The final round of the 2021 CZ Club Truck Challenge (CTC) drew a bumper group of competitors back to the Hintzs’ farm near Taihape in May. Andree Gee has the story.

We had a good crew from Wairarapa 4WD club including some Rockstar National 4x4 Trials competitors in current K class champions Brent and Mike Ward, and Kevin “the Hulk” Galbraith, who along with Gary pegged out the hazards. Thanks guys, even if they spent the night before trying to psych out the other competitors about how hard the hazards were going to be.

High fliers

The last hazard of the season was a speed section with a couple of rolling hills that turned into two good launch ramps for some outstanding jumps. Mike Ward scored the highest and longest flight followed by the heaviest landing, hell yeah for gunning it in the V8. Dave Smithson spent the day sending it in the poor old Pajero until it cried enough on the second to last hazard breaking a CV joint. Perfect, he was able to do the Speed section in 2WD and fly high too. Earlier in the day the Itsi Bitsi (Mitsi) fell over after teetering on two wheels for a while giving Dave some work to do over the winter layoff.

We had a good day of well-designed hazards that had a different design signature, longer than in the past, with well-placed pegs that made you work for the score. The scoring points were placed just beyond where your wheels would land and needed the driver to give it a red hot go; but then used turns to stop carrying momentum through the hazard.

You needed to plan the ideal line and carefully push your wagon at just the right speed; instead most people just ‘sent it.’ Less well-prepared vehicles repay “sending it” by just bouncing off the terrain and losing all of your forward momentum and motion.

Tech to the rescue!

After last month’s missive I noticed that the Smithsons had rear facing LED lightbars fitted to their Pajeros to enhance their 4WD chops, hard to tell if that worked out for them. Peter and Shirley Pope had the modern technology of their Jeep Wrangler JK figured out and enjoyed the automatic traction control fitted to it. It allowed them to keep moving through hazards at a steady pace without needing to “send it” and head home with their wagon still in immaculate condition.

Thanks to the efforts of Mark, Raewyn and Brendan Watchorn, the CTC continues to be popular and in fact grow, holding four rounds this season. The series has gained some new regular competitors this year to give us a series worth competing for. I still think the CTC is the most achievable motorsport you can do, real competition and a vehicle that can still be used on the road.

The new season is due to start on 31 October – see you there.

If you are interested you can look at the rules at www.sporty.co.nz/czctc