| This event is for the toughest of the tough winch challenge competitors, so much so that it required the services of the G. Guy Motors’ workshop breakdown vehicle to go in to clear the course of a broken vehicle. Such was the effect of mud and breakages that there were no fellow competitors available to assist so it was up to former competitor Grant Guy to go to the rescue in the lwb Nissan workshop hack. Winch man Gerry Murray was not prepared to return to his former role; something about “retirement and union rules”, so that role fell upon clerk of the course Sam Baddeley. I am not sure why you would want to subject yourself to the mud, rain and cold for fun, but each year this is what the competitors in the Rotorua Winch Challenge face annually - and 2009 was more of the same. In its seventh year and despite the weather forecast being for storms across the country, most of the familiar faces from previous years were back, along with a couple of new ones. Fortunately the rain stayed away during the day and it only rained Saturday night and seemed to clear just as the Sunday stages were to start. This year there were two classes, the usual Challenge Class and the newly introduced Club Class, but all vehicles had to meet the same safety and mechanical standards as they were competing on the same tracks. Only two competitors in the Club Class met the requirements. The event started as in previous years with a couple of quick night stages on private property just on the outskirts of town. Both stages had hills that required winching but average times were around 4-6 minutes for each stage. The hard work came on Saturday with the infamous Mamaku Forest stages that are notorious for mud and water holes. This year the stages were back in the forest itself utilising tracks and stages from a couple of years ago. The mud holes seemed deeper and thanks to plentiful rain fall in the preceding weeks they were full. As expected the stages got harder as each vehicle passed so the competitors were split up into four groups, each getting to be the first on a particular stage to try to even things out. Stage three was a good example of how times increased as the day went on. Raana Horan managed to do the stage early on in the day in 10 mins 42 seconds while Ray Pinfold took a little over 34 minutes. But for Gene Batty in the Club Class he had the misfortune to blow the plastic tank off the top of his radiator and took over 44 minutes to finish. And Rueben Sanderson and Cameron Burrow, also in Club Class, earned the nickname of “Nana racing” as Rueben was not utilising the full potential of the Chevy V8 in the modified FJ40 and adopted a cautious approach just to ensure they finished the event. However they found out the hard way that when you have a PTO winch you have to keep the engine going to be able to winch. Unfortunately for them the engine stalled and the starter motor failed at the furthest point from the start/finish so they had to DNF, losing valuable points. Aaron Smythe is a hard charging competitor in these events and if he can stay off the trees and keep the Nissan together he usually does very well. However this was not to be his event. Aaron charged hard into a deep water hole at the end of stage six and the engine sucked up water with disastrous consequences. He finished the stage by winching the dead vehicle into the finish box and sixth place on the stage. After removing as much of the water from the cylinders as he could Aaron got the engine running again but it did not sound good, having suffered internal damage. He tried to continue but eventually the engine gave up and died completely, ending his event. Stage six was not so good for Tim Fensom and Mitch O’Brien either. It was yet another stage that took you through several bogs into the forest and then back again. The course was marked with arrows but they failed to see the signs that took competitors off the main track and diverted them around the big mud hole that they had winched through at the start. Winching through the mud hole a second time took longer than the diversion would have, but they were deemed to be outside the course and received a stage disqualification. This hurt them points wise and they eventually finished seventh overall. As for Layton Fletcher, he started the stage in two-wheel drive but still managed to get within 15 metres of where everyone else had to winch from before realising his error. They still went on to be seventh fastest on the stage with a time of 19.54 earning 75 valuable points. During the day pumps were operating for competitors to hose down their vehicles and it quickly became standard for the vehicles to be hosed down to remove mud from the radiators, alternators and so on before continuing to the next stage. |
By the end of the day’s stages three vehicles had retired with mechanical problems while many others were surviving purely on the hard work and dedication of their support crews.
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