Offroad-Express

After my first crack at a 4x4 Trial - nothing broken (except possibly my hand). And only nearly rolled it once - and we scored heaps of points

Avoided the rougher 2 or 3 hazards where there was a good chance of rolling, and was quickly nailed by a combination of my lack of practice, my tiny 27" tyres and their understeering nature as well as very greasy mud/clay on many hazards that emphasised this, and occasional near significant power loss. Also not helped by there being very few entries in the Standard class so we couldn't watch anyone one else do those courses first. It did better than expected in the sloppy rutted stuff, and we did manage two zero scores at the first attempt on the forest hazards.

We didn't do most of the afternoon runs as I did something to my hand which became increasingly painful to even change gear and impossible to grip the steering wheel properly - which without powersteering made the turns we weren't making in the first place not worth even trying. The two hazards we did retry we did worse than in the morning session - and this was when I got it on two wheels. Yeah good time to pack up for the day.










More pics at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 3825866544

nice one i miss seeing standard 4x4s at the trials

awesome.
good to see a truck that hasn't cost tens of thousands competing

Most trials these days are way too extreme for standard trucks , good to see you having a go though. Should be more for basic standard trucks, might even get the manufacturers involved then? Who knows?

yes gone are the days where you turned up in your d/d. I've got senior mates who had won the days nats trails and then driven there cruisers etc back home after swapping the tyres back to their roadies.

now its $80-120k just to get into the top 15 let alone a podium finish.

the winch challenge started along the d/d rout but has ended up with turbos the size of concrete trucks bolted to the engines and super modified 8's with winches that would compete on the 1/4 mile.

the concept of d/d comps is fast disappearing

rant over

although i'm as bad as what i've just described that's killing the d/d sceen ahh but that sound of a bent8 pulling just can't be beat

Don't get "Trials" and "Mud Plugs" confused, they're very different

Trials wrote:Don't get "Trials" and "Mud Plugs" confused, they're very different

That's a slightly inaccurate view. A number of the hazards that day would have had you "Trials" boffins on your toes..
Well done on getting out Baxter, I hope you got Dangermouse to wash it for you..

"That's a slightly inaccurate view. A number of the hazards that day would have had you "Trials" boffins on your toes.."

The only ones being illegal in the rule book or having water over 0.5m depth

Cheers all. Yep, I'm a big fan of keeping motorsport accessible with a daily driver option - I also compete in hillclimbs etc with daily drivers, often as unsuitable as the Niva was (though my CRX was competitive for a standard car back in the day).

We had some random carby related power issues on the day that nailed us on a couple of hazards we should have cleared otherwise (the Niva doesn't have a lot of power to spare to start with ), but the biggest problem (other than my less than average driving ) was the 27" tyres which failed to clear some basic bits most everything else did with comparative ease. Also a problem was that these SATs give it bad understeer, which on top of its not brilliant lock is pretty much impossible to manhandle quickly without power-steering (especially after I managed to crack my left hand on something and couldn't fully grip the wheel in the afternoon session ).

Unfortunately fitting 33s under a Niva is a big job (and then it wouldn't have the power to turn them), so I'm not sure I'll use it again unless I manage to get some 30/31s under it with my low-ratio diffs, and a bit more artic in the front (all on the to-do/wish list). Fitting power-steer to a Niva is also a big job, so unlikely I'll do that, but if I stumble on the tight parts maybe as it'd make it a better dd as well

I think I regret passing up a cheap option on a Niva that had be cut up and caged for trials

mudlva wrote:yes gone are the days where you turned up in your d/d. I've got senior mates who had won the days nats trails and then driven there cruisers etc back home after swapping the tyres back to their roadies.

now its $80-120k just to get into the top 15 let alone a podium finish.

the winch challenge started along the d/d rout but has ended up with turbos the size of concrete trucks bolted to the engines and super modified 8's with winches that would compete on the 1/4 mile.

the concept of d/d comps is fast disappearing

rant over

although i'm as bad as what i've just described that's killing the d/d sceen ahh but that sound of a bent8 pulling just can't be beat

Haha, you are a bad man Mudlva!

Surely you can build competitive class truck for reasonable money? Look at the Suzuki that ran at Possum palace last year, or even the SI series winning Jeep of Sav's was for sale for 10K.

Cool to see the Niva out!

Yes im sure you can build a d-d into a comp vehicle but its leeping them in a d/d form is the hard bit.
Forget a nats as amything closely reassembling a d/d just will not be in the running. May in there "class" but not o/a.
The w/c vehicles are getting knocked around just as bad and by the time the owners have build a full exo they need the concrete truck turbos just to get them moving.

Personnaly i dont know where the answers are. Its good to keep the comps d/d based. But equally good to push along the rout of trailored buggies