POSSUM PALACE WINCH CHALLENGE
After taking a break for 2017, the Novawinch King of the Palace winch challenge event at Omana’s Possum Palace venue in lower Northland was back over the 2018 Easter weekend. Amy Osborne reports
With four competitors in Outlaw class, seven in Modified class, and three in Club class numbers were down on the 2016 event, but with fewer competitors there was also fewer traffic jams at stages leading to one of the smoothest winch challenges that Norwest OHV Club has run in recent history.
This is largely thanks to all the marshals and ground crew who stepped up, most marshalling at least two days out of the three. The event also benefitted from the continued support of our sponsors; Novawinch, Force4, D.M. Standen, 4WDbits, Motomuck, NZ4WD Magazine, Southern Spars, and our newest sponsors helping us to grow the sport; NZAD and Offroad Addiction TV.
Day One – Friday
With scrutineering, marshals’ briefing, and drivers’ briefing all completed, we were set to start issuing tracks just after lunchtime.
With just five stages to be completed before the competitors headed into the night stages, the Friday was set to be a steady warm-up for the weekend. However, as always not everything goes to plan and while a few competitors sailed through these stages, problems plagued others right from the start.
Greg Oliver ran into issues with the auto trans, alternators played up for several competitors, albeit proving only to be a temporary setback for most, and Joe Wheeler had the water pump give up the ghost on him.
The worst affected was Nathen Phillips with an unknown issue holding the red Jeep back for all of the first day stages, but by the time the night stages started the jeep was back in the game.
At the end of Friday, Club class placings were hotly contested with only 30 points separating first and third. The podium for Modified class was even tighter, with just eight points between Roger Urwin in first and Aaron Smythe in third, but with Roger having steering box issues there was the prospect that that could change.
Day Two – Saturday
By 9.00am on Saturday morning the first of the day’s nine stages were being issued. The Grieves brothers in their Suzuki had the misfortune of being the first competitors into stage 10 and it seemed the Suzuki wasn’t quite as enthusiastic to start the day as the brothers, having a lie down a couple of times in this stage.
The day was a mixed bag with a few sub-10 minute stages, some steep hills and long boggy winches. Stage 12 fell into the latter category causing issues for Phil Clark with his truck acting like a cat in a bath. It did not enjoy the wet stages of the day, but as always Phil soldiered on attempting all of the day’s stages.
On the other end of the scale, Robin Scaife breezed through the stages and was finished for the day by 2:30pm with plenty of time to get clean, relax and eat before the night stage. He and winchman Paul Kelly were a favourite for a win in Outlaw class due to the ongoing issues that other competitors in this class were having. Not least of which was Leigh Cossey ending the day in stage 9, aptly named Hell (need I say more). This was where truck 888’s weekend ended.
At the end of Saturday, Tim Randall had snuck his way onto the podium for Modified class after sticking to his go-to strategy of slow and steady strategy. Conversely, Aaron Smythe dropped off the podium after not entering his last stage of the day with the clutch finally failing him as it had been threatening to do for part of the afternoon.
Day Three – Sunday
By the time Sunday morning rolled around we were down to 10 competitors. It didn’t take long before these numbers would drop further, either, with Greg Oliver running into more strife in his first stage of the day breaking the tri-link on his diff and Hamish McLeod calling it after two stages because of ongoing winch and alternator issues.
To the delight of both competitors and marshals alike, all stages were wrapped up by lunchtime giving everyone time to get clean in the hot showers now a permanent feature at Possum Palace.
Results
Once again thanks to our sponsors; Novawinch, Force4, D.M. Standen, 4WDbits, Motomuck, NZ4WD Magazine, Southern Spars, NZAD and Offroad Addiction TV. Thanks to Novawinch and Force4, a winch was awarded to each first place winner. For more on the Easter weekend action, have a look at the footage from Offroad Addiction TV.
Outlaw Class
1. Robin Scaife & Paul Kelly. 2. Stan Goodman & Chris Golding. 3. Leigh Cossey & Jayne Wilson.
Modified Class
1. Roger Urwin & Sean Urwin. 2. Tim Randall & Carol Le Gallais. 3/ Matthew Grieve & Mark Grieve.
Club Class
1. Joe Wheeler & Nick Holthuisen. 2. Corey Haywood & Matt Holley. 3. Hamish McLeod & Chris McGregor.