Howlin' Wolf Round 1 - The Aftermath

[najw]

Results are now posted

HERE

Hope you all enjoyed the event.

Feedback as to the format of the night stages and the new section format would be appreciated, good or bad!

A gentle introduction to the series I hope you would all agree. Look forward to seeing the many photos and videos.

Huge thanks to Rob Butler at Off Road Armoury for his sponsorship and very generous prizes - you've set the standard for the series now

PS: For anyone who is interested Lola is still broken and more vets bills look likely

[Ian M]

Cracking weekend, and a good result for us, 3rd in class 2 on our 1st Howlin Wolf event in my own truck!

I think everyone had a fair run out problems but that kirton's terrain for you,

ours

1 mullered track rod end on the night ss,

snapped the rope 3 times on the same special stage

got to the 1st punch and the cyber key wouldnt work

1 snapped steering bar

1 bent spare steering bar, (thanks to Andy Tunnah for welding our original bar)

then on our last section we got bogged down on the exit and were well and truely stuck, the rear halfshaft snapped along with all 5 high tensile flange bolts, 1 severly bent ground anchor and a marshals helping hand we eventually made it back in time for prize giving!

Expect the chassis has took a right battering.

As for the the punch layout sections, i thought that worked really well,

The night stages i thought were a little long for night stages, alot of people suffering minor problems before the main event, and lots of waiting around time, maybe shorter sections would be better?

overall cracking weekend, and lots to keep us busy, See you all at Round 2!

Thanks as normal to Neil & the team and sponsors, keep up the good work

Toms's mate took nearly 350 pics, mainly of us , be a fair few of others, so once ive gone through them il post some up!

Ian

[team gunit]

thanks to neil and crew, mr badger for finding us a 10mm bolt

for the anchor, good layout system and a great start to 2010,.

bring on clyro.................

brill atmosphere, big team event were we all helped each other

team gunit Mark (why is our anchor rubbish)

[sam coulton]

Cracking week end just got back from the 250 mile jaunt chuffed 1st in class a good way to start the season a big thank you to neil and the team and of cause to rob and the crew at the off road armoury for the great prizes

[treebloke]

Bert and Dan had a few issues as most people seemed to, quite a few trucks making trips back to base to repair broken bits.

Dan snapped a steering arm but managed to beg one off Ian, then run out of petrol so I had a trip to the garage to get some then he flipped it and after that it would not start.

[Boothy]

Well a good weekend , well done to all involved, loved the one way systems with the 2 punches in them but I think it would have been a diffent story with a full compliment of 40 vehicles, all with different abilities and speeds stuck in them,,

Night stage's were good fun, but long and tiring and went on a bit late, and I didn't sort of associate the significance of the points accured by them, and again imagine 30+ vehicles on them.

Once again I put the tent on a slope again which was murder, I hate camping with a passion.

Broke a front C/V or shaft half way through the day which slowed us right down, we were sort of flying until then.

And thanks to John Fair for giving me the miss-placed reassurance to go for a punch I knew I couldn't get to with no front drive and for only smiling when I got stuck afterwards, I owe you one pal.

Great weekend, as always superb Marshalling and thanks again.

Chris

[muddychris300tdi]

What a great weekend, within 15 minutes of starting the night stage the weekend was over for us, but then with Rob's handy work which we are very thankful for it was back together. Sunday was great, really enjoyed the punch layout, after snapping our ground ancor we were a little limited to the punches we could do but still really enjoyed it. Big thanks to Neil and everyone for setting up a great course and to the Tunnah's for getting us back together. Chris.

[JST]

a big thank you to Andy, Carol and Neil for all their hard work in setting up with their teams of helpers and running the event, some cracking sections and rocks we like! and whats this about lots of water at Kirton people are afraid of? Neil and team have just shown they can run a top rate event and not even touch the water sections. well planned and well dont guys.

Well Kirton is still a long way away for us!!! we had our fair share of breakages on the Sat night; did a Clyro with the rear axle and rear brake pipe on the first night stage, electrics developed an intermittent problem, so no cooling, no lights no winches no lockers, overheated, threw a belt in the mud on SS2

Sunday was better - just snapped a TRE

Despite that it was a good laugh and the 'new' way of doing things i think was good.

Its hard to set something to match eveyones ability but i would of liked more sections on Sunday. With 2 punches per section there is less time looking for odd punches here and there so you get around quicker therefore need more to do!!!

Gate Layout:

i think the gate system worked well, clearly laid out and easy to find and well marked.

The sections also required more driver input, in my opinion, therefore giving the drivers something to do other than complain they need to get out for a wee or their winch fingers are getting sore, so again a thumbs up.

On some sections more gates would of made everyone go the slightly harder route than those taken which again would of eaten into event time - this is good in my experience.

The principal certainly works and its got to be easier setting up and clearing the site too.

on a minor note i think Red on left would be more in line with other disciplines and would mean continuity with the trials gates.

can you make the sections harder and more technical - its the first HW were we havent used a rear winch!

Night Sections

Not really our forte but i think the principle is superb, it makes the round trip all the more worth while - more fun for your £££

a 10min DNF is ideal and setting out with a 3-4min expected winning time seemed to achieve this, and then some DNF'd with not enough time and other did them in 2mins, which just proves you cant cater for all easily!

i dont think the sections should be hard enough that a std car is going to DNF or break something trying to complete it.

Going around in a grp is good and 4 sections worked well (Ie total 40mins competing) mind you some groups took longer to get around and finished after the expected 2200hrs so i can see where they were coming from as i dare sya they had alot of waiting around - we ended up fixing the truck between each section so cant comment on the waiting around!

just my thoughts

a big thank you to Kev P for the loan of some tools offer of parts and also Horsham Hugh for the steering bar offer and Team Gunit for the loan of some 'disposables!'

[JST]

i very rudely forgot to say - a massive thank you to Rob from Off Road Armoury for some excellent prizes too. He certainly has set the level!

[najw]

Some good photos now online

HERE

[zim]

Good pictures

[JST]

its taken me until now to remember his name, but a big thank you to Chris Genner and codriver on section 19 for letting us attempt the rock at the end before them, that section complete with the breakages took us quite a while!

[tonka]

not a problem. out day was ended shortly after that rock due to bent steering arm and power steering pump belt breaking.

its taken me until now to remember his name, but a big thank you to Chris Genner and codriver on section 19 for letting us attempt the rock at the end before them, that section complete with the breakages took us quite a while!

[yella 90]

a big thanks to all involved in this 1st round and also rob butler.

it was my first howling wolf event and i really enjoyed it.

wasnt so keen on the night sections due to there being alot of time spent waiting, along with making other smaller groups wait too.

however i loved the 2 punch one way sections, its a brilliant idea which i hope to see again

ill second twiggy's thanks to john fair for getting us stuck on punch one despite me advising twiggy not to listen but all good fun . thanks to rob for being a ground anchor .

finally a big thanks to twiggy for actually putting up with me for the weekend .

dan

[D3DPE]

Cheers to all involved great weekend really enjoyed it! Well set out sections

It was good to get some more experiance on the other end of the winch and awesome watching Kevs truck all weekend take the sections in its stride and an amazing take off out of the special stage over the tyres on the saturday night ! Section 10 on the other side of the water was abit painful tho throught the bushes! Got the scratched arms to prove it

Big thank you for the prizes Rob! We were only saying at the start that neither of us had a watch on!!

Looking forward to round 2.

Dan

[robhybrid]

I liked the night sections it reminded me of a slightly easier version of mamby setup, in the dark I think slower and being able to see how other people do it is a good thing.

not sure about how the scoring worked for night though?

On the Sunday I really liked the punch setup with gates that you have to go through and being able to choose your own route between them suited my style, with the number of cars competing I only got stuck behind other competitors a couple of times which wasn't a problem.

I would have liked to have seen a handful of harder sections though,saying that if it would have rained I am sure I wouldn't have driven any where near as many banks, for my car the level of grip their was unbelievable this weekend.

More gates? yes and no, too many gates and you might as well have rope? drive over/through a severe obstacle quickly or take the long route round slowly in my opinion allows all classes of vehicles to play without discriminating against more standard vehicles and gives people the option to overtake in a section by taking the quicker harder route?

I enjoyed the weekend with minimal damage to a freshly altered truck that I didn't know how would perform.

Thanks to all

[markyb]

thought it was a great event well thougth out, i suspect wales next time will be even harder. (although this was hard enough :-))

big list of things to fix for next event,

thanks to all that give us a little help when needed, ( springs popping out etc. ) i have arms like garth now as the power steering went early on the night stage, but thought it was great cheers Neil and Marshalls

[JST]

I would have liked to have seen a handful of harder sections though,saying that if it would have rained I am sure I wouldn't have driven any where near as many banks, for my car the level of grip their was unbelievable this weekend.

I agree if it had been wet it would of been bloody hard work

More gates? yes and no, too many gates and you might as well have rope? drive over/through a severe obstacle quickly or take the long route round slowly in my opinion allows all classes of vehicles to play without discriminating against more standard vehicles and gives people the option to overtake in a section by taking the quicker harder route?

being able to overtake and having a section that allows this is ideal, the one we broke in allowed Boothy to get pass us which with a rope section would not of worked.

20 sections of 2 punches may of made for more queuing if the entrant nos were up mind and you couldnt pass each other in a section.

[hucks]

cracking weekend!! a big thanks to neil and his team for the running off the event top class, but also a thanks to ian.

I thought the layout for sunday was perfect for the number of cars and the site. not sure how it will be next round with all the extra cars that say they will be their.

well bring on round two and i hope we can do as well as the we did the weekend and try not to break the steering so often next round.

see you all at clyro

tom

[jil6939]

Well a good weekend , well done to all involved, loved the one way systems with the 2 punches in them but I think it would have been a diffent story with a full compliment of 40 vehicles, all with different abilities and speeds stuck in them,,

Night stage's were good fun, but long and tiring and went on a bit late, and I didn't sort of associate the significance of the points accured by them, and again imagine 30+ vehicles on them.

Once again I put the tent on a slope again which was murder, I hate camping with a passion.

Broke a front C/V or shaft half way through the day which slowed us right down, we were sort of flying until then.

And thanks to John Fair for giving me the miss-placed reassurance to go for a punch I knew I couldn't get to with no front drive and for only smiling when I got stuck afterwards, I owe you one pal.

Great weekend, as always superb Marshalling and thanks again.

Chris

Why on earth would you believe me! I was carrying a camera! I shall post up when I get home later in the week.

[yella 90]

Why on earth would you believe me! I was carrying a camera! I shall post up when I get home later in the week.

i did try telling him that

[will4x4]

As has already been said my feedback is brilliant event. I was the guy rolling the SJ all over the place so sorry for getting in peoples way,

Really enjoyed the night event, loved the team spirit there and was a great opportunity to chat to a few other drivers which made the atmosphere more enjoyable.

looking forward to the next event

Oh does anyone know the guy who was taking a video of the night section (tyre run) as would be good to see a few of them + more photos

Cheers

Will

[steve200TDi]

Come on then.....where are all the pictures!

[markyb]

yeah certainly waiting for the vdeos and pictures :-)

[JST]

i have another (yes i know) feedback point - ref the taking of pictures at the night event with flash - its bloody off putting and not really what you need when trying to crest the last tyre!!