Wish us luck.

[mojojojo]

where is it being held this year ? i didnt see it on the web page

 

[2xtreme]

Take lots of pics if you get a chance and update us the whole thing sounds very appealing to me.



Story says it was in oregon also one of there cams had a time stamp

That was my point.
The photo above is not the photo of the "other" broken axle from 2007 (which I believe was a 9").

We do have a indash camera mounted for this event but I don't expect we will be bringing back many photos (there just isn't time for them). But there will be plenty of stories and lots of great memories!!

Rod, you won't find much info on the details of this years event. It is supposed to be a secret till just a couple of weeks before the event.

Michael

 

[Metal Thrasher]

the TTC in Oregon was run by Doug Shipman and modeled after the Range Rover Camel Challenge. For the past three years the Timber Tamers have hosted this event in Washington based on Doug's event. MAJOR thanks are due to both for these great events.

 

[XJourney]

Items broke, bent or replaced at TTC
1 Brake line
1 Front shock mount
1 Front locker
1 Ring and pinion
2 unit bearings
1 set of wheels/tires
2 u-joints
2 stub shafts
1 mirror
and a little sheet metal

But we didn't quit.

or get lost

 

[2xtreme]

Items broke, bent or replaced at TTC
1 Brake line
1 Front shock mount
1 Front locker
1 Ring and pinion
2 unit bearings
1 set of wheels/tires
2 u-joints
2 stub shafts
1 mirror
and a little sheet metal

But we didn't quit.

or get lost

A few items that should probably be added to the list of broke or damaged
1 brused shoulder
2 or 3 cut fingers
at least 6 pairs of "ventilated" gloves
1 cut shin
1 cracked windshield
1 ant bite
? bug bites from mosquitos or ?

I "think" I speak for all of us when I say "What an incredible weekend!!!!"
Thanks again guys for what will be an incredibly memorable and educating weekend! Thanks for your teamwork, energy, laughs, support and friendship, I loved every frustrating, tired and smelly minute of it!!

The Timber Tamers really put on an incredible event!!
Michael

 

[AIbandit]

Welcome back guys Grats on finishing

 

[XJourney]

It was a blast.

Too bad it was so easy that we decided to pull some axle shafts to add a challenge.:sure:

 

[2xtreme]

It was a blast.

Too bad it was so easy that we decided to pull some axle shafts to add a challenge.:sure:

Exactly HOW many times in a 24 Hr period do you have to swap tires, steering rods, axle shafts, and/or hubs to make it an ENDURANCE event?

Mich"I am now clean and tired"ael

 

[AIbandit]

Lol sounds like a great event to me!
story time what were the challenges??

 

[Blkxjkrawler]

Exactly HOW many times in a 24 Hr period do you have to swap tires, steering rods, axle shafts, and/or hubs to make it an ENDURANCE event?

Mich"I am now clean and tired"ael

I lost count in the teens! :gag:

How and why the hell am I still awake?
Ryan/Winch anchor extrordanaire

 

[TORX]

Congrats on surviving guys.

I definitely can't wait to hear the story.

 

[2xtreme]

I will give only my personal experience of the event and let each of the rest of the team provide their own experience because trully for an event like this it really is very different for each participant. I am also going to try to provide the story without giving too much information away about the event specifics.

The planning for this event started months ago. We did a few training secions on navigation, trail runs, gps, map and compass work, and listing some of the maintenance and modifications we might need to do to both of the rigs. Over the months it became apparent to me that we were VERY well prepared and as a team were really as ready as we could expect to be, except that my Jeep had recently seen some significant abuse from NW Fest, the Rubicon, Barrett Lake trail, and had a few parts things that needed to be replaced, upgraded, etc.

In the last few weeks I replaced my front coils, bumpstops, shock mounts, Track Bar (all new bracketry and geometry over the axle) Steering (all new tube, mounts, geometry over the knuckle), UCA bushings, and a few other minor changes and maintenance. I barely got all of the components to do the work before having to get the Jeep on the trailer and head to the event, not alone test them out. As of a couple of days before the event I got everything done and back together and test drove it. The DW that I have had on the road was worse than it was before (mostly because my new steering is SO solid that it didn't compensate for any issues). With a little experience and testing I decided that my problem was my wheels/tires and balancing. On the way to the event I borrowed a set of my brothers wheels/tries (32" TSL's on stock aluminium wheels, knowing that I would have to modify my new steering to fit inside the stock BS wheels).

Ryan and Hans had gotten over there the day prior to do some pre event planning and set up the camp. Tracey and I got there and unloaded both Jeeps and started to get prepared for the event. Once camp was set up and we were basically ready we swapped my wheels with my brothers (with the necessary steering geometry swap) and test drove it. after some self clearancing of the wheels it was better but DW was still present and significant at speeds of about 30 mph (way less than we though we should be prepared for). We both went through tech inspection with flying colors. After doing some more testing on my Jeep we decided that the unit bearings/hubs were worse than anything any of had ever even thought was possible (Insert note for those of you who carry spare unitbearings on your spare shafts, make sure that your unit bears/hubs match your Jeep there are at least two different sizes and they are not always compatible :gag. So with two navigators, one searching GPS for auto parts companies phone numbers in the area and the other calling each of them for parts we ended up in Yakima to get two new unit bearings/hubs for my Jeep. We swaped the new hubs onto the old shafts, swapped the steering back and wheels back to mine. Test drive showed NO change what so ever (please imagine the look on Ryan's face after driving for hours, swapping parts for hours, and nothing changing at all :flamemad. More evaluation and we decided to swap the Heims on the TB for some of the heims on the steering and put my brothers wheels back on. Still no cures to the problem but it was as good as it was going to get for this event (I feel terrible to let the team down with bringing a vehicle that just wasn't as ready as it needed to be and then them having to help me before the event to try to fix all of my shortcomings, Ryan (in particular) I REALLY appreciate all of your help and support :cheers:. Got to bed about 1:00AM I believe?

An awsome breakfast before a 6:00AM drivers meeting revealed that the TSD/TDR (Time Speed Distance/Time Distance Rally) portion of the event would be done first and at no more than 25mph basically negated all of the time/effort/energy/stress we put into my Jeep the night before :bawl:

At the start of the event I felt like we were prepared and ready and not confussed, unlike our first time! Hans navigation and GPS skills are really unmatched, in my experience he is the god of GPS/navigation skills :worship: Ryan (playing navigator and double checking everything Hans did was also incredible) and together they absolutely rocked!! :cheers:.

After a few check points, a few poker chips it was clear that we were prepared and scoring well during each of the challenges. Until we hit Funny Rocks. We ran into a couple of mechanical issues in the process of finishing up the Runny Rocks challenge with Traceys Jeep (apparently his driver front tire took out the hard brake line and the driver front shock mount ripped right off of the axle). We removed the shock and bent the hard line over so that it didnt leak and was useable (really unsure of how the rest of the events during the day would be possible). a few more buckets and trails later I couldn't believe how well Tracey was doing with only 3 brakes and 3 shocks!! At the Moon Rocks challenge (T-Ball) I entered the challenge into a monster drop off and managed to pin both of my front and rear bumpers in the rocks. I gave it a little gas to hear a big bang from the front axle. We pulled the high lift and lifted the front bumper over the hang up and the Jeep was able to climb the rock in 4wd (with a LOT of popping) we managed to impress the judges and camera men with both of our dukes of hazard style "T-Ball" skills.

I quickly was getting worried about the noises, and binding from my front end in both 2wd and 4wd and so we decided to pull it apart and see what was wrong. While practicing our trail repairs we did an exceptional job of draining the diff oil with no spillage, and found that the Ring and Pinion had seen much better days and were missing several teeth. We pulled the front shafts, pulled the joints and put the hubs/out shafts back in, pulled the front diveline and ran the rest of the day in 2Low (I can't say enough good things about the 2low kit when you run into issues like this on the trail!!!!!). With the exception of a couple of difficult steep hill climbs with some LONG winch pulls (my 125ft of Mastpull synthetic line and very slow Ramsey winch both proved indespensable) we had no issues and regularly Ryan and I were shocked at how well Tracey was doing still with only 3 brakes and shocks and an ever more popping front locker (partially working, but making a LOT of noise).

Along the way we ran into a team or two that were soooo lost they had NO idea what they were doing. We ran into other teams with significant damage (several roll overs, transmission issues, steering boxes/radiators, the list goes on for ever). We ended up the day section about 11:00PM or so (and not being able to complete it) and got back to camp to pick up our night course info and was Shocked to see so many teams still at camp preparing for the night course (I think this gave all of us a new energy boost to start the night with).

We ate some food, entered GPS info, and got out of camp and back on the trail with two invilid Jeeps ASAP. The GPS section for us this year I think went really well, we had 3 GPS's we were useing and we all worked well together exchanging info, finding buckets, and trying to be descreate as possible to not give any info out (Including climbing 25ft up a tree in the pitch black to get a punch from a bucket, while in the process I scared the bejeesus our of one of the other teams where was wondering around down below trying to find the bucket :roflmao. We got back in at 5:00AM ready for a couple of hours of bed before breakfast in the morning.

I had a wonderful time, really enjoyed the event and the team that I am honored to be apart of!! :worship: Each of them brings skills to the table that we couldn't do without.

The Timber Tamers put on another incredible event!! I lookforward to competing in this event as many times as I possibly can. It is fun, educating, challenging, and rewarding. It pushes each of us to our limits and beyond.

Thanks guys :cheers:
Michael

PS. I really would like to see another team of two next year from !! We would be more than happy to talk with anyone else who is interested in competing and help them prepare for such an event.

 

[JBweld]

Great Write-up Michael.

I'm pretty bummed I missed out.

 

[Metal Thrasher]

Pics:

 

[TORX]

Sounds like a weekend from hell, but also fun in a sick and twisted sort of way.

So what is the main goal for the event?

I read about buckets and challenges. I'm assuming the buckets are found by GPS coordinates, and the challenges are 4x4 related?

 

[Metal Thrasher]

Sounds like a weekend from hell, but also fun in a sick and twisted sort of way.

So what is the main goal for the event?

I read about buckets and challenges. I'm assuming the buckets are found by GPS coordinates, and the challenges are 4x4 related?

To be honest we don't feel like giving away the specific challenges on a totally competitive level :viking:. The event is designed to show that you, your rig and your team are capable off-road wheelers with a broad range of skills, knowledge and preparedness. If you look through pictures of past events you will get some ideas and then if you throw in a healthy dash of realizing that certain Timber Tamers really like to "pick" on the participants you will get it.

Also I would like to share: the rules now include No Alchohol, No firearms, and if you get a ticket on the road for speeding or not being street legal you are out.

 

[2xtreme]

Sounds like a weekend from hell, but also fun in a sick and twisted sort of way.

So what is the main goal for the event?

I read about buckets and challenges. I'm assuming the buckets are found by GPS coordinates, and the challenges are 4x4 related?

The primary goal is to collect as many "points" as possible during a 24Hr period. The more points you collect at each of the challenges, the more challenges you make it to, the more buckets you find, and the more poker chips you put in buckets the more points you collect during the event.

Tracey's synopsis is very accurate.
The primary reason that I really like this kind of event is that your team needs to be VERY capable in a VERY diverse set of sircumstances that you can't easily predict in advance. On top of this, you need to be able to cover ALOT of ground between each "challenge".

The GPS portion you have to find "buckets" by way of GPS coordinates and projected coordinates (typical map and compass type work). It makes you really appreciate significant understanding of both GPS's strengths and weeknesses and how to use them to there maximum capabilities. On top of this, you are trying to not let anyone else see you or know that you found a bucket.

To add to the above basic challenges, what I believe really seperates the best from the regular is that this trully is an "endurance" event where mental, emotional, and physical stress is pretty much continuouse for a 24hr period of time, so your physical and nutritional requirements do play a significant roll also.

Michael

 

[mojojojo]

Pics:

does anyone else find this picture a lil out of place ?

First of all congrats guys on just surviving ! sounds like you had some serious hurdles to overcome on top of the normal challenges of the event.


is it a 2 vehicle / 4 man team ? or 1 vehicle / 2 man team ?

i assume judging from past events that it is held pretty close to the same date year to year ?

 

[Metal Thrasher]

is it a 2 vehicle / 4 man team ? or 1 vehicle / 2 man team ?

i assume judging from past events that it is held pretty close to the same date year to year ?

A team is : Two vehicles, minimum of three people max of four.

The date has changed a bit. The goal is Fall and there was a lot of input about hunting seasons and weather, etc. The basic rules are on the Timber Tamers website.