Rock Racing

[NAILER341]

here are a couple of pics from this weekend. i didnt get the opertunity to take many pictyures of our small group playing on the rocks, but there are plenty of the craziness in the rock racing competition.











it seems some of the spotters didnt think much of their hands.

it was a lot of fun watching these guys race through the rocks. the most entertaining were the yellow jeep, which was just not quite prepared for the challenge.. i think the driver got a bit flustered, and never really recovered from it.
that jeep wound up with quite a bit of damage at the end of it all.

my favorite by far is the little cj2a or whatever that is with the dog spotter. if he did'nt win the time, he certainly should have gotten some style points for having that dog spot him through a nearly flawless run through the trail.

enjoy the rest of the pictures, which can be found HERE

[Jeff Weston]

Nice pics!

What trail did you guys end up doing on Saturday? I'm really frustrated that I finally said screw it to work and got out there only to trash my back on the first day. Thanks for the help loading the heavy stuff back into the Jeep for me ... and thanks to my wife for having to get up early before I went to work and putting my shoes and socks on for me.

[NAILER341]

Originally posted by Jeff Weston
Nice pics!

What trail did you guys end up doing on Saturday? I'm really frustrated that I finally said screw it to work and got out there only to trash my back on the first day. Thanks for the help loading the heavy stuff back into the Jeep for me ... and thanks to my wife for having to get up early before I went to work and putting my shoes and socks on for me.

we tried to do jack, but robert had a failure of some sort that ended the trail pretty quickly. it is eiteher a ring gear or a locker in his 30.

we then went over to watch the craziness for a few hours.. then went on to run claw. before starting the trail, matt realized he had a problem with his 30 that prevented him from running as well.
brian led myself and blaine on a great 1 hour run up claw hammer.
good times!
i hope your back straightens itself out quickly.

[chef]

Heard the fastest run was under 4 minutes...Insane

too bad about the 30's and jeff's back.

[Paradiddle]

Originally posted by chef
Heard the fastest run was under 4 minutes...Insane

too bad about the 30's and jeff's back.

4 minutes start of Sledge to the mailbox? That is really fast.

Sorry to hear about your back Jeff - that sucks. Sorry to hear about the axle troubles as well.

Jeff

[TheRedlines]

The race was a great time. Kevin (yellow heep) was making fairly good time with the hammer down until he ran into a little problem (a boulder about the size of his heep) The crowd was going wild as he gave more gas. While winching to get around that rock he blew up his front passenger hub. After that he pushed on to the finsh of the first half. The second half was quite a bit slower for him. The fall at the plaque was a serious pain. While trying to winch up the fall he pull a huge rock up in to the way. The new placement of this rock was a huge new obsticle for them and the rest of the racers. Up and around the corner, almost to the end, his warn winch plate and delrin fairlead started to eat up his winchline. The delrin would flex, allowing the line to rub on the sharp edge of his winchplate and would cut right through the line. It was also at this point that he snapped his passenger rear axle at the inner splines. Once he was yanked to the mailbox, we pulled both axles to smack out the splined chuck and throw in a spare only to find he had an ARB with a large pin in the way. So she was thrown back together as she was before to be yanked and winched the rest of the way out by the recovery team. During this last section he lost his driver side rear axle and had only one wheel drive. About half way up the sand escape route they were met by three more of our rigs after we recieved radio contact with them saying they needed more help. The rest of the trip back to camp was uneventful. The rig is now getting a full lookover to find what else may have been hurt. This was his first time in a competition. I believe the excitement from the cheers of the crowd really got to him. He's learned quite a bit from this run and from what I've heard will be back to try again.

[Bruce David]

Anyone know where I can find a schedule of events, or at least when the next one is?

TIA

[Joe Dillard]

Dang - sorry to hear about all the equipment troubles. But hey, at least you guys were amongst friends.

Nice pics. The races sound exciting.

[Matt Pascoe]

Originally posted by Joe Dillard
Dang - sorry to hear about all the equipment troubles. But hey, at least you guys were amongst friends.

Nice pics. The races sound exciting.

I'm VERY happy about how the weekend went. My objective was to see if my new improvements would hold up. Not only did I find the week spot, I was able to catch it before it failed at a time that I'm sure would have been very inconvenient.

Now I know what to beef up.

Welding to cast is a bit more of a challenge then I expected. My welds just lifted right off, zero penetration into the cast:

[Iceman]

glad to hear y'all had fun, despite the little mishaps

[The Freak]

What is your plan now?

Were you able to drive it home?
(I don't know if you have a trailer...)

I guess my suggestion to "box" that wouldnt have done any good there (no offense intended). I know that a Bluetorch's kit is basically just like yours, only that one doesnt tie in where yours broke.

Therefore, I ask this: Are those weld points even necessary? I was considering using a similar design on my front axle, but now I dont know what to think.
Do you think it was just your welding technique?

Good luck getting that back together.
Chris

[Matt Pascoe]

Originally posted by The Freak
What is your plan now?

Were you able to drive it home?
(I don't know if you have a trailer...)

I guess my suggestion to "box" that wouldnt have done any good there (no offense intended). I know that a Bluetorch's kit is basically just like yours, only that one doesnt tie in where yours broke.

Therefore, I ask this: Are those weld points even necessary? I was considering using a similar design on my front axle, but now I dont know what to think.
Do you think it was just your welding technique?

Good luck getting that back together.
Chris

I was able to drive it back to camp with no probs. From there I put it on my trailer for the trip home.

I did reinforce the truss a bit more than the original pics, I boxed in the front left side and added a gusset straight down from the left tab. I think that if my welds had been better the "boxing" that I did would have been adequate. My welds unfortunately did not penetrate at all into the cast and just lifted up.

I think the BTF truss is 3/8" material and it has a row of bolts that bolt it to a custom diff cover. That takes the place of the center welds that I did.

I'm not 100% sure what I will do to make my truss bomb proof. I do know that I won't be doing the welding