RockMonkey
Suddenly Enthusiastic
Three words: hot hot HOT! It was 117 degrees on Saturday, and nearly as hot on Friday! Monsoon season made it quite humid too.
We placed 7th, but I felt like we did really well. We caught a bad hop on the second day and pitched the rig over onto the passenger side. Bad luck really, not much we could have done. All the rest of the obstacles went more or less as planned. Had we completed that one obstacle we would have been in the main event and right in it for a really high finish. Oh well.
Phoenix does have a Matterhorn-esque death wall. It's a bit taller than the one in Salt Lake, but not quite as steep. The courses were moving so fast we didn't ever get a chance to see anyone do the climb, so we couldn't see the line. People had been climbing it all day though, so we felt pretty confident. There was nothing Chris could do to help, so we decided to spotter ride it (we actually decided to spotter ride that one when we first looked at it on Thursday). What I had heard of the climb gave me the idea that you had to go a bit left and climb the left side. So we backed up, got a good running start, turned a bit left, and launched up it. As it turns out you don't have to turn left, the course will take you left on it's own.
It launched us over to the left side of the climb, and got us sideways enough that we would not be able to save it by hitting reverse. The only way to save it was to stay on the gas, crank it all the way left, and high-mark it snowmobile style. So we did. Ended up completely sideways on the steepest part of the climb, drove it off the left edge, and down the dirt on the left side (luckily there was no out-of-bounds). So we drove around to the bottom, and front-dug around back into the course (through the same gates we left since the start gate was at the bottom, the finish gate was at the top, and there ware no cones in between). Spun it back around, and hit it again. This time our line was perfect, but right at the top we lost traction. As it turns out, I never put the rear back in from when we spun around. Backed down, careful to miss the start gate AGAIN, made sure both axles were engaged, and tried it one more time. This time our line was perfect, and with all four Trepadors pulling we lauched up the thing and jumped it over the top. When we got to the top our front tires were at head-level of the people standing on the top. We ended up with a negative 4, which is only one point more than perfect, for the one backup after the second attempt. It was a wild ride, way more wild than it should have been. When it was over i wanted to do it again! Later in the evening I ended up crawling the entire wall in the "crawl the wall" competition. It was way more fun to jump it though. I actually left my camera in the hotel room, but I did take a picture of where our tracks came down the dirt on the side of the wall with my phone. Check out the size of this wall, then check out where our tracks came off of it.
Here's the wall
And here's our tracks off the side of it. That cone is the sitting at the very top.
I think Creighton got the whole thing on video. I really want to download it and post it somewhere. Creighton, you gonna be in town on tuesday?
Overall a fun weekend. We spent nearly as much time racing go karts as we did crawling. We got twelve of us into a single race at the go kart place on Saturday.
We placed 7th, but I felt like we did really well. We caught a bad hop on the second day and pitched the rig over onto the passenger side. Bad luck really, not much we could have done. All the rest of the obstacles went more or less as planned. Had we completed that one obstacle we would have been in the main event and right in it for a really high finish. Oh well.
Phoenix does have a Matterhorn-esque death wall. It's a bit taller than the one in Salt Lake, but not quite as steep. The courses were moving so fast we didn't ever get a chance to see anyone do the climb, so we couldn't see the line. People had been climbing it all day though, so we felt pretty confident. There was nothing Chris could do to help, so we decided to spotter ride it (we actually decided to spotter ride that one when we first looked at it on Thursday). What I had heard of the climb gave me the idea that you had to go a bit left and climb the left side. So we backed up, got a good running start, turned a bit left, and launched up it. As it turns out you don't have to turn left, the course will take you left on it's own.
It launched us over to the left side of the climb, and got us sideways enough that we would not be able to save it by hitting reverse. The only way to save it was to stay on the gas, crank it all the way left, and high-mark it snowmobile style. So we did. Ended up completely sideways on the steepest part of the climb, drove it off the left edge, and down the dirt on the left side (luckily there was no out-of-bounds). So we drove around to the bottom, and front-dug around back into the course (through the same gates we left since the start gate was at the bottom, the finish gate was at the top, and there ware no cones in between). Spun it back around, and hit it again. This time our line was perfect, but right at the top we lost traction. As it turns out, I never put the rear back in from when we spun around. Backed down, careful to miss the start gate AGAIN, made sure both axles were engaged, and tried it one more time. This time our line was perfect, and with all four Trepadors pulling we lauched up the thing and jumped it over the top. When we got to the top our front tires were at head-level of the people standing on the top. We ended up with a negative 4, which is only one point more than perfect, for the one backup after the second attempt. It was a wild ride, way more wild than it should have been. When it was over i wanted to do it again! Later in the evening I ended up crawling the entire wall in the "crawl the wall" competition. It was way more fun to jump it though. I actually left my camera in the hotel room, but I did take a picture of where our tracks came down the dirt on the side of the wall with my phone. Check out the size of this wall, then check out where our tracks came off of it.Here's the wall
And here's our tracks off the side of it. That cone is the sitting at the very top.
I think Creighton got the whole thing on video. I really want to download it and post it somewhere. Creighton, you gonna be in town on tuesday?
Overall a fun weekend. We spent nearly as much time racing go karts as we did crawling. We got twelve of us into a single race at the go kart place on Saturday.
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