Challenge '98

Prof' Pinz' (Peter Farrer) writes:
Well, the '98 Challenge has been run and won, but not by us. I had a great time and was thoroughly "tired:-)" when I got home, so much so that I fell asleep in the chair when I sat down to have a cuppa. We set of at 7.00am Saturday morning for Noojee (a small country town about an hour and a half's drive from Melbourne) where this year's Challenge was to start. We didn't get flagged-off till almost 12.00 midday due to a National Dirt-Bike Enduro competition which was also been held in the area, and the organisers felt that the combination of heavy 4WD's and bikes with the element of dust and speed thrown in, was not a good combination. The dust... at times you could'nt see 3 metres in front of you! It's been really dry this year and the rivers in the area have almost stopped flowing in places, (but we still did a few good deep river crossings), so all the tracks are just covered in fine talcum powder like dust, called Bull-Dust [true].

Between the start and 1/4 way point we really cooking. We had no problems on the harder stages but we had to maintain a pretty fast speed to keep within the Checkpoints (between the start and 1/4 way) closing times. The Pinny's petty good on the flat and downhill sections, but trying to maintain 60-70 kph on the uphill sections is near impossible. These tracks are nearly all dirt and although they are rough and rutted you can still maintain a fairly high speed. I reckon we had both front wheels off the ground on a fair few occasions as we barrelled along.

After the 1/4 way the fun started. First off we broke a front check-strap. We dummied up a repair using a steel cable sling but we were behind time, so I sped up a bit. Some time later, we were flying along a ridge track when suddenly, at the same time that John (the 3rd member of our party) yelled out STOP, I felt the brake pedal go to the floor.

What happened? ... Well obviously at that stage the normal harmonious relationship between all 6 wheels on the vehicle had broken down and one member had decided to leave.
- 4wd.sofcom.com/Steyr/Steyr.html
In actual fact the centre-right wheel nuts had obviously worked loose (I didn't feel a thing) and the wheel took-off, then the brake drum did the same. Luckily the check-strap held the axle off the ground and the load-levelling suspension (right) setup transferred all the weight to the rear wheel, so no directional control was lost - lucky!

We found nearly all the parts in a 20 minute search (we didn't find 2 wheel nuts) then proceeded to put everything back together. The wheel brake cylinder had popped the seal but everything was OK and nothing (not even the wheel studs) were damaged. The tyre was flat as it had run straight into a tree (probably doing about 50kph) and had got staked on a protrusion, but apart from that, no damage. By the time we were running again I guess we had lost about 1 hour, maybe a bit longer so we decided to delete some of the easier sections and cut to the hard stage before the 1/2 way point. We didn't have any trouble on this section but earlier a Land Rover Discovery had been badly damaged (all the back and side was written off) after loosing traction, rolling back down the track and hitting a tree. It was sitting beside the track waiting to be recovered.

We reached the 1/2 way about 1.00am and after a slap-up dinner and an exercise we set off again. The second half wasn't as eventful as the first for us but by about 6.00am I was starting to get pretty tired. The dust was still bad and everybody reckoned I'd aged about 10 years ... my hair and beard were white from the dust. We did have an interesting creek crossing to do about 3.00 am, the entrance to the creek was about a metre drop (to the top of the water) straight into the water, problem was it was only on one side, and you had to come into it on an angle, so as the right hand front of the vehicle dropped of the rut the rear left wheel lifted, then the rear right. (about a metre I'm told) Tony Corke's Suzuki (he was in it in his Sierra) has driving lights fitted on top of the bull-bar above the bonnet line and he tells me they went underwater when he dropped into the creek.

We pulled into 3/4 way point about 6.00am at which time we were told the event had been shortened - the run to the finish was uneventful apart from the fact that I was getting pretty tired and had to stop a few times for drinks etc to help keep me awake. The event wrapped up at the finish about mid-day.

Facts: There were 50 vehicles entered. It appears up to 14 failed to finish due to damage/breakages. (I understand 2 had to be taken out on flat-top trucks). We did about 600km round trip about 350-400 off-road. We used about 250 litres of fuel. The results won't be published for some weeks and we'll be one of the last, but Tony C' completed the whole course with-in the time limit and Sue his navigator did an excellent job, so I wouldn't be surprised if his scores really well.

The whole event is brilliantly organised and all the checkpointers etc do an excellent job so I'm going in again next year, but next time I'm going to check the wheel nuts more closely!
[P.F. says that the three wheel nuts they did find were within a few metres of each other.]

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