Hmmmm, a suitable column subject for Tuesday May 28?
Right. If I was any other ‘motorsport commentator’ I’d sit down at my laptop and tap out some worthy tome on – let’s see – the Indy 500 held early Monday morning NZ-time with the usual focus on Scott Dixon, or perhaps the latest F1 Grand Prix round at Monaco – with a focus, perhaps, on the history of NZ drivers in the main race and supports – which started a couple of hours earlier on the other side of the Atlantic.
At this time of year I could also, I suppose, bang out a longer lead time preview on the up-coming Le Mans 24 Hour race (June 15-16) and – again – rustle up a nice Kiwi angle based round the idea that of any truly global motorsport event des 24 Heures du Mans is the one that – for whatever reason – Kiwis have enjoyed the most success in.
I’ve also got an idea brewing in my head (oddly enough) about concussion, and a link I think it has with the suicide rate among young – and not so young – males in this country (and probably others).
But I need to do some more research on the subject, because it is one which definitely doesn’t benefit from the sort of sensationalist once-over-lightly approach most of the general media seems to have adopted these days.
Instead, I’m going to talk about something completely different this week – 4×4 Trials in general, and the latest wild and crazy local motorsport’s flagship event, the annual Suzuki Extreme 4×4 Challenge, in particular.
I am because if the local version of this most extreme of four-wheel motorised sports is not the most exciting, most spectator-entertaining addition to the motorsport landscape since drifting first arrived here then I do not know what is.
And if you don’t believe me, check it out yourself and make your own mind up by watching CRC Motorsport on TV3 next month (Sun June 09 and June 16).
There, you will see coverage of the fifth annual Suzuki Extreme 4×4 Challenge, a stand-alone ‘made-for-TV’ spectacle organised and run by Dan Cowper, of Turakina (between Whanganui and Bulls) engineering firm Cowper Trucks.
As a sport, 4×4 Trials has its roots in the UK, where format and rules-wise, Classic Trials for cars are just like Trials for motorcycles, in that competitors drive between a number of marked ‘sections’ with the final pecking order decided by who lost the least penalty points.
On a purpose-built ‘Trials motorcycle the idea is to complete as much of a section ‘in balance’ with your feet up (on the footpegs) with a ‘dab’ costing you (based on when I tried it ‘100 years ago in a past life’) three points, and a crash, or trip outside the taped off confines of the section, five points.
If you do manage to make it through without putting a foot down, you are considered to have ‘cleaned’ a section.
I checked out a couple of YouTube videos to see how this system worked with four wheels and – in theory – it is very much the same. Obviously, the sections are way easier than at any bike event, but they are still marked out and you have to get through and past a number of pegs and marker posts without hitting any or stopping, to ‘clean’ a section.
From the vids I watched it was all a bit twee, to be fair, with jolly good chaps enjoying what-oh japes in spindly, Austin 7 or early Lotus 7-style rear-wheel-drive ‘cars’ on muddy farm tracks.
There are also classes for modern production cars, with the ubiquitous VW Beetle and various other VW-bases specials still a popular choice.
Here, not so!
For a start our 4×4 Trials are pegged out up, down and often across steep, vertiginous gullies, through seemingly bottomless swamps and along sidlings that might as well be vertical.
And the spider-like vehicles which have evolved to excel in this type of terrain owe more to the US ‘King of the Hammers’ school of ‘let’s-get-this-done’ design, build and execution than they do any lingering thought of heritage or what might or might not have gone before as in the UK.
For a while there to compete you had to either buy an existing 4×4 Trials ‘truck’ or build your own. These days though you can buy in most – of not all – of the bits and bobs you need, including a purpose-built frame and as much of the ‘purpose-requisitioned and repurposed’ 4WD running gear you need from blokes like Dan Cowper.
Check out a video from last year’s event (which you can do here and you’ll get the picture quicker than if you have a wade through another couple of hundred of my words.
Suffice to say the Kiwi-built ‘Trucks’ or ‘Buggies’ have evolved to suit the mud, short, steep hills pock-marked hill sections with rough, mogul-like contour lines and wall-of-death-like sidlings our topography throws up here.
Which, not surprisingly, rewards, stubby, short wheelbase tubular steel chassis(s) with front/mid-mounted (Mostly LSI, 2 or 3 V8s these days) engines, 4×4 drive AS WELL AS 4-wheel-steer systems, tiny bead lock-equipped 15-inch rims fitted with huge, high profile 35-inch Mud tyres, and what everyone in the game seems to refer to simply as ‘fiddle brakes.’
‘Fiddle’ (or ‘steering’) brakes are used by the co-driver and allow each rear wheel to be braked individually (yep, just like the old Massey Ferguson and/or Fordson tractors many of us learned to drive on as kids) resulting in (done right anyway) way tighter turns, particularly when combined with four-wheel steer.
A skilled co-driver can also use the controlled application of either or both brakes (via the vertical handles in front of him) as a rudimentary form of traction control.
The multi-round national championship still caters for production-based 4x4s as well as the specialised open class machines, but the Suzuki Extreme 4×4 Challenge only has ten starting spots available and this year – fittingly – they went to the top ten finishers in the 2018/19 National Championship Series
Last year the event was won for the first time by Auckland brothers Scott and Jarred Biggs in one of their self-built Nitro Customs machines.
This year the brothers returned, but each with their own Nitro truck, with Scott and new co-driver (or ‘Navi’ as they tend to be called) Phillip Walton taking the event out and Jarred and his navi Fleche Crawford finishing fourth overall
Derek Smythe was the winner of the inaugural NZ Championship back in 2010 with Suzuki Extreme 4×4 event organiser Dan Cowper taking the title the year after.
Whanganui pair Hamish Auret and Paul Barnes have also always been up there, winning the national championship in 2015. Though they are arguably better remembered for their history-making back flip successfully completed at the Suzuki Extreme 4×4 Challenge event in 2016 (which you can see for yourself here
Speaking of backflips, Kiwi FMX star Levi Sherwood was a special ‘wildcard’ entry in the 2017 and 2018 Suzuki Extreme events driving Dan Cowper’s own Cowper Truck and – needless to say – had an absolute ball.
I was first alerted to just how extreme and what a great spectacle a local 4×4 Trial event is by photographers Graham Hughes and Greg Henderson. Both started shooting events in the BoP and Waikato because they combined everything a photographer looks for – action, speed, easy access to prime shooting spots, and plenty of colourful vehicles and characters.
These, obviously, are the very same reasons Dan Cowper can attract between 2 and 3000 paying spectators to his event, despite its relative distance from a major population centre.
I know, TV does a reasonable job of taking an event like the Suzuki Extreme 4×4 Challenge to the rest of us. However as I said to the guy who has covered all five for me (in my ‘day job’ role of Editor of NZ4WD magazine), Ashley Lucas, imagine what sort of crowd you could pull if – say – you held it within cooeee of our biggest city (Auckland) and if you got a global sponsor like Red Bull involved.
‘Mad Mike’ Whiddett has done the drift equivalent with his Drift Shifters event, and I can see ‘Dangerous Dan’ Cowper’s having the same sort of mass market appeal…………………
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