By Don Hill
Rain Country Cruisers had one team participate. Don, Tony, Eric and Ben made up the team of two “daily driver” FJ62’s.
Our adventure starts many months before the event when
one of our club members, Wayne, kept talking about how great Team Trophy Challenge ’08 was. This caught our president Eric Burch’s attention. You see, Eric drives a 1989 FJ-62, and any time someone mentions that the land barge can’t get through a section of trail, he goes for it and it always makes it. Wayne
started setting up his team with mini trucks and all the talk got Eric to decide to enter the challenge as well.2009 is the third year that the Timber Tamers out of Seattle hosted what is best described as an off-road endurance challenge, combining trail running, check points with tasks to be performed, all strung together with bad directions. It starts at 7:00 on Saturday and ends at 6:00 AM on Sunday.
This event requires a team of two vehicles with two people per vehicle. Eric needed to find a team mate. Our club has several vehicles to chose from. It is mainly FJ-40s and mini trucks, but Eric knew the perfect companion vehicle would be the only other wagon in the club, which was a 1990 FJ-62. Tony Konvaloff owns the other 62, and believe it or not, it didn’t have a single dent in it a year ago when he joined up with the club. That was that, Team FJ-62 was formed. Tony asked me to be his spotter and I jumped at the chance, after I confirmed that it did not conflict with my 10th anniversary.
Eric’s original pick for spotter never seemed to be available for any runs to get us all familiar with the equipment and lines of a 62. I drive a 40 series so there was definitely a learning curve, as I try to avoid obstacles or go over them. The wagons tend to stay low and pivot on their rock sliders. Believe it or not, they use their side mirrors on the trail as well. Eventually, Eric decided to replace his spotter with Tony’s son Benjamin.
As for the rigs, both have almost a quarter million miles on them. Original Stock engines and trannys in both. Never been rebuilt. Both rigs are locked front and rear Eric with Lock rites and ARBs in Tony’s. Eric has stock gears, Tony’s has 4.88’s. Winches fitted to the front and rear. The rear winch is mostly to keep the rig off of trees with side pulling. All of the winches are controlled from the drivers seat with switches (not a remote). Both have roof racks used to fend off trees. Each rig also has rock sliders to limit the body damage and provide for pivoting on boulders and stumps.
Fast forward several months and the challenge is approaching fast. A little last minute planning a few weeks before and we received the GPS coordinates. Base camp would be just north of the trails in Naches. The date was set, 12 September, and they would swing by my house and pick me up on the 11th at 7:00 AM. Well, this is were I freaked out because I forgot that I already confirmed that the dates didn’t conflict. You know how when you stress out sometimes your brain just goes blank? Now I was certain that we were leaving on the morning of my 10th anniversary. Oh crap, what am I going to do! Well, to make a long story shorter my wife let me know that I had the wrong date, so I was back in. She wasn’t thrilled that I got confused on what date my anniversary was on though.
A couple nights before the event, Wayne posted a simple message on our forum. “we’re out.” Just like that Team FJ-62 was the only entrant from our club.
We hit the road in the two wagons and made it without incident. We were the first to base camp and the first to go through vehicle inspection. Throughout the day other teams started showing up with rigs on trailers, and it was evident that people were there to compete. Several of the rigs were coloring way outside the lines when it came to the street legal requirement. Additionally, some didn’t breeze through the vehicle inspection either. The guys camping next to us had some bad wheel bearings and had to make a parts run to Yakima and were wrenching well into the
night. We are fairly certain that we were the only team that drove both vehicles to and from the event. I am certain that we were the only ones to have 80qt refrigerators on the trail as well. We were there to have a good time.
The event started at 7:00 sharp and we got good starting position. We were the second team out at 7:04. The long day had just begun. We were handed a package of instructions for the day run and a page for the time trial, which started from base camp and specified speed, odometer readings and directions. As we reached check points, we were to record our arrival time to the second and depart the check points when the next minute rolled around. In the drivers briefing, it was stated that the club had a radar gun and they would be watching to make sure. That didn’t turn out to be a problem for us as Eric was in the lead and was having a hard time getting up to speed on some stretches.
I was really wound up at this point and Tony told me to take it easy a time or two. As I got comfortable, I started reading a couple lines ahead to make sure we didn’t screw up. A couple lines ahead I found a misleading instruction stating “@10.4 there is a road to the left”. Since each team was to use their team number as their CB channel, and most teams were waiting back at camp for their start time to come up, I thought some might be monitoring our channel to get an edge. I got on the CB and told Ben to look two lines ahead, but not to say anything for OP SEC purposes. He radioed back that he didn’t see anything wrong. Now I have to figure out how to keep them from making that turn. My break came in the form of a check point. As soon as we stopped I jumped out, ran to their truck, told them the instructions did not say to turn and hopped back into the truck, just in time to leave as required. 14.3 miles in and we completed the time trials.
Now it was time to open the envelope with the instructions for the day trail running part of the challenge.
There were six pages of instructions with one or more of the following pieces of information on each line. Distance from start, distance from last, Lat and Long, compass bearing or a Tulip instruction. Mind you that this was laid out in a table that was mostly blank. We were cruising right along until we reached an intersection that was close to the GPS coordinates given with a compass bearing as the only hint on where to head next. We made a couple bad turns and the next thing you know we are right back at the intersection, but now there were several teams piling up. At this point I decided to get out of the vehicle so I could get the GPS unit away from any metal. The problem is, I couldn’t find my GPS anywhere. After frantically searching through Tony’s wagon a couple times, I realized that I must have had it in my lap when I jumped out at the checkpoint during time trails. That sucked. I lost my GPS several miles back and someone was sure to spot it laying right in the road. Now I needed to focus and get back into the game. By process of elimination, we headed off on the one trail we hadn’t already tried and bingo we hit our first check point challenge. This consisted of stripping down a starter to the armature and putting it back together while being timed. None of us had torn a starter completely apart before, so it was a hold your breath moment when they hooked up the battery to test if you got it right. We felt we made good time and away we went.
Several lines down the instructions we came across the next challenge, which consisted of answering several questions about CPR. The last question required us to explain what happens to the average person after two drinks. After throwing several answers out such as delayed reaction, bad judgment, impaired driving abilities…. she still wasn’t satisfied that we mentioned the buzz word she was looking for. Noticing the Jeep parked right behind her I could contain myself no longer and blurted out, “after a couple drinks your judgment could be so impaired that you might get behind the wheel of a Jeep.” Well, what do you know, time ran out and we didn’t do so hot on that challenge. I didn’t care. That felt good and I would do it again.
A short distance down the trail and we came across the next challenge. This one required setting up different winching configurations while being timed. I think we blew them away with how fast
we did them, but I did mention that we where in wagons, with winches on both ends. They come in handy in this part of the country where there are trees everywhere. We get a lot of practice using the winches to pull the wagons sideways to get through tight spots.
Farther along the trail, we came to another intersection and had a disagreement about the right direction. We had taken the lead position for our team and I was confident that we should proceed to the left into the piles of rocks. Part way in, Tony decided to walk ahead and was convinced that this was not the right route. As I mentioned earlier, we had refrigerators so it was time to make lunch. I am fairly certain that we were the only team to actually stop to eat. In fact Wayne’s big plan was to buy Subway sandwiches in Cle Elum, and just eat those on the run for two days. That was the big joke with our team for months, as we were planning to stop in front of him and pass the Grey Poupon between the rigs.
After eating I persuaded the team to go deeper into the rock piles. At this point I am starting to get a little nervous because my team still isn’t sold on the route, the terrain is getting more difficult and the stress levels are starting to elevate. If it is the wrong route, we are wasting precious time going farther in, and worse yet their not my rigs to break.
As we came out of the rocks we hit the GPS coordinates right on the money. We are on the right track and moving forward. At this point we were absolutely certain of our position, which was
good because the next several directions were based on distance from last. This is were the directions fell completely short. The next turn was to be 0.8 miles farther. At 0.4 miles we hit an intersection and being fairly certain that the road to the right simply paralleled the rocky route we just took, felt this was not the right spot to turn. After continuing on and getting completely turned around, we doubled back to the intersection and made the turn hoping for the best.
The trail got more difficult as the mud holes pitched the rigs side to side and into trees if you weren’t careful. I am convinced that the rest of the teams, most with full exocages, were making great time through these areas, but remember we were in heavy wagons, and we didn’t want to trash the vehicles or the trees. So we were winching and just trudging through it. The driver’s stress levels were getting more elevated at this point and that is when people start to rush and make mistakes. Tony misjudged a mud hole and his wagon pitched to the side crunching the rear left quarter panel and taking out the tail light. A little farther along, we decided to take a break, drink some ice cold Frappiccinos and consider our options. At this point it is around 4:00 PM, the directions suck, it is becoming less than fun and we still hadn’t completed the first of six pages. We regrouped and decided to just take it easy and try to get out of the woods before dark since we were on trails too small to show up on any of our maps or GPS units.
About and hour later we came across another challenge. This one consisted of having the spotter in one of the vehicles hold a baking pan filled with approximately a gallon of water, while the vehicle travels down the trail to a designated point, then someone else from the team carries the pan back up a washed out creek bed back to the starting point. Points are earned based on time and the amount of water that makes it back into the measuring pitcher. I was the runner and was quite shocked at the amount of water still left in the pan after the driving portion. We made good time and returned all but about a pint. This was a great challenge and it got us back into the having fun mode.
The next challenge consisted of placing a tarp over one of the rigs and having the rest of the team give directions from outside. This was a fairly elaborate course, and once again we had a good time and felt we did pretty good. Since the sun was going down and the daytime checkpoints closed at 9:00, we decided we would simply head back to camp. Since we were pretty much out of the competition (completing the first page only) and backtracking on the main Forest Service roads back to camp, I asked the team if we could head back down the time trial route on the off chance that we could find my GPS unit. While checking the area with flashlights where we all got out at the end of the time trial route Tony looked under my seat with the flashlight and found it right away. Needless to say they all got a good laugh out of that and I was thrilled to have my GPS back.
Heading back to camp we came around a blind corner into yet another checkpoint. This was a speed trap where the event staff had a radar gun and checked your speed on the approach. Maximum speed anywhere on the trail system was 25 miles per hour, and we found out the next morning that none of the competitors were caught speeding.
We ran across one more checkpoint before arriving at camp, and this one was a doozie. This one consisted of a nasty at least 45-degree sidehill on lose baseball sized rocks, with jagged large can opener boulders lining the base. At this point it is pitch black dark and we were allowed to walk the course but not allowed to discuss strategy or the 10 minute clock would start. As we walked back to the trucks I mentioned to the event staff that the was no way in hell we would be doing that. When I caught back up to Eric it was too late. Remember, he stuffs that wagon in places that it shouldn’t fit all the time, and sure enough he was going for it.
We decided to position Tony’s wagon on the other side of the hill to use his winch to keep Eric’s wagon from going over. As Eric got into position, I mentioned to him a couple times that he did not have to do this, as I was certain that he was going over. He pulled off the starting line and within a vehicle length the front tire was off the ground and the back was lifted by a baseball sized rock. The truck was definitely close to its tipping point. We connected Tony’s winch to a tree saver rapped around Eric’s roll bar. He was moving right along and all the sudden I was thrilled because this was working and I thought for sure he would make it out in one piece. Then his truck stalled and wouldn’t start. Time ran out and he was stuck on an extreme sidehill with a dead rig. We couldn’t let him roll down off the hill because of the jagged boulders blocking the path. In short order we established that he didn’t have enough gas to reach the fuel pickup, located on the high side of the rig.
We took one of Tony’s gas cans and fueled his rig right there with winch line holding him and other teams piling up waiting for their turn. Once the 5 gallons was in his tank we were good to go, until it still wouldn’t stay running. Another 5 gallons did the trick and he was running again, but now Tony’s wagon wouldn’t start. It turns out that he was pointed up hill at such a steep angle for winching that the gas in his tank wasn’t reaching the pick-up. Thankfully, Tony carries three Jerry cans so we topped him off and we were back in business.
At this point we decided that the best plan would be to just bring Eric’s wagon over the top of the hill. With Tony winching with all he had in a
double line pull and one of the other competitors pulling with the winch on his jeep, we finally drug Eric’s wagon over the top. Witnesses said that both rear wheels were off the ground, and by the looks of his cross member afterwards, I don’t doubt it.
We made it back to camp at 10:30 and decided that we had enough excitement for the day. The night time portion of the event was described as taking dirt roads to go Geocaching in the woods. Since the directions that they were so proud of sucked so bad during the day, the night time directions probably were not much better. We decided to grill the Kobe stakes that we brought and watch the other teams frantically working on broken trucks or heading out into the night looking for buckets in the woods.
The event officially stopped at 6:00 AM on Sunday, and some teams didn’t get back until after that. Other teams experienced some serious carnage including a broken steering gear box going through the radiator on an old Bronco, a Toyota 4-Runner that broke a steering arm off the knuckle, then broke the spare, and two vehicles rolling.
We didn’t place in the top three. Since the results haven’t come out for any placement beyond that, we placed forth and we are sticking with that story until they do. Not too shabby for getting no points on the night portion of the event.
After breaking down camp, we packed up the wagons and drove home without missing a beat. After all, they are Land Cruisers. That was just another day in the life for them.
