DIRT NATION

The massive growth in the UTV and big banger offroader classes continues unabated, but what was the story at Raglan I wonder?

There were good strong fields of UTVs in the JG Civil U and S classes and some epic duels in those classes. There was also a respectable field of class one cars turned out, though one – former champion Tony McCall – went for an early shower (in rugby lingo) when his diff exploded.

It’s amazing how popular these classes are – the most expensive cars in the sport are these unlimited trucks and race cars, followed closely by the all-wheel-drive UTVs. The attraction is fairly obvious – they are proven designs (and thus reliable), they are becoming ‘productionised’ (and thus parts replacement is off the shelf) and they are very exciting to drive or watch.

In fact it is fair to say that the Chev LS engine series has revolutionised offroad racing as has the ProLite class, making reliable V8 off-road performance available to the masses. Only a handful of us run four or six cylinder trucks nowadays.

Mind you, it pays to protect whatever engine you run. In a sport where these things spend a good portion of the time in the air, bouncing through ruts two metres deep or clanging into each other, a good dry-sump oiling system is worth its weight in gold. Keep the oil in the engine and the engine in the truck. Basic stuff but it bears repeating.

Huh?

All of which gives me no obvious answer to why Nick Hall was the only 4WD Bits class 8 truck at the Raglan round. It was great to see Warren Adams come out in 4WD Bits class six. In both cases, these drivers had a clear run through their heats

But class eight’s been a battleground all year, with grids of eight or more, and Nick has been the class of the class up north during that time.

So to see him line up alongside nobody at Raglan was a tad disappointing. Luckily, he put on his usual spectacular show in his all black Toyota Chev ProLite. This is a very well sorted truck, and it suits Nick’s driving style to a T. He is a smooth, fast, clean driver who wastes no time or energy on silly fender banging that proves nothing.

Hopefully class eight brings some competition to Napier for him; because – unfortunately – work commitments mean I can’t travel north to race that weekend.

The Giti Tyres Chev turbo is out of action at the moment anyway while we mix and match internals to bring together a new gearbox. The big old Jag box we use has lasted for ages and was second hand when it went in so a bit of crunching is not unexpected and the cost for this strong manual transmission is still far less than a certain sequential box rated ‘good for 800 bhp’ that blew apart on its first race outing – and on a lovely terraformed track too!

Kurow was the scene of our first real transmission failure so we will build a new box and then start gathering spare parts to have a change-out we can carry in the trailer to events. If anyone knows of a good source of Jag manual transmission parts, do let us know.

It may be time to revisit the transaxle rule, born out of desperation a good few seasons ago when racers were threatening to put a truck body on an unlimited class car and clean up in class eight. Trophy-hunters, wherever we looked!

So anyhow, though that never happened (nor really looked likely), the sport got all angsty and banned transaxles in class 8 – meaning the latter truck now can’t race. It’s way too complex to change out to a simple inline transmission setup so it’s out of the sport. Genius.

Truck classes are the home of the engineers, the guys who build from scratch – and now we have a decent volume of trucks in-country we are seeing some good value beasts being bought and sold.

A wee plug

A wee plug for a tough racer: Rotorua racer Mike Cox has his latest Jimco-built ProLite for sale right now on TradeMe. It’s running a full chromemoly cage, 9” full floating diff driving 40 spline axles and a steel block LS-based

355 engine on dry sump lubrication. The transmission is everyone’s favourite racetuned Turbo 400. The truck has done minimal racing, and started life when the ProLite class was for four cylinder ‘screamers’. Upgraded to the V8 spec, it was again only run in selected events before being put up for sale. When he got it to this country Mike put the new body on, refreshed the transmission and generally went over the truck from stem to stern to make sure it would run and run. He says he actually loves the process of hunting down good buys like this truck almost as much as racing them, and wants to take a break from racing to work out what’s next. All of this, plus a race suit and a massive pile of spares, will set you back just $NZ49,000. Less than a deposit on an Auckland house, and half of the ask for a few other trucks on the market at the moment!

With the exchange rate doing backflips that’s a good way to be racing at the front in the truck classes next year. The only way to do it cheaper is to build it yourself, and if you factor in the value of your time then it’s moot. You’d also struggle to have a truck together in time for round one 2020.

Your mission if you accept it: buy an in-country race truck. Make sure it’s fully compliant with the rule book and any changes going into the new season. If in doubt, drop a call to someone like Camco, who build trucks, the sport’s chief tech officer Neville Smith, or category sponsor Warren Adams at 4WD Bits. Go out and get some seat time. Then come test yourself in the national championship.

See you out there!