Moab Jeep Safari 2006: Day 5 - XRRA hits Area BFE
Story and pics by David Austin
After several hours of bashing, grinding, banging and rolling their rigs, the winners were determined.
1st place goes to Shannon Campbell
2nd is Nate Williams
3rd to Weston Blackie
4th was Bryce Rogers
5th went to Jason Berger.
As an added bonus there was a Jump Off for a prize pot of just over $1000 that was won by Robert Lucero on his 2nd attempt although by the looks of the damage on the landing, he will likely have to add some more funds to the prize money to repair the damage.
All in all it was a great day at the races and an awesome event to watch. The buggies were amazing to see run over the courses at full-tilt speed that would have been tough enough just to crawl.
After a great week of wheelin' and fellowship, on Saturday morning we headed out to Area BFE for some Extreme Rock Racing. I was excited because this was my first time to attend such an event. It basically is rock crawling on a very extreme course but is a no holds barred, hammer down, speed is all that matters event. The rules are basically that there are none. Just stay in bounds and stay on the course.
Brad Austin had been asked to co-drive the high powered White Knight owned by Robin and Teresa from Canada. Brad and Robin had competed against each other at Top Truck Challenge in 2004 and became good friends and teamed up for this event. Their lifespan in the race was short as they sheared off the drivers side steering knuckle and broke the front Detroit locker on the 2nd obstacle, putting them out of the competition.
There were all the big names in the race: Shannon Campbell, Sam Patton, Nate Williams, Jason Berger and Steve Nantz just to mention a few.
The action was hot and heavy from the start with rollovers coming so often you could not catch them all. They were running 2 courses at the same time. The drivers were to run each course in one direction and then again in the reverse direcion.
As the day moved on so did the carnage. Damaged rigs continued to drop like flies from the competition. Drivers ran from trailer to trailer in search of parts, franticly attempting to make the next round.
