RockMonkey
Suddenly Enthusiastic
We're back. Here are my thoughts. 
There was so much speculation over the winter about how much UROC was going to suck with Patey's and Ranch involved. I was really looking forward to seeing if they could pull it off, put on a good event, and prove everyone wrong. They didn't.
By now everyone knows about the up-front money issue, and the eternally changing new rules, so I won't go into that. I'll just say that those were warning signs of the suckiness of the new UROC.
In the good old days, when we registered for an event, Craig sent us all out a packet that contained an itinerary, directions to tech, and other stuffs that the competitors needed. They didn't send anything out. We didn't know what was going on. So, before we left we checked the UROC web site to get the info. Guess what? Nothing there! I couldn't even find an address for where we were supposed to go for technical inspection, and when. Of course, they did fine people $100 for being late for tech. Luckily, tech was in the same place as it was for Supercrawl II, so we found it. I have no idea how new competitors found it. Divining rods?
Speaking of tech... What a joke. The enforcement of the new rules was totally unpredictable. Some people got through without roll bar padding, while they failed other people for not having the space in their tube fenders filled in with material (not that it said in the rules you had to). The new rules say you have to have a winch bag (useless with the required winch rope, by the way), a clevis, and a snatch block, in the rig (to bean you on the head when you roll on their impossibly difficult courses). They didn't check for any of that, or a first aid kit, or trash bags. They did check to make sure your winch works, even though it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that it had to work. They check em, because they knew we were gonna need em. They didn't even check to make sure the tires on the modified rigs were under 37 inches! They didn't even have a caliper there! Next time I'm gonna run 40s... Usually at tech all the teams would get a free lunch, and an event T-shirt. Guess what? Nothing. Despite our raised entry fees, we no longer get shirts or lunch. I don't know what I'm gonna wear any more...
Then we got to the drivers meeting. Yup, another joke. This is a brand new series, with brand new rules, and brand new teams. So what did we go over at the drivers meeting? Yup, you guessed it. The new UROC web site. Don't worry, they also showed us a bunch of the stupid ways they're spending our money, like by renting an entire building at SEMA to build a course, too bad they never built one in St. George. We never went over any of the new rules, the itinerary, the course, nothing of any use to anybody. What a bunch of crap. Well, when we start competing all will be well, right?
We were allowed to walk all the courses Friday morning (I actually liked that idea, for the record). Holy crap did they look hard. Apparently the RCAA courses have always been long and technical, and the UROC courses have always had more difficult terrain. So they naturally combined the two, and made extremely difficult courses that were so long and had so many cones on them that they were nearly impossible. Virtually no difference between the modified and super modified courses, either. The courses were so difficult that in the modified class, on the B course the first day, there was only one person that completed a single obstacle with a score less than 40. Oh yeah, we competed until dark and failed to finish five courses, so they only counted the first three courses we did for the day. Anybody that ran a fourth or fifth course on Friday and broke got royally screwed. Dean Bullock had his win ripped from his hands because his score on his fourth obstacle didn't count, because not everyone got to do a fourth obstacle. The second day we started at 7:00 AM to try to get five obstacles in before dark. It all came down to B3 at about 6:00, with ten more rigs to go through the obstacle. So guess what they started to do? Run two rigs on the same obstacle at the same time. Talk about a safety hazard... That's totally not even close to fair for those teams trying to run on that obstacle, and every team forced to do it that way got a 40. We were the last team there, and it was dark, and we were pressured into taking a 40 without even attempting the obstacle. Not that we would have been allowed to make a real attempt anyway. What a bunch of crap.
At the awards ceremony (which no one knew was at the RCAA trailer at the event site), Ranch and Mark didn't even come out to hand out the awards. The Searge read all the winners and handed out the checks. For the record, 5th and 6th place in the Modified class went to teams who got 40s on every obstacle but one. Yup, seven 40s and one 16 is good enough for 6th place at UROC now. At the end of the ceremony Mark Patey was man enough to admit that the event sucked, and apologize for it, and promise that it won't happen again. Ranch said some wormy thing that didn't even sound sincere and no one listened. I guess we'll see if the events get better. We'll keep going to them, they already have all our money and they sure aren't giving any of it back.
Oh yeah. I don't know if it's because the courses were so hard or what, but a lot of people were getting hurt. A spotter got launched off the top of a rock by a "safety strap", a spotter got totally run over (head and all), and Skinny actually got cut out of his rig and hauled down the rock on a stretcher. I never want to see that stuff happen again
There was so much speculation over the winter about how much UROC was going to suck with Patey's and Ranch involved. I was really looking forward to seeing if they could pull it off, put on a good event, and prove everyone wrong. They didn't. By now everyone knows about the up-front money issue, and the eternally changing new rules, so I won't go into that. I'll just say that those were warning signs of the suckiness of the new UROC.
In the good old days, when we registered for an event, Craig sent us all out a packet that contained an itinerary, directions to tech, and other stuffs that the competitors needed. They didn't send anything out. We didn't know what was going on. So, before we left we checked the UROC web site to get the info. Guess what? Nothing there! I couldn't even find an address for where we were supposed to go for technical inspection, and when. Of course, they did fine people $100 for being late for tech.
Luckily, tech was in the same place as it was for Supercrawl II, so we found it. I have no idea how new competitors found it. Divining rods?Speaking of tech... What a joke. The enforcement of the new rules was totally unpredictable. Some people got through without roll bar padding, while they failed other people for not having the space in their tube fenders filled in with material (not that it said in the rules you had to). The new rules say you have to have a winch bag (useless with the required winch rope, by the way), a clevis, and a snatch block, in the rig (to bean you on the head when you roll on their impossibly difficult courses). They didn't check for any of that, or a first aid kit, or trash bags. They did check to make sure your winch works, even though it doesn't say anywhere in the rules that it had to work. They check em, because they knew we were gonna need em.
They didn't even check to make sure the tires on the modified rigs were under 37 inches! They didn't even have a caliper there! Next time I'm gonna run 40s... Usually at tech all the teams would get a free lunch, and an event T-shirt. Guess what? Nothing. Despite our raised entry fees, we no longer get shirts or lunch. I don't know what I'm gonna wear any more...Then we got to the drivers meeting. Yup, another joke. This is a brand new series, with brand new rules, and brand new teams. So what did we go over at the drivers meeting? Yup, you guessed it. The new UROC web site.
Don't worry, they also showed us a bunch of the stupid ways they're spending our money, like by renting an entire building at SEMA to build a course, too bad they never built one in St. George. We never went over any of the new rules, the itinerary, the course, nothing of any use to anybody. What a bunch of crap. Well, when we start competing all will be well, right?We were allowed to walk all the courses Friday morning (I actually liked that idea, for the record). Holy crap did they look hard. Apparently the RCAA courses have always been long and technical, and the UROC courses have always had more difficult terrain. So they naturally combined the two, and made extremely difficult courses that were so long and had so many cones on them that they were nearly impossible. Virtually no difference between the modified and super modified courses, either. The courses were so difficult that in the modified class, on the B course the first day, there was only one person that completed a single obstacle with a score less than 40.
Oh yeah, we competed until dark and failed to finish five courses, so they only counted the first three courses we did for the day. Anybody that ran a fourth or fifth course on Friday and broke got royally screwed. Dean Bullock had his win ripped from his hands because his score on his fourth obstacle didn't count, because not everyone got to do a fourth obstacle. The second day we started at 7:00 AM to try to get five obstacles in before dark. It all came down to B3 at about 6:00, with ten more rigs to go through the obstacle. So guess what they started to do? Run two rigs on the same obstacle at the same time. Talk about a safety hazard... That's totally not even close to fair for those teams trying to run on that obstacle, and every team forced to do it that way got a 40. We were the last team there, and it was dark, and we were pressured into taking a 40 without even attempting the obstacle. Not that we would have been allowed to make a real attempt anyway. What a bunch of crap. At the awards ceremony (which no one knew was at the RCAA trailer at the event site), Ranch and Mark didn't even come out to hand out the awards. The Searge read all the winners and handed out the checks. For the record, 5th and 6th place in the Modified class went to teams who got 40s on every obstacle but one. Yup, seven 40s and one 16 is good enough for 6th place at UROC now.
At the end of the ceremony Mark Patey was man enough to admit that the event sucked, and apologize for it, and promise that it won't happen again. Ranch said some wormy thing that didn't even sound sincere and no one listened. I guess we'll see if the events get better. We'll keep going to them, they already have all our money and they sure aren't giving any of it back.Oh yeah. I don't know if it's because the courses were so hard or what, but a lot of people were getting hurt. A spotter got launched off the top of a rock by a "safety strap", a spotter got totally run over (head and all), and Skinny actually got cut out of his rig and hauled down the rock on a stretcher. I never want to see that stuff happen again
