By Vicky Newport
Alexandra proved a perfect spot for the opening round of this year’s Mainland Superwinch Challenge over the June 10-11 weekend. The venue was an awesome spot basically right in the middle of Alexandra with most stages running alongside the Clutha River.
All up we had 19 teams, 17 pre-entered and two signing up on the day. They came from all over, with six teams from Christchurch, three each from Nelson and Blenheim, two each from Queenstown and Auckland, and one each from Balclutha, Dunedin and Timaru.
Open had three teams, Outlaw our biggest field in a few years with 11 teams, and Clubman and Clubman-B had decided they would join forces to became one class with five teams for the round.
It was great to see so many new teams plus a mix of existing ones. We have a big mix this year with some old co-drivers now with their own trucks, and old drivers back with new co-drivers.
Outside the box
I don’t think we could have picked a better place to host the first round of this year’s series than Alexandra either. There was all sorts of winching: hard, easy, straightforward and some where you had to think outside the box…..like ground anchoring in shingle for example.
There was also mud and a bit of water but not too bad considering the council had decided to let some water out of the dam just up the road the night before.
Bert from the Shotover 4WD Club had spent weeks on these stages. He, the Central Otago 4WD Club and his team had put together 13 stages but on Saturday morning they pulled one due to the rise in water. Sav was down that way on holiday and ended up with the head marshal’s job so he hasn’t quite retired from the sport yet.
Warm & dry!
The big surprise was how warm it was. Having paid attention to the weather forecasts for the area in the weeks before everyone was pretty well wrapped up in thermals, gloves, hats etc but I can assure you they all soon came off.
Three night stages were being run on shingle or pea gravel with no mud, water etc. In theory there wasn’t meant to be any winching but a couple of teams had to do a wee bit. Out of 19 teams we only had two DNFs and one DNS, a really good run.
Come Saturday and marshals’ briefing was called at 8:30am. This year we have Scotty Newport doing part of the briefing at each event, running through some safety rules regarding winching and ground anchoring as well as what the marshals need to look out for.
By having all marshals and co-drivers together at this briefing everyone should be on the same page and hopefully pick up a few safety tips along the way.
It was then the time for the drivers to have their briefing and be given their start stage. We still had all 19 competitors in for the day’s challenges. I tagged along with Sav for the day so didn’t get to see everyone driving. Because I missed a bit of the action I’ve asked some of the competitors what their thoughts were on Round 1.
Driver quotes
Malcolm/Dave (Timaru) Open: Had a good day up till our last stage where I was going OK until we lost drive to the front wheels! Turns out we had blown the right hand freewheeling hub off and the drive shaft ripped the locker line off so we had a fun time get out in 2WD.
Scotty/Megan (Nelson) Outlaw: No issues, Jeep and Superwinch ran extremely well for their first outing. First time co-driver Megan didn’t do too bad either, though she did let out a squeal when she ended up in water nearly to her waist!
Mike/Sheryl (Blenheim) Outlaw: It was great to go to a new venue. Driving on pea gravel was different. What did we break? Let’s see….front diff, five teeth off it. Plus a winch rope. Other than that a good weekend.
Richard/Matheus (Queenstown) Outlaw: Alex was a lot of fun. First time competing which was interesting. Truck didn't hold up as long as we wanted with the crank angle sensor buggered out, and the main belt snapping and wrapping around the pulley.
Daimeon/Kerry (ChCh) Outlaw: This was my first winch comp and new truck build had never been off-road till Alex but yes had fun and broke a few things. Bent front diff on the night stages and then first day stage blew the rear diff. Managed to find one in town which we welded up and got back running till the fuel pump blocked. Got that sorted and back for a few more stages then snapped front and rear winch ropes.
Peter/Nathan (Manukau) Outlaw: After numerous phone calls from different South Islanders my winch man and I decided to head south. After an engine change and a lot of late nights the Jeep was ready. We rocked up as first on stage one expecting a nice night drive, however the stage was on pea metal and sand and we had to get the SHOE down to get around!
Saturday we got stuck into the nine day stages and did a second and third fastest on two stages. The rest we were OK but not flash. On the bright side we had no DNFs and did not break anything. All in all, we had a great time, at a great event, and a great location.
Gregg/Callum (Balclutha) Clubman: We had a couple of issues, I managed to smash the clutch cylinder off the bell housing on our first stage in the morning, but finished stage with no clutch. After a mad search around Alex we found Steve at Kiwi Undercar, who had a cylinder that was near enough for us to finish the day. But on our second to last stage (in one of the big waterholes on 7) the clutch died again. Callum ran about a km up the hill to the pits to get clutch fluid, only to find the tow truck locked and keys in the Zuk so it was back down the hill to get the keys and back to the truck for the fluid, filled Zuki and carried on to finish stage in 27.55 mins. We ended up doing Stage 7 at the end of the day and the water in the ruts in the waterholes was over my winchman’s belly button.
I think that about sums it up for Alexandra. It was a great first round and we hope they will have us back next year.
The next round (of two full days) is to be held in Cust north-west of Christchurch. See our Facebook page, Mainland 4WD Winching, for full round and series’ results. Thanks to our sponsor Superwinch - Traxion.
Ends
RESULTS
2016 SUPERWINCH MAINLAND WINCH CHALLENGE RND 1
Clubman/Clubman-B combined Class
- Neil and Chris (Nelson) 1164 pts
- Gregg and Callum (Balclutha 1060 pts
- Trev and Grant (Blenheim) 1000 pts
Open Class
- Malcolm and Dave (Timaru) 1160 pts
- Rowan and Chad (Nelson) 1090 pts
- Michael and Steve (ChCh) 455 pts
Outlaw Class
- Rick and Brian (ChCh) 1137 pts
- Scotty and Megan (Nelson) 1071 pts
- Mike and Sheryl (Blenheim) 1067 pts
Superwinch draw
Scotty Newport (Nelson)
