Father, son rule the rocks
A crowd sporting camouflage and motorsport- themed T-shirts raises a bit higher on their toes to cheer as a four-wheel drive truck tumbles down a three-story section of Brayton Mountain in Graysville, Tenn. Waiting next in line to attempt the course is 19-year-old Branden Blume from Northwest Arkansas, the youngest competitor at the World Extreme Rock Crawling Championship Series event, otherwise known as W.E. Rock.
“Going down these big drop-offs, you’re on top of a sheer face cliff, you’re looking out over the crowd, your heart starts racing and you’re thinking, “I don’t know if the buggy, much less me, is going to make it through this drop,’” Branden says.
Branden competed in his first event at the age of 12. Since then, Branden and his father, Ken Blume, 49, have established a name for themselves in rock crawling. The duo won the East Coast points series last year and are currently poised to do the same this year.
Rock crawling teams consist of a driver, a spotter and a vehicle. The vehicles, referred to as buggies, can be anything from an old four-wheel-drive truck to a $100,000 custom build which the teams use to complete an off-road course with a 10-minute time limit. Courses vary depending on the region. West Coast courses are more stable with solid rock ledges; loose rock on East Coast courses allows for a more dynamic course which changes after each run. The driver’s job is to operate the vehicle, and the spotter helps navigate with use of a radio headset and hand signals. Points are gained for going out of bounds, hitting a cone, having to back up, or using rearwheel steering, among others. The team that completes the courses with the fewest points wins that day’s competition.
“What it really is, is a bunch of guys who say, ‘I can make it up that hill and you can’t,’” Branden chuckled.
After signing an autograph, Ken explained why he loves this sport: “It’s the father-son thing. There’s communication, there’s strategy, there’s victory, there’s going through defeat or frustration together. It’s a blast.”