WE Rock - Round 1 - Rover Park 12/13 March

[83 lux]

Thats good to hear sam
Thank you

[v8zuki]

i understand you bob
but there is a difference between someone yelling advice from the side
as to someone following that team all the way on every obsticle
i know that every bodies expireience is different
but that is why we have compititions in the first place
if u dont make a few mistakes how will u ever know what u are truely capable of
sorry if any one takes offense to this but inmy opinion once you start
driving an obsticle u shoudnt recieve outside help from other
competitors

[83 lux]

like at Tuff Truck
180 points of outside assistaince

[Strange Rover]

Sam
Just maybe as a suggestion,can we fine tune the scoring.I know this was the 1st round,but i just could'nt understand why someone could drive a stage and get 38 points and not finish and someone that does not even attempt the stage only get 40 points.
And aslo the spotter penilties,needs to be looked at....
Just my opinion.
Jamie

The progress points came about when UROC started making longer courses that made lots of guys point out by hitting to many cones.

All its doing is seperating the guys that DNF near the start of the course to those that DNF near the end of the course. Its only a very small seperation (just a few points) but thats all thats really needed because you are only comparing the guys that DNFed and not comparing the DNFed guys to those that completed the course. The progress points are never there to allow sombody that DNFed a score that compares to sombody that completes the course. Basically if you DNF then your score is down the bottom with all the other DNFers.

Sombody who doesent attempt a stage gets 50.

Sam

[case]

Great weekend guys Had a ball watching some amazing driving. Here are a couple of pics.

[Strange Rover]

Antt, great video dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! keep up the top work! you make it look better then being there!!!

Only downsider as a rover park virgin was having to listen to BJ dribble shit all night! as he drank like a girl!

first time at a PUOSU kinda event and not bad stuff, good t osee very minimal winching!!!

maybe can i suggest the following:
1. screen the gates for yobos!!! those guys were genetically different, so maybe dna proof of being a normal human being, before being allowed entry.
2. throw some tunes on through the stereo/pa system to enetertain the crowd between stages and during recovery. maybe the drivers can have their own theme tunes upon entry to each stage??????
3. maybe a more impartial judge. as it seemed from the outside that more local people were perhaps given the benefit of 50/50 decisions?
Even if it is all sweet and fair an impartial marshall might appear more equal.
4. top commentating by adrian, sensational work! much better then the toss pots we hear down here in NSW! but at times there was some calls of "he is a foot off that cone", which obviously aids the driver?

in general, TOP STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wish other events ran as smoothly!

1. too hard
2. Will be doing this
3. The judge was as impartial as I could get. Only met Kent once before the weekend. (PM me if you have specific details)
4. we were allowing outside assistance - but more about this later.

Sam

[Strange Rover]

1/ If a spotter hits a cone with a strap, a rock or themselves that cone should be counted as hit. I think the only time it shouldn't count when a cone moves etc is when the vehicle dislodges a rock that then hits/moves the cone.

2/ I don't think there should be any stacking allowed in the non timed periods of attaching a safety strap. If that is to be the case it needs to be announced clearly to all competitors and i think a time limit or say 2 minutes should be imposed. It takes 10 seconds to attach a safety strap, if a team wants to stack i think the clock should keep on ticking.

3/ I don't know if i remember quite correctly but in the rules regarding spotters touching vehicles i think it says the vehicle must be completly stationary. There was only one warning [that i saw] given out over the weekend but there should have been quite a few more. We don't want a repeat of what happened to Toyfamily on pirate.

4/ I think the time keeper should announce [over the PA] 5 minutes and 2 minutes to go, both for the competitors and the crowd.

5/ Any spotters wearing shorts so tight they need help to put on should be penalised !!

6/ Myself and others were told over the weekend that it's perfectly in the rules for the team to recieve outside advice on any part of their time on a course. What's the point of even having a spotter if you've got 50 of them in the crowd ? I think the rules should be changed so that a warning is given for the first time a team takes action from outside advice being given, and a 10+/- point penalty for the second time.


Good work to everyone involved, thanks to Sam and all the Haultech guys for putting in the hours, Hans and Heidi for their beautiful property and the competitors for the great show.

Jeremy

1.penalised if they hit the cone themselves or the strap. In most (probably all) instances we were just giving warnings. The rules allow the cones to be hit by unstable rocks so if the spotter hits the cone with a 1mm rock (ie bit of dust) or a 100mm rock it doesent get counted. If you start counting these then how big a rock does it have to be before its counted - easier just to not count unstable rocks.

2.as soon as the safty line was attached the time was started again

3. Yep - I just gave warnings although could of penalised but we didnt

4. yep

5. yep

6.Now this was my mistake. I actually thought that outside assistance was allowed in the WE Rock rules (UROC changed their rules this year to not penalise outside assistance and I thought that WE Rock also did the same) I discussed this with Greg before the event started because he also thought it was allowed. The reason why UROC changed there rules to allow outside assistance is because its impossible to police so they just allow it openly. Outside assistance can be very subtle (like sombody pointing a finger or hand signal) or it can be given by sombody delibrately trying to get the team in trouble etc which is why UROC now allows it and is why I thought that WE Rock allowed it also.

Personally I prefer to not allow it and it was basically just my fark up that created the issue.

the WE Rock rule is

"Any spectator or team member assisting the spotter or driver while they are on the course could cause the competing team to be penalized or disqualified from that course as well as possibly causing their own expulsion from the event. Determination and investigation of this call will be made by the Marshall. Determinating factors will include but are not limited to: Whether the person or persons are: with the team in question, affiliated with another team, spectators only and have no affiliation. Other determining factors will include whether or not the Outside Assistance came into the course, assisted in the action of completing the course, and the use of multiple radio communication between teammates and pit crew.

Sportsmanship is the responsibility of everyone so be sure to warn your friends and teammates of the image they portray. This activity is called cheating and makes everyone look bad.

Team members consist of the Driver, Spotter, and vehicle; therefore only the driver and spotter can communicate through electronic communication devises while on the course."

Appologies to everybody that this mistake affected. It was my error totally that created this.

Sam

[Strange Rover]

what a top event CONGRATS TO EVERY ONE INVOLVED there are so many
its hard to know where to start
i only have one grievence to air....
the teams are made up of 1 driver 1 spotter not 1 driver &3spoters
who helped every one
we came to watch teams drive on their own abilities
not someone elses
dont get me wrong as i like it how every one helps each other out
with parts ,repairs ,advice &so on
but when the flag drops the bull stops including outside assistance
while on the course ,there should be penilties for anyteam
acting on any outside help
the people who make up the teams are some of the best driver
spotter combos around so i dont think its fair that we watch
10 different drivers &1 spotter because some people want to see how
there favourite team can handle it
im not trying to pick on any one but when this event hits the world stage
we will all look like we dont know what to do
you dont see v8 supercars telling each other how to drive a paticular
track so it should be the same with rockcrawling!!
every team should have the same chance to drive each course how they see it on there own abilities!!
sorry about the raving
rant over

Totally my screw up that created this issue. I actually carnt believe that I missed this ruling.

Wont happen again.

Sam

[Strange Rover]

it is very hard to penalise someone for acting on outside information, mainly because if the driver and spotter decided earlier in the run that on a certain ledge if they couldnt crawl it on the first attempt they would backup and punch it , and they crowd yells " drive it" , then it wouldnt be fair to penalise them. and yes i know, but specific directions were given, but you cant have one rule for one thing and not for others. As a spotter i communicate only between dave and me, most of the time i am so focussed i dont even notice anyone is cheering.

Totally my error Greg. You did what you were allowed to do on the day.

The issues that you raise here are 100% spot on and its just something that we will have to juggle.

Sam

[Strange Rover]

just another suggestion. would it be possible to run two tracks at the same time, or have one ready to go if there is another car stuck. cause as the tracks get harder, buggys are gonna get stuck in more difficult spots, taking longer to recover, and thus loosing crowd interest. if another car can run straight after a car gets stuck, it keeps the crowd involved

Yep this will happen.

I actually thought that we would get all the rigs through 4 courses per day one at a time and we didnt even do that - we only managed 3. If I had known this we would have run 2 courses at the same time.

Sam

[dieseldude]

I reckon the rules need fine tuning and that these rules be adhered to throughout the entire competition!

The judge and organisers should distance themselves from the competitors throughout the course of the competition.

I'll say one thing and leave it at that!!!

When we were TOLD to winch out of course 2 and not given the opportunity to atleast TRY to rectify the situation we were in, it was pathetic! After we were FORCED to winch out, our run was over. The Lockless monster then found itself in the same predicament in the exact same place on the course. I deem the fact that it was allowed to manouvre around and try other options very UNFAIR!!!

The way this was handled was very ordinary.

That's all I'll say.

[Strange Rover]

Heres a bit of a list on some of the stuff we didnt really worry about that we will start to enforce throught this year and will be totally enforced for the series next year.

vehicle specs, cage design, breathers on drivetrain components, vehicle fluid spillage, rigs touching banners, rigs touching trees, rigs touching bunting, rigs knocking over trees, spotter touching cones, spotters ropes touching cones, outside assistance, spotter strap length, driver order, spotters touching vehicles and there is probably more.

Sam

[1MadEngineer]

sam is right even small comments can be misconstrued as helping, it would be stupid to penalise for every comment. otherwise eg. the crowd yelling at tony to "give it some" which is a forgone conclusion would see him disqualified, now that would be stupid, or telling adrian to roll it!. . . . .

[DIRTY ROCK STAR]

Sam,

thanks for speedy reply.

you have been a busy typer today!

[Midget]

Sam

I don't mean to be picky,But i have to disagree with the point you made about giving warnings if a spotter hit a cone.
My spotter hit the finish gate cone on course 2 and we copped the penilty,which was fair enough,he made a mistake.
And i see no differance in the spotter hitting a cone with his foot,spotters strap or by moving & packing rocks.IF HE HITS A CONE THEN IT SHOULD BE A PENILTY.

And as for the safety line,Everyone that i know of was under the the impression that the time was stopped when the safety line was attached and only restarted when they moved again.
Thats was the way it was said over the P.A System,it was plain as day that some rigs where on that course for longer than the 10min time limit.


Just my opinion
Jamie

[Cheezy4x4]

What a weekend
I would like to thank some people first.
Sam Overton, How many people would ring up and invite you to an event, pay for entry to WE Rock and staying in the park, hand you the keys to his buggy and say drive it like it was your own, only to find out at the end he has sold the rig and the new owners were in the crowd watching.
SAM, you are trully one of the good guys and I will return the favour when I have my events up and going.
Tony, Tony, Tony. Mr hospitality, he and his wife are tops, they gave us there car too drive to WE rock, fed us the entire time we were there, gave us a place to stay after the event and finally after a couple of hours sleep drove us the other side of Brizzy to the airport to fly home.
Tony you also will have the favour returned. (Tony, check the fuel guage).
Adrian (POS) man what an awesome drive, you didnt put a tyre wrong all weekend and deserved to win well done.
ON Track boys, what an effort. All weekend they busted there asses fixing busted and broken bits. We pulled up into the tent and they wouldnt let us touch the buggy till they had it fixed, and that is what we were told happened all weekend, and best of all they are good blokes. (We didnt brake a CV, we had a little axle prob and stripped 10mm of spline off the end of the axle).
All the competitors, I hope everyone had as much fun as us and I think the mateship between all was good to see.
And last the other person in WE, Guts, thanks for putting in 110% all weekend and busting your ass holding the strap that spot that Sam went over, as Im sure we would have been on the roof if you hadnt been there.
Well done Sam and keep up the good work.
So when is the next round cos IM EXCITED.


I think the big winner was TOM (GQ), first event, buggy finished seconds before being loaded onto the trailer, test drive was the drive onto the trailer and he had a masive smile at the end of every stage. (well done Tom).

[moose]

Sam , sounds like you ran an awsome event !!
spewing i couldnt come up & watch !!!

great to see you are responding to everyone,s comments ! Very professional !

So , wat was the final finishing order ??

& we need more pics !!!!


Moose !

[Strange Rover]

Sam

I don't mean to be picky,But i have to disagree with the point you made about giving warnings if a spotter hit a cone.
My spotter hit the finish gate cone on course 2 and we copped the penilty,which was fair enough,he made a mistake.
And i see no differance in the spotter hitting a cone with his foot,spotters strap or by moving & packing rocks.IF HE HITS A CONE THEN IT SHOULD BE A PENILTY.

And as for the safety line,Everyone that i know of was under the the impression that the time was stopped when the safety line was attached and only restarted when they moved again.
Thats was the way it was said over the P.A System,it was plain as day that some rigs where on that course for longer than the 10min time limit.


Just my opinion
Jamie

I dont think you copped a penality. IIRC you actually cleared finish before he took it out. Now if you hadnt cleared the finish you would have gotten the penality cause you totally knocked the cone arse over. Nobody else did that - nobody came close to taking a cone out. When any spotter was close to a cone I would warn them to not touch the cone and I dont think any of them did. If I want to give warnings to people about stuff that they are doing on the course to help them then I will - most of the warnings I was giving people was to not touch the cones and to not touch the banners. Teams that placed in the top 3 didnt need any help or warnings about what to not touch - these guys knew what they were doing. It was all the less experienced teams that I was giving some slack to and helping them out by telling them stuff before they did something wrong.

In terms of starting and stopping the clock I made it totally clear to the competitors when the clock was started again. For me this isnt really an issue at all - this is how it worked - once I had the safety attached and was clear and I would have a look at what the competitors were doing. If they were standing there waiting for me to finish then we would start the clock again and they were on there way. If they were still stacking rocks and would tell them to hurry up cause I would start the clock again and if they kept stacking then I would start the clock and tell them so. I thinght this worked well.

Sam

[Bighazza]

sounds good looks like you really have everything under control now and the rounds to come in the future should be even better

good to see even new guys out there giving it a go

You have really rasied the bar in rocking crawling in Australia

well done

[redzook]

sounds like it went off well with not to many hitches well done everyone that had a hand in runnin it

wish i could have made it but couldnt get there

i will be at WEROCKII tho hope to be competing to

[Strange Rover]

Sam

And i see no differance in the spotter hitting a cone with his foot,spotters strap or by moving & packing rocks.IF HE HITS A CONE THEN IT SHOULD BE A PENILTY.


Jamie

There are no penalities for unstable rocks hitting cones. The one obvious instance when this happened was when Wes was cleaning the dirt and rocks of a ledge. He was flicking the stuff backwards all over the closest cone - meaning he was hitting the cone with dirt and small rocks. It was only when one of the rocks was big enough to actually move the cone that people started to wonder whether there should be a penality or not. Now if a cone is touched it does not matter if it moves or not so a spotter hitting a cone with a pebble is the same as a spotted hitting a cone with a 3 foot boulder and neither of these cases cause a penality. If they did you would have to penalise a spotter for putting dust on a cone cause they hit the cone with very small rocks (or do you make it only if the rock is bigger than 5cm diameter or weighs more than 500g???)

Sam

[Strange Rover]

I reckon the rules need fine tuning and that these rules be adhered to throughout the entire competition!

The judge and organisers should distance themselves from the competitors throughout the course of the competition.

I'll say one thing and leave it at that!!!

When we were TOLD to winch out of course 2 and not given the opportunity to atleast TRY to rectify the situation we were in, it was pathetic! After we were FORCED to winch out, our run was over. The Lockless monster then found itself in the same predicament in the exact same place on the course. I deem the fact that it was allowed to manouvre around and try other options very UNFAIR!!!

The way this was handled was very ordinary.

That's all I'll say.

Firstly you were stuck - and I have seen enough stuck rigs in my life to know that you guys (this is BJs yellow 40 series) were not going anywhere.

Secondly - if you had just kept throttling forwards and backwards you would have just broken all your shiat and it would be me that would have to fix it. The rig is parked in my backyard at this very moment cause it need to be fixed before tuff truck and its going to be me who is going to have to do it (which isnt a problem BTW)

Thirdly - your air compressor wasnt working and so your front traction controll had no power so you really had absolutely no chanse of driving out of that stage anyway let alone progressing from where you got stuck.

And finally you guys were pissing auto fluid all over the course cause you cracked the bellhousing on the first ledge and I wanted you off the course as quickly as possible.

When you say "The judge and organisers should distance themselves from the competitors throughout the course of the competition." this is never going to happen cause all we have got is competitors. Im just a competitor that is not going to compete for a year to try to make something happen. So basically its me that running the show and Im involved in someway with 8 out of the 11 competitors rigs that were at the competition (the only ones Ive had nothing to do with are Dave Camps, Boffs, and Jamie Way) 6 of the rigs were built at haultech, I supply CVs to Beebee and I supplied the traction control on the front of Sam Kecks zuke. There is no way I can distance myself form all this.

And it wasnt as if I told you guys outright to winch off the course. I talked to BJ that this was the best thing to do and he agreed. Basically I said some some like "Rob, your fawkin stuck again and you shiats broking and pissing auto fluid all over the place so you should winch this pile out of here and try to get it fixed."

Sam

[Strange Rover]

and the locked monster wasnt in the same situation. It wasnt leaking and it wasnt broken. It was just stuck and it was still entertaining cause Cheezy and Guts were giving it heaps and making lots of tyre smoke

Sam

[phippsy]

[phippsy]

[phippsy]

look familiar Scott??

[Midget]

Sam

Fair enough,I think there should be something in the rules about spotters hitting the cones when stacking rocks or clearing rocks,This will just make the comp even more challenging,whether it be a small rock or flicking dirt onto it.
The spotter then really has to think about his actions when moving stuff around.

Again just another suggestion.
Anyway as i said before TOP EFFORT MATE...
Can't wait to see what ypou have install for us in the upcoming rounds.
And do we have any firm dates of when they will be and where???


Jamie

[MissDrew]

Got home just after 5pm today NSW time and I`m stuffed

I will get on here in the next day or to and say more (as well as ready every post) but for now all I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was wearth every cent of the $512 it cost me in air fares and I second everything cheezy has allready said.


Oh and Jamie I still want to burn ya pubes

[Daisy]

[Daisy]