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West Oz Challenge Race Report
The Flat Out off road
racing team has just completed the West Oz Challenge held at the
MOA-Murchison Off-road Adventure Park
http://www.murchisonoffroadadventures.com.au/. Our 6.0lt 80 Series
stayed in the shed for this event as this was a winch challenge comprising
of rock walls, washouts, water crossing, riverbed runs, mud runs and a winch
wall. The old MWB 73 series was returned to its original winch challenge
truck state prior to off road racing the ute as #866 back in 2004/5.
As we arrived mid
afternoon at MOA we were amazed at how such a scenic place existed about
100kms northeast of the Kalbarri turn off. This natural playground was to
be the first CCDA sanctioned winch challenge event in WA, we had to be part
of it!
While the old 73
Series cruiser is a tough and reliable old girl it didn’t get much prep time
due to Hyden 450 two weeks previous. This event had about 14 Special
Stages, with the objective being to complete the stage in the shortest time
with the least penalties.
There was a good mix
of competitors with different comp experience and included mainly
Landcruisers and Patrols. We had a good run being in the top 5 for most
stages until we broke a rear axle and front CV on a rock wall. This stage
was tough, natural rock walls at about 45 degrees, no competitor completed
the whole stage. We had an issue with selecting low range, and with time
ticking away decided to do it in high, with the diffs locked the axle and CV
did not appreciate bouncing over large rocks in first high on the rev
limiter! We manage to gain some points for the stage after limping to the
finish.
Mark Murray (navi for
the weekend) and I raced back to the pit/camp area and repaired the car,
Mark started on the CV as we had a spare, and I sorted the rear axle. The
only problem was we did not have a spare rear short axle, so we put our
heads together and tried some bush mechanics, weld it up! As it broke at
the drive plate, I oxy cut a square hole in the flange and also squared off
the axle to fit in the square hole, then welded it up. By the time I did
this Mark was done with the CV, we had lost about an hour so we raced off to
meet up at the next stage.
This caused us to drop
one stage so we tried to make up lost time without loading up the rear axle
too much, which was not easy.
We had a good run on
the remaining stages with the winch wall being the best fun, although I made
some silly mistakes in all the excitement of climbing the vertical sand
wall. After the last stage we were wondering why it was hard work to keep
the MWB on the track, the repaired axle had let go again but we made it.
We had a ball and
finished up 4th outright, with Dave Bantick in his extra cab 80
Series coming in at a well deserved first place, thanks Mark and all the
crew that came up and helped out.
Adrian
www.westozchallenge.com.au
and all the organisers did a great job to get this event off the ground,
next year it will be bigger and better, so get your 4WDs ready, more
competitors are needed to make this event even better
Frank
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