The business end of the World Extreme Rock Crawling series kicked off in what would have been freezing conditions in Colo Heights, NSW. WEROCK event manager, Tony Robinson, had been busily preparing the sites the previous week and was certain that the terrain he selected would provide plenty of entertainment for the spectators and competitors.
Harley and Micka had been working away at the extensive modifications to the Rock Hammer buggy, but time beat them to the post for this round of rock crawling. Another new exhaust system – courtesy of the excellent team at Brisbane Exhaust Centre – is throwing out the anger that the big Rover V8 has inside it, and all of that fury is being tapped into on the dynamometer at Motson’s in Rocklea. Rest assured that the Rock Hammer logo will be proudly, and extensively, displayed at the finals in August at Milbrodale, NSW.
Day 1 saw some grueling action in both classes. Unlimited class series points leader, Peter Antunac and spotter Tazz were in 3rd place behind Adrian Berthelsen – on the brand new Mickey Thompson 40” Comp spec Claws – and competition dark horse, Sam Keck, who were tied on 1st place. The crowd pleasing ABT buggy was sitting in 4th.
Day 2 saw everyone up the ante!
Sam Overton and Tony Robinson were obviously hell bent on preparing everyone for the next level – this year’s series final – going by the reports and pictures on www.outerlimits4x4.com . The ABT buggy continued its run of bad luck, misfortune and breakages with a bent lower control arm bracket and a rear tail shaft that will need more than a ban-daid to help it. Their usually controlled and calm approach was not working for them at one particularly gnarly obstacle, so the right foot of Michael Justice was liberally applied to the loud pedal of the 350 Chevy powered crawler. Some noises just don’t sound good, and a tail shaft snapping is one of them. Unfortunately for them, the two rounds of breakages might just have them out of contention for the coveted trip to Las Vegas for the World Finals.
Perhaps the biggest thrill of the weekend went to Jamie Way, who managed to roll his Maxxis shod crawler over backwards, and land back on his wheels! This was at the same spot that claimed a few of the competitors and proved to be a hot spot for the crowd.
Sam Keck, also on the Maxxis Creepy Crawlers, has showed himself as a real contender after ditching the extremely over-rated Super Swamper IROKs. Quite a few of the NSW competitors were running these tyres but have all, except one, switched to much better rubber suited to rock crawling. Being in equal 1st with last year’s champ, Adrian Berthelsen, Sam Keck’s Overkill crawler is quickly becoming one of the better rigs out there. It sits amazingly low – even on 40” tyres – and the quality of the craftsmanship is evident. Definitely a buggy to keep an eye on.
But the weekend at Colo belonged to Peter Antunac in his gas powered 350 Chevy crawler on custom diffs with Hummer portals. The 5 point penalty for rear-steer becomes a non issue with the performances that Perfect Pete keeps producing. His control over the crawler is phenomenal and it continues to amaze how adept he is at precision control over the front and rear steering in conjunction. He is definitely deserving of his place atop the series points, and it will be excellent to see him take it to the Americans in Las Vegas in November.
