Held 21/22 April 

Reefton Challenge
By Graeme Nicholls

Not quite too sure how it all started; probably after a few beers when you tend to get pretty brave; Scotty Newport, Rowan Coutts and myself decided that we would represent the Nelson 4WD Club in the above event. This decision then had lots of ramifications, like none of us having winches; so two of us went out and bought one each, whilst Scotty managed to convince Warwick Smith that he needed his winch more than Warwick did for that weekend. Scotty also decided that the tyres on the Rocky weren’t up to the task, so a set of 33`s were purchased, but having fitted them it became apparent that a body lift was the next thing to be required in order to turn them without tearing them to bits. Many a weekend was spent making winch mounts, lifting trucks and generally getting ready for the big event.

Finally the week of the challenge arrived, and we decided that we had better officially enter the event – oops, a bit of administration oversight meant that we hadn’t actually paid any money, so therefore were not actually entered. A quick whip round and the money were paid to the organizers, and it was all go.

Friday afternoon, and we were ready to go. I decided to trailer the Jeep down (just to make sure that it would actually get there), and met the rest of the team in Reefton. Scotty had James Keys as his winch bitch, Rowan had one of his mates, Peter, and I had Chris Baird to do the hard yards for me.

After unloading the Jeep and settling into the camping ground, it was time to go and get the trucks scrutinized at the Reefton Working Mans Club, where Don Noble was doing a fine job of inspecting all the trucks. Pulling into the yard, we were greeted by the sight of lots of heavily modified and expensive looking machinery, making our trucks look very ordinary indeed. Don gave our vehicles the once over; Sav and Brownie gave us our entry numbers to attach to the windscreens, and we were all set. Over a few ales, we then set our strategy for the next couple of days.

Saturday morning, and the weather looked like it was going to be good, although there had been quite a bit of rain during the week, so we guessed that there would still be a bit of moisture left to make some of the tracks a bit slippery, and this proved to be the case. Eight o’clock was the time for all the competitors to meet; and the first trucks were on their way shortly after that.

We were in the second lot of trucks to be sent out, and our first hazard was to be Craig’s Clearing; a swampy piece of land somewhere near the Rahu Saddle. This didn’t cause us too many problems, with only a couple of short winches required, and we were finished the hazard in about 17 minutes. Apparently by the end of the day the track had cut up quite badly, and teams were taking over two hours to complete it!

Back to Reefton, and the next hazard for us was at Garvy`s Mine, but to get to it we had to travel via the Waitaha river so that meant that we were well shaken up by the time we got there. It’s a pretty rough track in the jeep when you are trying to keep up a good turn of speed! There were two hazards to be negotiated in this area, and the first was quite a little axle twister, with one truck going around the track in one direction, and the remaining two trucks doing it in the opposite direction. We decided to send Scotty on his own, and Rowan and I would go the other way, so off went Scotty as I positioned myself to go the other way as soon as he was finished. Once in position, I looked around to see how Scotty was doing, only to discover that he had managed to put the Rocky on its side. It was all hands to the fore to heave it back on to its wheels, and then to complete the course without further mishap. Even with our rollover, we were still able to complete the course faster than the next team that did it.

Onwards we went, negotiating the next few hazards without any more drama’s, and it must be noted that the co pilots were doing an excellent job each time that the winches were required. Even though they had never done this before, they all would pile out of the respective trucks and have the winch rope out, or tow rope hooked up, or whatever was needed, without hardly a word being spoken; they just seemed to know what was required. A job well done by them, which made it really easy for the rest of us.

As we were traveling down Top Road from one of the hazard around mid-day, a loud bang was heard from the front of the Jeep, but because it is a Jeep and you sort of expect funny noises from time to time, we continued on into Reefton (albeit with some more funny noises coming from the front of the truck) An inspection revealed a broken front spring, and with a day and a half still ahead of us; what to do? We decided that we would do a temporary repair, and try to limp along for the rest of the weekend, so around to Trev Prendergast`s workshop, where a piece of 4x2 was cut to the required length and wired to the spring with some good old no 8 wire. The winch rope was then tied to the front axle to try to keep it in the correct place. This worked reasonably well for the rest of the weekend, although we had to keep putting the axle back into its correct position before doing most of the remaining hazards. I had a for sale sign on the truck for the weekend, and someone reckoned that I had just doubled the value of the truck by putting the piece of 4x2 in it, and someone else wanted to buy it for firewood!

As my front axle was now being held in place with my winch rope, this meant that we were down to only two winches for the remainder of the weekend, and we still had the infamous Stu`s Farm to conquer. This hazard is a real bog hole, and then a long muddy uphill climb before coming back down and through the bog again to finish. We arrived at about 8:30 on Sunday morning, where marshal Don told us to wait, as there was already a team in there. We waited, and we waited, and another team turned up, so they were sent back to Reefton to do another hazard, and still we waited. The team in front of us were finally pulled from the hazard after two hours, and scored a DNF (did not finish), so we were naturally getting a little bit nervous as we only had the two winches.

We managed to get across the long bog without too much trouble, and then it was the hill to climb. Rowan went first as far as he could, and then winched the length of his winch rope, with Scotty at the bottom, with his winch rope attached to Rowan and the rope being pulled out as he (Rowan) winched up the hill. I was then attached to Scotty with a strop. When Rowan had winched himself up, Scotty then winched both him and me at the same time; no mean feat I should add, but Warwick’s winch did this without any problems. This was repeated until we were all at the top, and then it was as quick as we could go back down the hill, through the long bog and back to the start / finish line. This was a timed event, and we had taken 53 minutes, which we were quite pleased with, considering the handicap we had (me).

We carried on doing the rest of the hazards, but time was against us because of being delayed for so long at the first hazard of the day, and also having to do running repairs to the front axle on my truck all day. We were told before our second to last hazard that we would have to be back in Reefton before 3:oo pm for our last hazard, or we would run out of time to complete it, and would be scored a DNF. This really made us put our skates on, so it was really fast up Saw Pit track, and flat out up the rough old track to Top Road, and then onto the hazard at the Quarry. This is a really greasy track down one side, and then up the other, and each team could decide which direction that they wanted to do it from. With a bit of winching and towing, this was achieved, and then rapidly back to Reefton (observing all the speed limits etc of course) where we arrived at five past three, but the organizers must have felt sorry for us, as they let us proceed to the next hazard.

Our next hazard was Petrol Hill, and by this time the front springs on the jeep had had about as much abuse as they were going to take, so it was fairly slow work getting up the riverbed to the start of the hazard. Upon arrival, Scotty went up first, and with a bit of winching was up, followed by Rowan who drove as far as he could and the Scotty towed him up. I was next and the scene was repeated, but it didn’t go anywhere nearly as smoothly as we had hoped; in fact you could say that we made a complete mess of it; however we eventually made it to the top. We were quite blown away when we were told that we had done it in the fastest time for the whole weekend! By now it was starting to get dark, and the front end of the Jeep was starting to feel like it had had enough and wanted to get out, so it was a long slow trip back to camp.

After a welcome beer or two, then an equally welcome shower, it was back to the Working Mens Club for tea, and then prize giving. The winners for the weekend were the Blenheim team, who had incidentally borrowed one of our members, Abe Baigent, on the Wednesday before the event as one of their team could not make it, so they were partly Nelson team, and second place went to our team.

Damage list:
Scotty – Dented roof, dented front mudguard.
Rowan – Dented rim.
Me – Both front springs knackered, winch fairlead bent, handbrake munted, rear brakes worn out, tail light broken, transfer box needing overhaul, canopy bent down and ripped.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. It was a really great weekend, with all the team working together excellently, and even though I felt that I was being the “lame duck” of the team, I never once was made to feel that I was holding the rest up, or letting them down. If I still have the Jeep next year, and there are people silly enough to want me in their team, I shall return.

Thanks to Sav, Murray Brown, and all the Marshals who give up their time so that this event can take place.