Rock Spider Racing

We didn't do too well (34th out of 40 entrants). Had a couple of Mechanical problems and still need some more seat time in the jeep.

Had Ken Blume and Chris Durham in my group this time around. Overall, some really nice guys.

Due to the power outages in the North East, I didn't get out of work till real late on Thursday night and had a bit of work to do on the jeep before leaving. I worked on the jeep all night and Taft met me about 6:30 am on Friday. We'll I still wasn't ready to go when Taft got there and enlisted his help for another hour or so. Well, we left a little late on Friday and just barely got into Jellico in time for the tech inspection. Got thru tech and made the drivers meeting on time.

This was Taft and my second time working together and felt we were starting to click at the last EROCC with some experience under our belts with competing at this level. Only issue, was we had no seat time in this vehicle, as it was completed being built the morning of the competition and loaded on the trailer to go compete without any testing.

Unfortunately, this was the same obstacle we did 1st, the last time around as well. We decided to try the bonus gate and ran into some ARB compressor problems--the wiring kept disconnecting from the compressor ---which ended up shutting the lockers off at a very inopportune time. Ended up having to back out and try and get the compressor fixed.

We missed this one at the April event and were looking forward to some redemption. The bonus gate was a new entrance to the course. Looked doable to us if we were to back down and decided to try it that way, until Durham went before us and crashed-- taking out his winch and radiator. Decided to skip the bonus gate and run the whole course rather than risk destroying the jeep on the first obstacle, since we weren't sure the brakes would work well

Enough and we were still getting the feel of the vehicles capabilities. Ended up doing fairly well on this but ended up running out of time on the obstacle.

Tthis was a new one and probably our best obstacle-- Basically was a steep hill climb with a vertical ledge to get over at the top and then a chute down. Ended up getting up and over everything fairly well and down the chute and decided to try the bonus gate and get some points back. The bonus gate was to drive back up the chute that I had just come back down.-- well I managed to fry the hydro steering while trying this bonus gate so when the time was about up and I needed to get back thru the gate at the bottom of the hill, but was unable to steer and I ended up running over a cone and pointed out. Taft was screaming at me to stop trying the gate and to get out of the course so as to complete one, but I guess I got a little excite having the crowd cheering and all, so I get trying a little too long and end up causing some additional damage. Bent the drivers side shackle hanger back and bent the leaf spring pretty bad as well.

We did pretty well on this one, which was a technical rock crawl, until we were about out of the course and I got bound up. Ended up breaking both sides of the front axle and spitting the CTM's out. (Don't lose the caps-- Jack wants $19/each for replacements) Looking very familiar to those that remember Best of the Best years ago. I now have rear wheel drive only and the rear diff is bound up on a rock. Hook the winch up and break the line pretty promptly. I now am dead in the water and request assistance from the judges to get me off the course. A horrible end to the day.

Wasn't able to get onto the course due to the blown axle shafts, so headed to the trailer to start repairs at the hotel.

Before we could do anything we headed over to the BFG truck to borrow their welder to weld some braces on the driver's side shackle hanger. Got that done and then went over to the Myakka Outfitters tent. These guys rewove my winch line back together in about 15 minutes.

Had problems getting the wheel speed up and ended up timing out not very far into the obstacle.

We thought this one we had our best chance on. It had a big ledge to get up and over and we figured our tire size would be the advantage here. Not so. Ended up getting denied at the same place everyone else did that day. Ground was very we at the bottom and was not able to get any traction to get up and over. It seemed no matter how many rocks you stacked at the base of this ledge that it just didn't matter. Had a small engine fire which put itself out-- damn hydro steering fluid burning on the manifold .Ended up breaking the Ujoint on the rear driveshaft at the pinion and backed out of the obstacle.

We were a little screwed since we didn't bring any spare parts for the driveshafts. (Helps to pre-pack stuff before you are delirious with sleep deprivation). While we were headed back to the trailer to find parts-- a guy steps out of the ground and says "Hi, I'm Tom Woods I might be able to help you boys out." so, Tom climbs in the jeep and we head up tot he BFG trailer, where we are fairly we'll recognized. Tom hooked us up with a new Ujoint and slip shaft for the rear and got us back into the action.

Name says it all. The previous 4 competitors I watched all rolled over on this. I was really not that excited about it until I got down on the course. Got thru the first obstacle with 2 back ups and was lined up for the big rock slab. Made a running start at it and end up sliding a little bit to the passenger side and rolling over. Well the engine shut off from the rollover and wouldn't turn over while the vehicle was on its side. During the rollover I got a little burned from transmission fluid spilling out of the dipstick tube and hitting me in the legs. Got out of the jeep and requested help putting it rubber side down. Everything looked ok at first, but damage from this one was a bent rim-(I am running hummer rims with the center sections replaced with 3/8" plate--I bent the center section) and a Johnny Joint let loose the snap rings and came apart.

Had some problems on this keeping the engine running. Seems that there were some fuel problems after the rollover. Ended up timing out before finishing the first hill.

Kicked ass on this one compared to the others. Finally finished an obstacle and didn't point out.

Ended up loading the jeep up around 2:30pm and was on the road home by 3:15 . Had a great time and learned a lot. Only problem was, we never took a single photo, so I'm looking for photos of us on the web.

Concluding thoughts, more spare parts, fuel injection is a must, lower center of gravity, narrower stance to the vehicle and need to lighten up the rig some more. Taft and I are really working better together now.

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