MUB BULLS and MUSIC

[mike]

Onya luke!! great effort in what sounds like tricky conditions!

[Fieldsy]

top stuff luke
Team jungle bunny leading the charge from the north

[big red]

Mud Bulls and Music
Short course event at Landcruiser Mountain Park

My navie Chris and I arrived fairly early and started to get the patrol ready for competition.
We did not start off to well as the truck rolled off the jack before we even had the first wheel off!

After scouting round for some bigger rocks we chocked the wheels and finally fitted the 36”swampers then headed down to the gorge to check out the changes done to it.

The crowd really started to build up and there were hundreds of people lining the gorge waiting for the action to start with the weather perfect for competitors and spectators alike.

Peter Forsyth had designed a very long track and we only had the one stage to do with 16 competitors.

We thought our luck had changed as we drew position 16 so the track should be a lot easier by the time all the other competitors had fixed it up for us.

The last few trucks were placed into position to recover anyone who got stuck at certain obstacles along the track and we took up position in front of “Glenn’s Revenge”.

The first couple of trucks went through and then it started to sprinkle rain lightly, the next couple of trucks went through then it had a short downpour which muddied up the track a bit.

The next couple of trucks went through and then it poured down again and kept on raining so Peter came over and told us that four of five trucks had pulled out and we were up next but had the option of pulling out as well if we wanted to.

We started our run by driving over the edge of a black soil gully and stayed under control until the steeper section about half way down, at this point the truck turned in to a toboggan and we slid headfirst into a large boulder near the bottom of the gully and slammed the bullbar into it.

I tried to reverse back up the hill but the rear end just slid round sideways and we were sideways across the very steep hill and very slowly sliding sideways towards an even steeper section at the bottom of the gully.

Our only choice was to gingerly keep reversing towards a less steep section and hope it stayed upright as it slid over the edge … luckily it stayed on its wheels as it reached the bottom.

By this time Chris was completely soaked and the gully was now a flowing creek and the soil was completely soaked through making it extra slippery.

We had a bit of trouble turning the truck to get a run up at the hill on the other side of the gully but finally drove up just clipping a tree with the tray, at the top we had to do a three point turn and slid into another tree as we started to drive down the next slope at an angle across the slope.

As we got near the bottom of the gully again the truck once more did a toboggan impersonation and we slid pretty hard into another large rock which bent up the right hand mudguard and side rails and nearly stopped us but a quick stab on the throttle got us over the rock and into the rocky section at the base of the gorge.

We had to do a sharp right hand turn to get up the bank and didn’t make it so backed down into the gully again at a straighter line and had another go at full noise and just managed to make it to the left turn for the side slope track following the gully.

We crawled along beside the gully with just the occasional slip then powered down the bank and through the muddy slop to the other side and kept up it until we were up the bank and had to do a “U” turn collecting another tree and headed back towards the bottom of the gully again.

The gully had a deep hole with vertical sides here which had been filled in with logs before the start but was now quite deep again so the middle of the bullbar just slammed in to the opposite bank, we reversed back and had another couple of goes before changing position and hitting it at an angle then punching it through the bank and across but only made it half way up the impossibly slippery bank on the other side.

We were towed up to the top as you were only allowed one go so as not to damage the bank too much.

We turned hard left and dropped down over a slippery side slope with a tree positioned in the way near the bottom so I kept hard left and as slow as I could then when we started to slide into it I accelerated a bit to get the cab past the tree before it hit and straightened up for the rest of the down hill into the bottom end of the main gorge.

We drove up the bottom of the gorge then turned up a side slope to the left crossing over a couple of large boulders but slid across and got the rear diff stuck on the rocks, we reversed back and chris moved a rock and we made it up.

We did a “U” turn and drove straight across getting a good run up for the straight slippery slope on the other side then did another “U” turn and lined up for a vertical drop beside a tree.

We crawled down the slope to the vertical drop under brakes and as the front went over I let it go and as the front hit the horizontal section at the bottom the rear wheels became airborne and veered to the left a bit but we then dropped over the next section of bank and it straightened up again O.K.

The next section was the log we had to drive along but the sloping rock in front of it was covered in mud which made it impossible to get lined up properly and the log was also covered in mud and we kept slipping off, we had a couple of goes but then had to go round it and lined up for “glen’s revenge”

We approached the large pile of rounded boulders covered in mud and slipped off our line half way up and did a lot of crunching and banging reversing back off then tried a slightly different line but could not stop slipping off so once again we had to go round.

The next section involved trying to drive up a short vertical bank but we could only get the front wheels over before the chassis hit and we had to go round this one too.

We crossed to the other side of the gorge then dropped in to the “dogs bowl” before crossing back across the gorge to the “double jump ups” and only just managed to get enough traction to get up then crossed back across the gorge again into the newly placed rocks along the deep cut out before the log wall.

As we entered the rocks we hit another tree on the corner then drove along the rocks until the end but got hung up, chris did a bit of rock stacking and we completed “pete’s rocks” and lined up for the log wall.

With a lot of mud on the logs the only way we could get up was to get the front wheels partly up then try and punch it up the rest and we finally did it on the third try then drove down to “glen’s rocks” and scraped our way over them before turning right for the log jam.

We bounced our way over the logs ok and lined up for the rock wall.

The rocks at the base of the log had been displaced so chris chucked them back in place as apparently the only one who had made it up was the V8 80 series when it was dry so we needed all the help we could get in the wet.

I used a bit of momentum to get the front over the log then nailed it and made it up over the logs but hit the bare dirt and lost traction, I didn’t want to go backwards so kept the throttle nailed to the firewall and tried steering left then right and blipping the clutch and everything else I could think of and we slowly inched our way to the top and the finish line … woohoo, what a rush!

I have no idea what position we came in, probably last but damn it was a heap of adrenalin filled fun !!

Shane [aka big red racing]

[eliteforce32]

well we had one lux roll..not beebee's, mate ok but the lux ita bit sick...al spottie gone two bllow outs and some panel damage but ok, slow roll, but have to agrree had a top 4 days at crusier park