Nate's crappy 93 XJ

kmboren · May 17, 2015

Nice bling. You are going to win osrc for sure now.

N-Smooth · May 17, 2015

kmboren said:
Nice bling. You are going to win osrc for sure now.

Pffffft I was always going to win anyways

Really though, I won't be winning but it's sooooo fun I don't care.

N-Smooth · May 25, 2015

Sooooooo...

We had a good weekend. I won first place in stock class, second in the race and first place overall. It was a BLAST! I can't say enough how much I appreciate Craig, Lisa, Millard County, the volunteers and all the sponsors that make the event happen. Such an amazing time was had by my family and friends that attended. Now I just need some sponsors!

Last but not least my little wheeler. He had a blast.

N-Smooth · May 25, 2015

After the awards were given out we loaded up and headed to Sand Hollow. I've been several times now but I'm still blown away by how much I love that place. Not many pics were taken because we were just busy having fun.
My boy was putting his hands up on every downhill and making his mama do the same or he would berate her lol. Her arms were getting tired.

Kevin on Milt's, look at how much fun he's having.

Coming out of Double Sammy.

We ran Plan B and Milt's yesterday. Had a locker and brake line issue or we would've done more. Today we did the first half of Joint Effort for my first time. It was super awesome! After that we finished out Double Sammy and then ran over to Nasty Half. I made it up the V notch but then Kevin came up and sheared a TRE on the way up. I ran to the parking lot to get a spare I had in my truck and cruised back up. I still love that trail and was not unhappy about running it twice

We got him patched up, headed down and cruised home. I wish I could have more weekends like that!

TJDukit · May 25, 2015

Congrats on the win. Very cool to see a nobody with a dumb XJ take it.

N-Smooth · May 26, 2015

Thanks! You're making me blush talking like that.

TJDukit said:
Congrats on the win. Very cool to see a nobody with a dumb XJ take it.

Jeromy · May 26, 2015

Congrats on the win that's awesome!

N-Smooth · May 26, 2015

Jeromy said:
Congrats on the win that's awesome!

Thanks man! I love that pic (and all of the other pics you took) thanks for taking so many

zmotorsports · May 26, 2015

Congrats on the win Nate. We were going to head down but I got backed up in the shop over the weekend and couldn't break away.

Mike.

N-Smooth · May 26, 2015

zmotorsports said:
Congrats on the win Nate. We were going to head down but I got backed up in the shop over the weekend and couldn't break away.

Mike.

Thanks! If you haven't been before, make it happen next year or hopefully (fingers crossed) Craig does another event later this year. It's just such an awesome environment.

Rock Taco · May 26, 2015

Great! Now we have to hear all about how your blinging gold rims brought home the win for the next few months! Haha
That's actually really cool to see that someone with little competitive experience can get out there and not only be competitive but win! Congrats!

N-Smooth · May 26, 2015

Rock Taco said:
Great! Now we have to hear all about how your blinging gold rims brought home the win for the next few months! Haha
That's actually really cool to see that someone with little competitive experience can get out there and not only be competitive but win! Congrats!

Thanks Troy. Last year was my first time competing and I got 5th place so this year was quite a jump in the rankings and we actually had even more competitors this time. The only problem is now I'm getting crap about having to move up a class next year since I won by around 40 points. My rig isn't made for Legends class in the least so there's that...

TJDukit · May 26, 2015

xj_nate said:
Thanks! You're making me blush talking like that.

I'm here for you buddy.

N-Smooth · Jun 15, 2015

Sitting waiting for jury duty. Ugh. But it does give me a chance to give an update for the weekend. Yay! I'll have to add pics and a couple videos later unfortunately.

After the OSRC win I wanted to try and keep momentum and I love comps so I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted to do WERock in Rangely, CO. I'd never done WERock or even been to one and this was the closest this season so it seemed ideal. Ryan said he'd spot me since my usual spotter didn't want to. Got a few last-minute things done to qualify for Sportsman's Class and cruised out after work on Friday.

Day one we rocked it with some good driving/spotting, hitting bonus lines and ended with a 78 point lead! With a lead like that we really only needed to do well on two courses and we would likely still get the win.
We were told by Josh that day two was much harder and man he was not lying to us. First course on day two I rolled hard passenger side downhill and ended on my lid. I got out and Ryan convinced me that we could roll it downhill and it would land so we could finish course. I didn't think it would work but it barely did... It almost went over again. Videos of the roll and recovery to come later. So we really moved and finished the course with a 30 instead of a 40. We wanted to maintain a lead and didn't know if 10 points would mean 2nd place. Also on the way out of that course at the last gate I lost the drivers side axle ujoint. Great. We took breakdown time since we were allowed 45 minutes- got it fixed and only had to use around 30 minutes of time.
The next two courses were hard, especially the third one of the day. Lots of bouldery stuff at the first gate that I got high-centered on. Ryan was working his tail off moving rocks and was about ready to throw in the towel but I told him we had to keep trying so we did. Finally got a good rock in place and made the first gate with around 3 minutes left. We FLEW through the rest of that course and actually made it out! We were concerned with the points we took on that course and getting nervous about being able to come out on top. We checked with the other competitors since everyone is cool to see the standings and could tell it would be close but if we did okay on the last course we would be alright.
Last course had some challenging parts and we had to take a cone on each of the first two gates and we almost rolled on the second gate. With those gates down we decided the bonus line was going to be necessary so we went for it. We also almost rolled down that (and later another competitor did) and took a cone so that one was nullified. At the next gate my passenger side ujoint gave up and was binding so I had to rally out of the last two gates and exit but we made it out!
We ended up winning by 63 points and took home some cash!!!!!
I had an awesome time and can't thank Ryan enough for being my wingman and doing work on course. It's hard to change spotters but we did a great job planning for courses beforehand and improvising mid-course.
I can't say enough how much I appreciate the volunteer judges for what they do; Rich & Shelley for an awesome organization and venue; Josh for making ridiculous course that challenge and improve us and all of the competitors that we had a blast hanging around. Go team!

Jeromy · Jun 15, 2015

awesome! Congrats on the win!

Bart · Jun 16, 2015

That is awesome and big congrats. It's good to see an XJ back out there and kicking butt. It's addicting for sure. When I had the 44 in the front of my old XJ I always carried a full spare and could change out the short in 10 minutes between obstacles.

N-Smooth · Jun 16, 2015

Thanks guys!

Yeah, the changing of the shafts usually just takes a few minutes but we had to run to the truck to get the spares and the tools. Forgot one of the tool bags the first run... Couldn't find the right socket in my giant, awful bag of sockets for like 5 minutes etc... Then we threw in a spare with a unitbearing on it already and got it back together to find out that the unitbearing was more shallow so the rotor was hitting the knuckle. I've never seen that but I've heard rumors that there were different ones out there. Either way, changed the unitbearing and we were good to go. Luckily the second u-joint was lost on the last course with two straight gates to go. Phew!

N-Smooth · Jun 17, 2015

A few pics. Lots more on my Facebook page, including the videos. Nate RCFS.
Roll:

Having to hammer out of the final course:

And of course the most important picture of all!:

I'll take some more from my FB and add them. I've hardly had time to go through all of them

N-Smooth · Jun 20, 2015

I pulled the ol' girl out of the garage today to put away some tools. I decided to take a look at how bad the u-joint breakage was and was pleasantly surprised by this sight-

So that sucks! I put in new balljoints this year so I'm sure they're under warranty but it's just another thing to deal with. It's all good though!

kmboren · Jun 21, 2015

xj_nate said:
I pulled the ol' girl out of the garage today to put away some tools. I decided to take a look at how bad the u-joint breakage was and was pleasantly surprised by this sight-
View attachment 99685
So that sucks! I put in new balljoints this year so I'm sure they're under warranty but it's just another thing to deal with. It's all good though!

So I see the bottom nut still attached and the top of the ball joint out. Did it snap or just get pulled most of the way out Expanding the joint?

Nate's crappy 93 XJ

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