Eastern US Nationals # 2 Dayton, TN

The weekend of May 31st and June 1st, Team 311 made the 10-hour drive to Dayton, TN for the 2nd event of the WeRock east coast rock crawling competition.

We arrived in Dayton around 3:00 pm and headed to tech inspection. Although we were given the green light to compete the next day, we noticed that something on the Jee was making a clunking noise.

Back at the hotel, we narrowed down the problem to a CV end going bad in the rear driveshaft. Considering we had the same driveshaft since we first began competing 3 years ago, this made sense.

After installing a new JE Reel driveshaft, the noise was gone and we were good to go.

After the 9:00 am driver’s meeting the next morning, we received our running order. There were 7 stock modified competitors, and the running order was broken into 2 groups.

Day 1, Course C1:

At course C1, we were last to go in our group of 3, so we were able to watch the 2 competitors ahead of us to see how they did.

The first competitor was able to finish the course, but with his back ups and hitting some cones, his score was 34 out of 40 and he used every bit of the 10 minute course time. The next competitor in front of us made it through the first 2 sets of cones before his time ran out.

Then it was our turn. The entrance of this course was interesting. It had a little hill climb of rocks and sand then a turn at the top to come back down the other side.

Basically it was shaped like the letter “N” to get us to the upper level of the course. The downside of this little jaunt was there were no cones, which meant no progress points for completing.

Once we made it through that area, it was on to the massive hill climb through gate 1. We tried and tried to get the rig to climb one particular rock face. Of course, at the last minute, the Pro Comp Xtreme MT tires grabbed the rock face and we made it up it; however, we only had a minute to finish the course and we ran out of time. We finished course 1 with a score of 39.

Course C2:

Course 2 was looking to be the toughest course for the day. Out of the first 6 competitors to run it, only 2 had finished it, while 2 others rolled on it.

We pulled into the course and lined up to side hill through gate 1. After we made it through gate one, we lined up for the rock climb through gate 2. This was about a 3-foot ledge, so my spotter Aaron stacked some rock and I was able to give the Jeep enough gas to bump over the ledge.

Next, we chose to back the Jeep through gate 3, which had us going down about a 6-foot drop off. It was nerve wracking to do this in reverse. All I could do was trust my spotter and make sure I was securely fastened into my Mastercraft seats. Aaron spotted my descent downward and we came off the ledge with no problems.

After we backed completely off of the ledge, we drove the Jeep to another ledge through gate 3, and on top were the finish gates. Aaron gave me a great line. I gassed the Jeep and worked the Flaming River steering wheel and cleared both gate 3 and the finish gates with 3 minutes left to spare. Whereas other competitors had problems with course 2, we finished with a score of 2.

Course C3:

Course 3 was going to be tough. No one in the stock modified class finished this course all day so we knew we had to play it smart. It started through a rocky section and turned us to go up a hill climb made up of dirt and sand. At the top of the hill climb was 2 ledges.

We tried to use our Warn RC9.0 winch to winch the front end down for a better approach angle, but our wheelbase was not enough to bump us over the first ledge and get traction on ledge 2. We tried as much as we could but ended up timing out. Score on course 3: 39.

Course C4:

This was our last course for the day. The entrance had us crawling over some rock slabs and making a sharp left hand turn to get to gate 1. The tricky part was that the slabs were placed well enough that we found 2 foot holes. So we had to make sure we stayed out of those.

I was able to pull the rear axle of the Atlas transfer case into neutral, shut off the ARB air locker and pull my cutting brake lever to get my new Wilwood rear disc brakes to lock up so we could dig around the rocks. This lined us up to clear through gate 1.

Gate 2 was in the middle of the hill in between some large rocks. I worked the wheel and Aaron stacked some rocks, so I was able to give the Jeep some gas to bump up and through gate 2. Once we cleared that, I was not letting off the gas so we could keep the momentum uphill to make it through gate 3.

As we went through gate 3, I was too far to the left and took out the driver side cone, 10 points right there. The finish gates were 3 feet behind gate 3. We were able to finish course 4 with time to spare and a score of 15.

Looking at the scoreboard, we were sitting in 3rd place: 1 point away from 2nd place and 20 points from 1st. So we knew Sunday was going to be our day to make up some points and try to get closer to the top.

Day 2:

Sunday morning, we woke up to thunderstorms. As we made the drive up the mountain to the comp site, it continued to rain off and on, so we were hoping the rain would clear up for us to run

.

Once we got to the comp site, we were told we would start an hour later due to the lightning in the area. We were given a noon start time, rain or shine, as the lighting would have passed us over by then.

But no sooner did we pull the Jeep off of the trailer did it begin to pour! The decision was made at noon to cancel the event due to an approaching hail and thunderstorm. The score we had from Saturday is where we finished for the weekend: 3rd place out of 7 competitors -- a personal best for Team 311!

Click here to view all of the pictures from this event. Our next event is the weekend of July 5-6 in Jellico, TN.

Thanks for the support of all of our sponsors:

4Wheel Drive Hardware, Full Traction Suspension, Solid Axle Industries, DB Signs and Designs, Poison Spyder Customs, Be Cool, Mastercraft, Pro Comp Tires and Wheels, Peters Off Road, Davey’s Jeeps, Flaming River, Advance Adapters, Superior Axle and Gear, ARB, CTM Racing, Mechanix Wear, JE Reel, Kilby Enterprise, Bestop, Painless Wiring, Warn, TNT Customs, AGR Performance, Royal Purple, Bilstein Shocks, Stull Automotive and Crown Automotive.

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