize giving. What a great event, a lot of work goes into organising these.  Second year in Alexandra so hopefully we will be back next year.

Round 2 is to be held in Maruia 16-17 June, hosted by the Top of the South clubs.  

Superwinch is back on board as the main sponsor for 2017. A big thanks to Superwinch for the awesome selection of prizes which included a Superwinch Tiger Shark 9.5lb.

Ends

2017 MAINLAND SUPERWINCH CHALLENGE

RND 1 ALEXANDRA MAY 19-20

RESULTS

OUTLAW  CLASS

CLUBMAN  CLASS

To read every story in the July 2017 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (June 16) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.