This past August (Aug 13-15, 2004), Jake and I participated in the inaugaral event of Raid North Georgia. It is an "offroad" competition which involved 3 Time-Speed-Distance rallies, two NAV stages, and an offroad course. To be plainly honest, I had never tried that type of event. We went into it not really having a clue of what to expect.

We started the whole thing with the idea that we were going to have some fun. When we left on the first event... NAV-1, we were stoked. Once about an hour into it, though... I realized that we had a real problem. I made a mistake in the planning, which cost us so much time, that it was pathetic. We were the 3rd rig out, and the last one in. It was horrible.

The canoe stage was ok... but it could have been better. Our canoe was akin to shoveling a Buick through the water, but, hey... it wasn't nearly as bad as the NAV stage. ;-)

Once complete, we set off on TSD-1. Time-Speed-Distance. It was a course down public roads. All we had to go on was that for each "section", there was a average speed for that section, which we were to try and hit as close as possible. With 2 GPS units and my good-ole mal-adjusted speedo, we set off. I don't think we enven got points on that one.

The obstacle course was something else all together. See... we were now in our element. I will warn you, though. The ZJ is my pride. I am not afraid to burry the tach, but um... that hill was looking pretty intimidating. There was lots of loose flat rocks up there, and it was offcamber. There was also a curve to the left. An event spectator/staff/moral support activist reassured me that the ZJ was going to do very well. I ended up doing a night run. I also should have walked the back side of this hill. An explanation is due, here. The course was two laps. At the start, we were to shoot up the hill, take a hard right and come down the back side, then take a right ant the bottom and go through a "mud bog". Then, go back up the hill.

Here is where is gets good. At the word "GO!", I kicked the 4.0 in the hiney. The ZJ went up the hill with almost no trouble whatsoever. On turning down the back side, I realized that I sould have walked it. It was noting but ruts. Rain had washed the "trail" out so bad that it was insane. I tried to straddle the deepest ruts. The ZJ ended up flexed out and the 33's were chewing the fenders up... even with 4" bump extentions in front and 3" in rear!! I got to the bottom, aimed at the mud and gave her all she had. The mud flew... we slid, and I chucked the ZJ into a 4wd, full power, 2nd gear, low range, rev-limited slide which put me in line for the hill again. We shot up the hill, but the slop in the tread was slowing me down. I pulled the tranny into 1st and laid on it. That seemed to work as the ZJ wiggled its way up. On the 2nd trip down, I decided I'd try and run it DOWN the ruts. About 50ft down, there was a noise which "loud" doesn't describe. The ZJ tipped up. The right side rock rails hit "something" making the horrible bang. Then I felt both left side tires settle back down individually. A "dip-dip" front to rear. I then sidewalled the X-Terrains back up the ruts and ran it down a-stride the ruts. I lined her up for the mud and stuck it to her again. We slid to a 1st place in the obstacle course. -WHEW!!-

Then, we were off for TSD-2. We salveged our run here... I think we got 3 points off this one. On that completion, we were sent off to NAV-2... which we decided to only hit 2 locations and return to camp. The need to sleep had overtaken the desire to whip the pants off of the guys in the Frontier.

To our surprise, we had placed 3rd overall. Having that 1st place in the offroad course had snuck us in from the back.

I only had a few pics survive the trip. Here are a couple.

Here's an update... I recently (as of an hour ago) got a video up and running. Again, since there are limits, the site will probably go down. Such is life. :-) The video clip is of me and Jake running the ZJ on the "Obstacle Course". At the end, Nate (who took 1st Place Overall) asks Jake what he thought Jake's response, "Not bad, not bad".... was pretty good. We took that event SOLIDLY. The closest competitor was Nate in his highly modded Frontier. The video is about 5.5mb, so I hope you have DSL or better... or lots of patience. It also runs for about 5 minutes. Sit back, turn up the speakers and enjoy.