The weekend of July 24th and 25th marked our third WeRock rock crawling competition event in Hannibal, MO. We arrived Friday afternoon after our 11-hour drive and went straight to registration and tech inspection. We passed through tech with no problems and were ready to compete. I apologize that I have no photos or videos; it was just my spotter and I for this event and we were both pretty busy on the course. Here is a video that WeRock posted. We’re in the first 10 seconds of it:

Saturday we arrived at the comp site and picked up our running order. We were 2nd on the list but they tend to leap frog the running order, so we started second on our first course and 1st on the next one. It was very hot in Missouri this weekend. Temperatures were in the mid 90s but the heat index was 115. Add having to wear a fire suit to the mix and it made for a hot, sweaty weekend.

C1 Course

This course had us go over a rock section to the left and then, once you were through, you had to cut your wheels hard to the passenger side to clear all cones and line up for the second gate. Gate 2 was on top of the hill so we had the entire top side to position the rig for the right line. This was great – it meant we didn’t lose reverse points. We made it through the second set of cones with no problem and then had to get the Jeep as close to this tree as possible so it could pivot us around for the line through gate 3. The rocks to get to gate 3 were huge. My spotter, Aaron, had to make sure the rig didn’t fall into any of those holes and hang us up. Once on top of the rock for gate 3, our plan was to gas the rig over it so we didn’t get held up on our Full Traction control arms. The drop off on this rock was 5’. We were done and clear of all cones with 4.5 minutes to spare. Score on C1 course: -3.

C2 Course

This course had huge rocks that could swallow my rig hole! We started out by going up a very rocky section. Once on top, we had to burn the front end around to go back down to the left of these cones. At the bottom, we had to go all the way back to the left of the course to line up for gate 2. Then we had to go up another rocky section and burn the front end around to the passenger side to get us the right line through gate 2. With a few reverses, we were clear to make our descent to gate 3, which was on top of another big rock. Once we had the rear end clear we had to do another burn to get the front end turned around and aimed for the exit gate. Score on C2 course: 2.

C3 Course

To start on this course we had to hug the rig against a huge rock so we would clear the first set of cones. I also had to gas it through the first gate because we were getting hung up. Once on the summit, we had the whole top area to turn around and line us up to go through gate 2. This was about a 5’ drop down onto more huge rocks. We cleared gate 2 with no problems. After we got off the top of those rocks, we had the Jeep back down on level ground. I locked our cutting brakes and burned the front end around to the driver’s side to save us a reverse point. Once we were lined up to go through gate 3, I knew it was going to require some throttle. We cleared the cones and were able to finish this course. Score on C2 course: -1.

C4 Course

The last course of the day had us making our way to the top of the course and then burning the front end around to line up to go through the first set of cones. As I brought the front end around, I didn’t hear Aaron tell me to stop and the passenger side front tire slid into the cone. We had problems with our radios all weekend, so this didn’t help. Once we were through gate 1, we were down on the ground with time to burn the front end around to line up for gate 2. We had an off camber side hill through gate 2 to get back to the top. Once on top, I drove the Jeep as far into the banner as I was allowed and then we burned the front end to the passenger side to get the right line for our 3rd and final gate. Our last gate was down a 3-foot ledge and then out to the finish. Score on C4 course: 9.

At the end of the day on Saturday, our total score was 7 and we were in 3rd place. This is a personal best for us at this venue. We never seem to catch a break at Hannibal. No, I take that back – we always break at Hannibal.

Check out my next blog for a recap of the events on Sunday and how we finished overall in our third WeRock rock crawling competition of 2010.