NZ1 Winch Challenge 2014 was hosted by 4x4 Events in Christchurch over three days starting Friday night 14th November 2014.
During the week before the event venues and times had to be changed due to the organisers being unable to use land in the city. So ‘Plan B’ was put in place.
The NZ1 Challenge was opened up to four classes. There were three trucks in Clubman A (WoF, Rego, max tyres 840mm), four in Open (WoF, Rego, max tyres 930mm), seven trucks in Outlaw (anything goes, max tyres 930mm) and 11 in Ironman (no rego or WOF, max tyres 930mm).
After briefing for marshals and drivers the event’s first stages started at 7:15pm on Friday evening - not quite dark but I must say I enjoyed watching night stages during the twilight hours.
Six stages were set up for Saturday, all side by side again, and the same as Friday night, just marked out a bit differently. A winch wall soon became a compulsory winch wall. Fun and games was waiting for our guys that's for sure.
Sunday’s stages were marked out of a private property in Cust. Open and Outlaw were to start at 10:30am with Ironman and Clubman starting at 2:00pm.
Each truck would start two minutes apart and would run four laps. They could then pick the best three of the four.
Nine trucks started lap 1, lap 2 had seven trucks start, lap 3 we were down to five and finally lap 4 only had three trucks start and finish (Sav/Scotty, Rowan/Chad and Richard/Zeke).
The Ironman and Clubman Classes started on time at 2:00pm. By mid arvo parts of the track had cut up pretty bad so it was decided Ironman and Clubman would try and run three laps, picking the best two from them.
Prize giving that night was a full house. After dinner prize giving was done for the NZ1 Challenge followed by the Mainland Superwinch Challenge 2014.
RESULTS
NZ1 Challenge 2014
Outlaw Class
1. Sav Satherly/Scotty Newport 1180 pts
Open Class
1. Gordon Jacket/Chris Baird 1145 pts
Ironman Class
1. Leigh Kirby/Leigh Jones 930 pts
Clubman Class
1. Greg Craik/Matt Craig 1055 pts
Mainland Superwinch Challenge 2014
Outlaw Class
1. Sav Satherly/Scotty Newport 400 pts
Open Class
1. Gordon Jacket/Chris Baird 385 pts
Clubman Class
1. Greg Craik/Matt Craig 300pts
By Vicky Newport
For the full story see February 2015 issue of NZ4WD magazine
