Tassie Challenge 2011Author: jawapro
Date: Tue 18/10/2011 12:00 AM
Hanging around on the side of a mountain - that’s how I spent my weekend!
I headed off to Mathinna to spectate at the annual Tassie Challenge - a 4WD navigation event. I’d never been before, so decided to give it a whirl. (just as a spectator - my car and I weren't up for the challenge)
The challenge had permission to camp at the Mathinna rec grounds - and boy oh boy - what an awesome collection of rigs they had there too!
Sadly the worst damage of the day occurred en route when a caravan rolled. Thankfully no one was hurt.
As I have a camera that looks halfway decent, I was appoint official photographer. That happens to me a bit - so I should probably try and get better at taking photos! Anyway - because I was now somewhat official, I was offered a seat with a group of Landrovers - so I spent the day in their company (thanks guys - I owe you a beer!)
Now, you might imagine that once the word ‘Go’ is uttered, everyone would race off to the hills. Well - that’s what I thought.
30 minutes later and the navigators were all plotting points into GPSs and computers. And we were the first team to finish! Gone are the days when all you needed was a map and a compass!
This octopus stand thing allowed the laptop to sit above the gear lever. Now I’ve seen the maping software in action - I can finally understand why people swear by it. Looks like there’s a netbook in my future…
It was up to each team to decide the order to tackle the waypoints in - and as we were first off the mark, we found we had clear track ahead of us. Well - clear and muddy.
That’s an impressive lift from the new Disco.
And the more classic looking Defender was having a decent go of things too.
Some of the waypoints required a bit of fancy footwork from the passengers as well as the vehicles.
I think I scraped about 10 leaches off my trousers after this particular expedition.
Due to the different strategies from the different teams, passing and meeting oncoming traffic was always a possibility.
Believe it or not - that’s the track!
We were going quite well - and THEN THINGS GOT INTERESTING!
Photos never do justice to how steep something is - but there’s a waypoint on that hill. The Defender and pilot decided to head up and claim it.
This was fine until it lost traction and ended up backing into a stump. Couldn’t drive forwards or backwards, and any attempt to do so just swung the nose further sideways and made it more likely to roll.
This photo captures the steepness quite well.
The Disco had a winch, but was still at the bottom of the hill, so decided to try and find the long way around to come and assist from the top.
Here comes the Disco to save the day.
The rescue begins.
We were able to winch the Disco off the stump and it found traction. It could go up the hill except the Disco was in the way. Neither wanted to back out, so the Disco made the very brave (or foolish) decision to turn around on the hillside.
Once again, that doesn’t look as steep as it was. The Disco thought it was steep too - it gave up part way around.
Not a good place for a breakdown. Nice view though.
That oil splay USED to be a CV joint.
Apparently a new Disco is unable to isolate that wheel at all, so had no drive whatsoever. You can’t manually lock the center diff or engage just the rear wheels or anything - so it was hamstruck facing sideways across the hill.
Eventually the organizers were contacted and sent a Landcrusier (oh the shame) to rescue both Landies. The Defender was guided down in reverse, and the Disco was slowly righted and lowered down a section at a time.
Although rather late (and therefore last on the scoreboard) the Landies arrive back at camp in time for the final presentations - where the top spot went to a team from Victoria! Next year the Tasmanians have vowed to reclaim their challenge.
For a full gallery of photos from the event, click here:
http://www.headlessmoron.com/images/blogged/tassie_challenge/2011/Comments: 1
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