Team Trophy Challenge 2012

[TORX]

TORXreport: Team Trophy Challenge 2012
Tillamook State Forest
August 4-5, 2012

At the beginning of July I was asked by Jeremy (chero-car) if I was interested in participating in this years Team Trophy Challenge, put on by the Hubs In 4-Wheelers. I've always wanted to do an event like this, and actually was registered for the Timber Tamers event a few years ago with a few OG members on here. Unfortunately, their event was canceled due to lack of interest. I figured this years event was a bit more local, and might be my only opportunity.

With that being said, Team Naxja was registered for the event. Our team consisted of two vehicles, Nick's (redjeep2.0), and Jeremy's. I would be co-driver for Nick, and Scot (nw-zj-scott) would be co-driver for Jeremy. I felt we had a strong well rounded team, proven rigs, and could be a competitive team for the event.

I met up with Nick in Vancouver after work on Friday. We convoyed out to Browns Camp from there. Forecast was calling for mid 90's all weekend. This would be me enjoying my fruit bowl, crossing the 205 bridge, while taking a picture.

Got camp set up, and had to fly the colors.

Nick brought a full set of spare tires in case sh!t got out of hand.

We had few last minute planned things to do to ready the rigs. I should also mention Boring Dave came out with the family and his buddy Mike to come support the team.

Friday evening was pretty mild. We got checked in, had the vehicles tech'd, and turned in early not knowing what Saturday had in store for us. With a low of mid 60's in the evenings, I ditched the tent in favor for a cot under the stars. Aside from the dew, it was great. Woke up to the sun rising around 0630.

We rolled over to the day use area for a morning drivers meeting. Nine team were registered.

Another XJ/MJ team. Some of you might recognize the MJ.

Drivers meeting. In addition to Naxja, their were team members from Piston's Wild, Flat Broke, Swag Offroad, Our Gang, Cascade Cruisers, and 4 Wheel Parts.

Teams departed in random order, in three minute intervals. We were given a few sheets of paper with some directions drawn on them. Even though we were told 20 times this was not a race, and time wasn't a factor, Nick and I were stuck in race mode. Adrenaline was pumping hard during the count down... 3... 2... 1... GO! Nick hammered down, and we were off with Jeremy and Scott behind us.

Rather than going into all the details, I'll highlight on the key parts of the event.

Our run to the first check point was pretty rough. We made a very simple mistake with the directions, and it cost us a lot of time, and fuel. Rather than letting the miles add up, we were resetting after each turn (just like you would see on Google Maps). Needless to say, after the third turn, things stopped adding up. I will say though we worked as a team to make sense of them, and continued to push on.

One of the listings was a trail and next to it was 3.1 miles. Well it just so happens Cedar Tree is 3.1 miles long. We were convinced this was the right route, and hammered down. Not a cloud in the sky, it was warming up quick.

Eventually we found ourselves coming down C-line Rd, when we heard someone on our team CB channel, "Team Six, do you have a copy?". It was Shawn one of the event organizers, calling us into Lyda Camp, CP:1. We were told we were two hours behind the pack, and then were told where we went wrong on the directions. This was bitter sweet news, we made a stupid mistake and it cost us time and fuel, but we were now on the right track, and back in the race... er event.

Our next set of directions was in a different format, Scott and Jeremy took the lead on this section. Heading down the West end of Archers Firebreak.

Hot temps, means atrocious dust. Nick and I started flying our Blood colors, while bumping to Mack 10.

We quickly found Team 4-Wheel Parts lost trying to find CP2. They told us a lot of the teams were also driving circles trying to find CP2 as well. This boosted the teams moral, and we continued on. Eventually we found ourselves at the far west end of Archers, several miles down the forest road after dropping down off the ridge side. At this point the directions semi made sense. Jeremy's expression pretty much sums up what we were feeling.

We stopped at Jordan Creek and had a "team meeting." We put our heads together, went through the directions, and made sure we all agreed on the decisions we made to get to this point. We decided the only logical place CP2 could be was at Rogers Road. We got back in the rigs, and headed to Rogers Road just down the road. As we raced... er drove to Rogers Road Nick and I both agreed if it wasn't there we were taking the highway back to camp to start drinking, because this clearly wasn't our game. Looking back now, this is exactly what Team Challenge is, a huge mental game.

As we made the last corner, we saw the pink flamingo marking CP2. It was even more rewarding to hear we were the fourth team to that CP. Team was gaining. I have to give a lot of credit to Scott for getting us to CP2. I couldn't get into the navigator zone I needed to be, and him and Jeremy took the directions and got us to where we needed to be. Props guys!

more to come...
​

 

[TORX]

With CP2 came a challenge. Basically we had to figure out a speed to run the trail in to get as close to a specified time as possible, and your time starts NOW! We hammered down, and agreed on a pace to hold. It was rough.

After completing the challenge we were given new directions, and pressed on. We had to climb back up the ridge in the high 90 degree heat. The 4000rpm assault up the ridge heated things up a bit. We took this time to let the rigs cool, and hydrate ourselves.

The next few directions made sense, but they didn't match up to any of the turn offs. We found a helicopter on an overlook, while exploring one road.

We decided our best bet was to return to the last CP, and trace our steps which was only two miles.

We took it step by step, and tried not to over think the directions too much. Pretty soon we were two pages in, and cruising at a good rate. I hopped out to punch our score card at a trail flag.

Our directions eventually brought us to what I would call a game trail. It was incredibly over grown, and hard to spot from the road. It looked like only one or two sets of tracks had been there before us. Rather than take it slow, Nick proceeded to hammer down, and fill the cab with as much yard debris as possible. We were both huddled up over the center console to avoid getting whipped. How we didn't blast a tree or crack the windshield is beyond me.

This brought us to CP3, which was manned by the boys from Warn Industries. I think you can guess what this challenge involved, rigging and heavy objects. I won't get into the details of the challenge, but our team worked together very efficiently to get the task done. Two winches, one block, and a chain.

On to CP4. Had to take a few compass readings. I really enjoyed these parts, and no I didn't take them off the ground.

At this point it started to feel like we were getting deeper and deeper into the Tillamook State Forest, and we still hadn't run across another team or person besides the people at the CP's. We kept a fast paced going, and cruised down the old abandoned four wheel drive trails. Eventually we got down to a maintained road, and stopped next to the river to cool off, and grab some food and water.

From there we made our way to CP4, and completed the task. Made our way back up the ridge.

Yep, nothing looked familiar. Didn't know where the hell we were, but we were still on course.

The trails we ran were pretty mild, but they were new to us and were actually pretty fun. This one was quad trail narrow, and a bit off camber.

At this point, Nick's gas light came on, which in his Jeep means we had limited time. We let Jeremy lead in case we needed a pull. We made our way to the bottom of one of the next check points.

It just so happens 3 of the 4 of us were experienced Late Model Fuel Transfer Specialist after Northwest Fest this year.

We added about a gallon to Nick's rig, and set off up to the next CP. The Next CP was placed at the top of a long, loose, and incredibley steep hill (think Aardvark Hill, mixed with some Can Opener). Jeremy set off first while Nick and I waited at the bottom. Not long in, I heard, "Dustin, pull cable!" It didn't look that bad from the bottom, so I feared Jeremy was getting light under the tires so I grabbed my gloves and proceeded to run up the hill. He was in a stable spot, but there was a large undercut root stopping forward progress. I fished a tree saver and d-ring out of the back, and ran up the hill to set an anchor. Then slid back down, to grab the cable, and then proceeded to crawl back up the hill. Jeremy began winching up the hill. Scott and I re-rigged the cable one more time, before he could start going under his own power.

Nick followed shortly after, and got to the same root ledge as Jeremy. Rather than push our luck and risk a break, we played it safe and pulled cable. Back down the hill, and back up the hill I crawled. As Nick began spooling in the cable his Jeep sputtered and died. It was out of gas.

At this point we were in a pickle. Nick continued to try to winch, but with the winch pulling 450+ amps his battery wasn't going to last too long. Scott and I tried to come up with a solution up top, but then Nick got the Jeep running again. Fuel may have settled back into the baffles just enough to get it going. Not wasting time now, we got Nick up the hill on one pull. Scott and I then proceeded to summit the hill ourselves.

At the top we were told we were the second team up the hill. This was pretty rewarding to hear considering at the start of the day we were dead last and lost. We performed the challenge at the top, and took a short break, and continued on. The directions listed the next CP 10 miles away. Nick was beginning to wonder if he even had enough gas to get there. At this point we slowed our race pace down to try and conserve gas.

more to come...

 

[TORX]

We came to the next trail, and realized we were no longer at "Browns Camp," we were in the Trask unit! We had covered a lot of ground, and still were getting deeper.

We found Jesus (don't ask) at the end of one trail, and followed him to the next CP. Nick owes Jesus some special "favors".

After completing the challenge at the CP, we were given new directions to the next CP. At this time it was almost sun down, and teams were "suppose" to be back by 10:00. What this meant exactly nobody really knew. All we knew was the next CP may be the last, and it may be closer to the highway so we pressed on.

It was almost an eery feeling heading down a steep windy forest road not knowing where you are, staring at your GPS, waiting for the next mileage turn off to come up.

We headed up the next trail Zig Zag under complete darkness. I had my head lamp for reading the directions, and my Maglite in hand trying to spot any trail flags off to the side.

After driving a ways, and climbing back up the ridge side, we found the next CP, our ninth one for the day. We were greeted by the person manning the CP, and he was more than surprised to see us. He wasn't sure if he was still suppose to be doing the challenge, but since we were here he said we could give it a shot. Literally.

We got the challenge completed, and at that point made a team decision. It was either press on to the next check point, which may be deeper into the forest, and might not even be open, or call it and start making our way back hoping we had enough fuel to make it to the highway. It was fight or flight. I think we all wanted to keep pressing on, but we all knew heading back was the right call.

We found a trail marker, located it on the map, and planned our route out of the forest. This was another one of the odd feelings for me. I was staring at the map with my red headlamp filter on, as Nick drove under the moon light, knowing that if I took us down the wrong road it could be the difference between sleeping in our sleeping bags, or the Jeeps. The drive out we took slow, not only to save fuel, but also to avoid hitting the local wild life. We were dodging (literally) deer all day, but at night things got crazy and we started passing elk on the road. Nick and I were both waiting for a bear to cross in front of us.

After a bit of driving, we heard the sweet sound of a highway ahead of us. We popped out at Fox Ridge Rd, about 17.5 miles down the highway from the Browns Camp turn off. Nick and I hit the highway knowing we weren't going to make it, but decided to press on. Jeremy followed behind us as well with his fuel light on too. Nick's Jeep sounded like it was coming apart at speed, the hatch was rattling like it was deleting itself, the roof seemed to be buckling, and we had a few new vibes/noises. After the abuse we put the Jeep through it was all expected.

Nick decided we had better start looking for a safe place to pull over rather than having the Jeep die on a blind corner. I got the map out, and looked to see what we were coming up on. Lee's Camp Store was only another mile up the highway so we pushed on.

At this point Nick, Jeremy, and I piled into his Jeep and set off for camp for Nick's truck and trailer to recover his Jeep. Big Scotty stayed with Nicks Jeep.

Jeremy rolled into camp running on fumes, but we made it. We rolled into the event organizers camp, to get the update. That's where we were greeted by Boring Dave, "Oh my god, they made it!" That simple sentence made the entire day worth it, just to know at least someone was waiting for us. Thanks, Dave.

We got the update, and were told there wasn't going to be a night run since multiple teams were still on course, broke, or lost. The challenge would resume Sunday at 0900. We got back to our camp, Nick and I got the trailer ready, and headed out to recover the Jeep. Jeremy and Dave loaded up Jeremy's to get it ready to tow into Gales Creek for gas in the morning.

As we were heading down the highway we passed Team 8 (Piston's Wild Team 1), as they made their way back. We got the Jeep loaded up (after it ran out of gas just from turning it around), and returned to camp. Most of us were still going on the adrenaline from the day, so we stayed up for awhile. Jeremy and I ran down to Team 8's camp to get their story. They basically traced our steps, and called it quits when we did due to fuel issues. We felt good about our decision, and where we may lie in the playing field.

Sunday morning rolled around, and we took off for gas at 0730. We set off for Little Browns at 0900.

After everyone had arrived, we were told only four teams would be competing in today's final challenge. Team Toyota, Team 4 Wheel Parts, Team Piston's Wild, and finally Team Bronco. It was a huge bummer we didn't make the cut, but at the same time I didn't take it as a lost after what we had just accomplished. What it came down to was points, not time.

So Sunday was just a spectator day for us. Ray (Too Big) and his very wife Melissa came out for the day.

The final challenge was a four part challenge. 4 Wheel Parts navigating the cone course (drivers are blind folded).

Team Piston's Wild getting briefed on the challenge.

Daryl (LJ Dude) giving Darel directions.

Daryl practicing his sling shot skillz.

Now that's team work.

We broke down camp, and then headed over for awards/raffle. First place went to Team Bronco who finished all the check points, and returned to camp at 0330. Second went to 4 Wheel Parts, and third to Flat Broke.

Overall we were just a few points shy of making it into the finals. I'm super pleased with our run, and while I wish we could do things different, I have no regrets. This was an amazing event. Well done, Team 6. We'll get them next year.

It was announced they will be doing this again next year. I encourage anyone interested to give it a shot.

Also, thanks to all those who helped with the event. I can only imagine how much time and effort went into planning this event. There may have been some first year bugs to work out, but it can only get better.

 

[cody4359]

sweet report, looked like a blast. i thought darrens old mj was completley totaled, guess not

 

[Bri&Bub Off-Road]

great report and we hop everyone enjoyed it as much as your guys. fuel was a major issue for everyone and i think only 1 team made every checkpoint. we would love some emails with and question, comments, concerns or suggestions for next year. thanks again and hope to see you all next year.

 

[ambitious98xj]

Really great write-up guys. Was a cool event, from what we were able to see. Would be a blast, and a huge challenge, to compete! Thanks for all the great pics and details!

 

[ambitious98xj]

great report and we hop everyone enjoyed it as much as your guys. fuel was a major issue for everyone and i think only 1 team made every checkpoint. we would love some emails with and question, comments, concerns or suggestions for next year. thanks again and hope to see you all next year.

Thanks Ryan and Dana for all of your efforts, and for letting us tag along w/ your campsite.

 

[NW-ZJ-SCOTT]

Great report! This was for sure a trip to test us as a group, Not so much our rigs. And even with a week of camping prior to the event, I still feel like i was ready for more when it was over..

I am Highly anticipating next years event.. 2 teams would be awesome! This was the first trip out that i was fully content to not bring my rig, While i love driving, I really enjoy the challenge of Navigating.. (I.E. Keeping Confidence and spirits high, while maintaining Proper direction)

A post run trip of the Route, should be planned for the not-to-distant future! Torx, Please save the coordinates you have!

 

[LJ dude]

A post run trip of the Route, should be planned for the not-to-distant future! Torx, Please save the coordinates you have!

X2!!!



Great trip report Dustin!

After making it into the second round on Sunday it did hurt to not place in the top three. But the challenge was a great learning experience! I cant wait for next years Trophy Challenge!

 

[TORX]

Forgot to mention I had the GPS tracking our route most of the day. I looked at the tracks when I got home, and we covered 135+ miles. I'm already planning on getting back out there again soon.

 

[Bronzewyrm]

I'm already planning on getting back out there again soon.

Bronze.






yes, im gelious...

 

[nightfoam]

Good work fellas! Hopefully next year I'll be able to go.
Torx, are you able to load your GPS track onto your computer? I"d love to take a look at that.

 

[AwesomeXJ]

Great job guys. Next year will be team Naxja's year. :thumbup:

 

[NW99XJ]

Amazing write-up Dustin!!!!
Good Job.
That must've been an amazing experience.
sounds like next year I'll have to give it a go, run co-pilot, or least lend a hand in some sort of support role.
Go Team !

 

[TORX]

Torx, are you able to load your GPS track onto your computer? I"d love to take a look at that.

Yup. I'll try and email the track to you. I'm GPS-tarded though.

 

[BoringDave]

Amazing write-up Dustin!!!!
Good Job.
That must've been an amazing experience.
sounds like next year I'll have to give it a go, run co-pilot, or least lend a hand in some sort of support role.
Go Team !

I was going to chase them around and document the run, But I gave up quick. They were hauling sack! And the 2 1/4 ton 4bangerYJ was never going to keep up.

 

[NW99XJ]

I was going to chase them around and document the run, But I gave up quick. They were hauling sack! And the 2 1/4 ton 4bangerYJ was never going to keep up.

Challenge Accepted - time to build a chase/support rig!!! lol

 

[chero-car]

Challenge Accepted - time to build a chase/support rig!!! lol

The only thing I would say about a chase rig would be GAS, a cheap truck that can fit about six 5 gallon cans and extra food and water. Thats just my 2 cents.

 

[WaXJ_Skier]

In on a team for next year, YJ will be finished by then

 

[BoringDave]

Challenge Accepted - time to build a chase/support rig!!! lol

I think we would disqualify our team. Im sure the whole point of the challenge is to complete it solely by the teams with no outside support.

Now that we know what's up we can prepare a few rigs.

Our team along with many others went into this challenge completely blind. I seen the look on the teams faces at the drivers meeting when they said this would be 125 mile round trip with no mistakes.

I think this years team needs to post up the stuff they used the most and stuff they wished they had at the time of the challenge. This way next year we as a team (Team ) can help by lending our teams things they may not own. This way they don't have to pony up all the money for stuff they may normally never use.

Dave