Written by Rob "Ryeguy" Bryce
Photos by Matt from West Texas Offroad

Prologue

Having built my new 4x4, the "Hulk", I was eager to see how it stacked up against the "big boys." I knew and respected many of the people who had competed in Four Wheeler's Top Truck Challenge so I decided that it would be the ideal place to test it. But before I competed in the event, there was the small matter of entering and winning a spot in the competition, first.

It started with snapping a photo of "Hulk" and sending it, along with a completed entry form, to Four Wheeler. If we made the first cut, the photo would appear in the first TTC'02 issue where readers would have an opportunity to vote for us. And that's exactly what happened. Not long after that issue hit the stands, I began getting phone calls from friends wishing me luck. At that point, it hadn't really sank in that I might be going to California. In fact, it didn't sink in at all, until I got a phone call from Jon Thompson, editor of Four Wheeler. After introductions, he asked "Do you want to go fourwheeling?" "Sure."
"How about fourwheeling in California?"
"Sure."
"How about fourwheeling in California at Top Truck Challenge?"

Well, I doubt that I sounded very excited on the phone, but my mind was racing: "What did I get myself into?" "Do I really want to go?" "Is this actually happening?" were just some of the thoughts. Other thoughts like "Am I ready?" "Is the truck ready?" were always present, too.

As the days passed and TTC approached, my stress level soared. Sometimes it felt like I was destined to not make it to TTC. First, I severely hurt my ankle when getting out of the Blazer (Hulk's huge ground clearance had its downsides). Then Andy James, part of my crew, suffered a stroke only 3 weeks before the event. Ben Olson, also a member of the crew, punctured an ear drum only 2 weeks prior to TTC (he did it when he jumped side-ways at Rock Crawl '02 to avoid an oncoming Unimog and speared his ear on a branch). The time that I wanted to spend on the truck was instead spent planning Rock Crawl '02 and working. But before I knew it the list of things to do on the truck was done and we were loading the truck and heading for the ferry, the first step in our trek to Hollister Hills.

I won't mention that one member of my team, whose initials are "A n d y J a m e s," managed to do some 'wheeling on the morning we were to depart. (And managed to break a rear axle shaft and had to be towed back to town.) Some guys just can't get enough of this stuff!

The People and The Trucks

The Four Wheeler staff was a great bunch. Just regular folks, easy going, no egos or anything. Always helpful and cheerful. If there was an exception, it would be Ned Bacon. But being the head judge, he needs to keep control of the event, which he did by how he spoke. And after the event he mellowed right out and was "just one of the boys."

Jon Thompson, editor of Four Wheeler, needs to work on his sense of humor, though. He was rather upset with us pulling into registration with a Peterson's 4Wheel & Offroad license plate tied to the grill of the truck!

The participants were all great too. I was repeatedly amazed by the camaraderie among those of us vying for the prize. Everyone was helping each other. No egos or attitudes were present. I wish I had enough time to talk to everyone and get to know them better. But that's the thing about TTC; it keeps you very, very busy.

Tim from Calgary is a great guy. Friendly and funny as hell. Some day, I'd like to see him and Larry Soo around a campfire. Anyone there would kill themselves laughing. In my opinion, he and his crew worked harder than any other participants there. Unfortunately, some bad luck took him out of the top running. Had the truck performed as it could have, he would have had an excellent shot at the top prize.

John Reynolds, his wife Marilyn, and co-pilot "Axle Jack" from CTM were great, humble people, too. Without a doubt, the truck (Bronco) was in a class of its own. It's no surprise that he won TTC 2002. The truck was engineered in every respect for competitions, and it paid off. I had an opportunity to drive it before the competition. It was truly a work of art in every respect. Hats off to them.

Jesse from Michigan was cool. One thing that I'll remember for a long time was his reaction to seeing the mini Rubicon. He'd never seen rocks quite like that! Other than some severe damage in the mini Rubicon, his truck held up well to the abuse he dished out to it. He also drove the furthest to the event.

Toby Lavender was the local. He knew the trails inside out. His truck was also the smallest with respect to tire size, etc. Still, it performed very well, due to his expertise behind the wheel. It actually had axles that were wider than regular full-width axles! This truck won the "prettiest truck" award, and it certainly was.

The orange flattie from Oklahoma was a very impressive truck. I didn't think I'd see a Jeep that would look as big as my truck! And it was super clean. It looked like it had been completely disassembled, cleaned and painted, then re-assembled just for this event. Unfortunately, I didn't have much chance to talk to him.

We camped next to Scott and his team, who belong to the Raptor. Great guys and great teamwork between them. The Raptor was definitely a trail-only buggy, but it was well put together and it showed. He was running the largest tires of anyone, 48" Michelins. When I have a chance, I'll be taking them up on their invite to Fordyce and maybe the Rubicon.

Abba brought down his cool Scout. In many respects the technology was simpler and proven, but well thought out. He should be cast for movies, though. He definitely looks very Aztec when he gets upset! He's also the only one who brought his whole family. That was a good touch, many of us forget that this can be a family hobby.

Corey and his red Stepside was the other Canadian entrant. The guy was a great, friendly, super driver, and a bit crazy. When I first saw it, I thought "pretty poser truck." Man, was I wrong. He wasn't afraid to wail on it at all. But if Corey was crazy, his copilot, "Frenchie" was down right nuts! I'm definitely going to have to do some trail riding with these guys, if nothing else, for the entertainment factor. I should probably line up another tub for the Blazer before that trip, though!

Then there's the Frog. Hats off to Barry for getting it to TTC, all the way from Israel. Unfortunately, he's another guy who I didn't have a chance to talk to enough. I found some of his crew difficult to talk to, but I think it was a combination of language and culture, certainly not temperament. I guess they don't have speed limits in Israel, though, judging by how he was driving through camp. His truck was definitely the biggest in every dimension, and very impressive. Despite unbelievable abuse, it held up and came back for more.

Toby from Texas was the alternate. With him was Matt who builds the Redneck Rams. They were a great bunch of guys. It's a shame that the staff wouldn't let him "quietly" compete in every event behind the participants, but I understand that they couldn't do that due to time and liability constraints.

If this crop of trucks is indicative of future Top Truck Challenges, I'd have to say that a minimum tire size to be competitive would be 39's or 40's. Preferably 44's or larger. The smaller (or less) body, the better, too. You'll want a strong motor and a drive train to match, because it will see abuse. Even with my 472, I was probably one of the most underpowered trucks in the group! It showed, I was second to last in the acceleration test.

The Competition

Lots of things happened really quickly. The event was well run and the trucks held together surprisingly well, so the downtime between events was minimal. We didn't have to go into the evening to complete the courses.

Monday:
The first events were really non-events. Things like show & shine, approach and departure angles, etc. After that, each truck went for beauty shots, and drivers were interviewed for the TTC video tape. I'm not surprised I didn't do well in the show & shine. But I thought that it would have done better than half-way through the pack on engineering. I guess custom disk brakes and pinion conversions on Mog axles, modified Hummer beadlock wheels, custom parking brake, custom high-steer steering, and 44's all on a truck built to pass inspections to be street legal wasn't enough. But most of the trucks at the event were built with pure competition in mind, where street legality wasn't a real concern any more.

Tuesday:
The hill climb event was bumped to Tuesday, where it normally takes place on Wednesday. It was a long and steep hill. And about half-way up, it suddenly gets steeper. That's the point of no return. There's a definite chance of getting sideways and rolling a long way down. And I'm not afraid to admit that I didn't want to drive it. So my copilot, Chris Borton was given the task. We were all given instructions: "Last year, we looked for the right leisurely pace, to keep the dust down like you're on a trail run. This year, like last, we aren't going to tell you the ideal time, we're looking for a fast-paced but safe climb to the top." With those very ambiguous instructions in mind, we made our attempt. I was surprised at the amount of traction we actually had on the climb, and we halved last year's ideal time with a 47 second climb. It felt good. Safe, but quick. We were very happy. In the end, we were ranked 7th, so we obviously had a different opinion on what that ideal time was. To our surprise, though, we were never told what the ideal time was, neither right after the last person completed the climb, nor after the prizes were given out. This was the first of my concerns about the organization. Abba scared everyone with a problematic carburetor. About half-way up, it started acting up. Losing engine power, and therefore the brake booster, could be catastrophic on this hill. The crew at the top was beginning to panic, ready to grab a line to anchor the truck in case something did happen. Fortunately, nothing did.

The ride and drive portion of the competition happened that same night. It's no surprise that this happens early on. The competition can hurt trucks, so it's best to deal with these "easy" events sooner than later. That night was pretty easy to handle. There were no broken trucks because we didn't do anything to break them.

No scores were announced for any portion of the event, except for the rankings of the Tank Trap. So we had no idea how we were doing during the competition, other than our own personal gut feelings. I'll make a note now that I personally disagree with this approach. I understand that the magazine wants to keep results secret for as long as possible to avoid the winner being prematurely announced on the Internet. But anyone can make a mistake. Without seeing results until after the entire competition, there is no way for an error to be discovered by a participant, and rectified. And there was more than one participant who was wondering about some of the rankings. And I know it's happened in past years. Whether or not there was an error, we probably will never know, now. This isn't intended to sound sore over my final placement, but rather to remove some controversy and potential for error and hard feelings in future TTC's.

Wednesday:
Wednesday started at the airport for acceleration and braking tests. I was looking forward to seeing some of the trucks go through this event because their drivers were white knuckling the steering wheels during the ride and drive, at half the speeds! The Hulk gave what she could in acceleration, but came out pretty poor in the standings. The driver's at fault for the braking tests, I overshot the cones by a bit. So be it, at least it was a nice controlled stop. Some trucks looked dangerous during the braking. A lot of trucks were trailered to and from the acceleration/braking test. This surprised us a bit. In our opinion, there's no reason why these trucks shouldn't be able to drive the 12 miles to the airport, and not worry about safety or being pulled over for inspections. After all, it's Top TRUCK, right? Not Top ATV. But this fact solidifies a difference between American and Canadian 'wheeling: we drive our trucks to trails and events; south of the border the 4x4's are trailered more often.

The day proceeded to get hotter, too. It was hard on everyone but no surprise that the Canadians were having the hardest time. Tim's spotter needed oxygen at the end of his day. My co-driver, Chris, was being watched closely by the medics. In fact, he couldn't participate the next day. He needed to recover. We all drank gallons of water that day, and I'm sure that helped, but it wasn't enough. I personally had to drive the mini Rubicon with a cool pack around my neck. Everyone was working hard, I don't think it affected the results because it was hard on everyone.

After returning to the ORV park, the next event was the pulling contest. I was actually looking forward to this because I was the heaviest truck. More weight means more traction which means a better pull, right? Wrong! In brief, the Hulk's suspension really needed to be tuned. It worked okay with the Dick Cepek Fun Countrys but couldn't handle the traction from the Swampers. Since we bought the Swampers only days before the competition, we had no idea how the suspension would work with them. The ride up the hill was absolutely violent! On top of that, we didn't have a good start, either. This contest involves seeing who can pull a heavy truck the farthest up a hill. This truck, which had a driver, would be free to roll its wheels (ie: no brakes and in neutral) so it wasn't like we had to pull a sled. It was more like pulling a very heavy trailer. Well, that's how it was supposed to be. In fact, what happened was that the driver in the truck didn't release his air brakes until after I tried to pull him and already loaded up my suspension. If you've ever pulled heavy loads or have done hill climbs before, you know that this is certainly not the way to start. Oh well. I didn't ask for a re-pull because I didn't want to put the truck through that abuse again. I'm not too sure what this event is intended to test with respect to fourwheeling ability, either.

From there, we went straight to the Frame Twister. It starts off pretty easy (at least for trucks this size) with a pavement pond with logs cast down into it, followed by a section of loose rocks. Next, we had the log sort. It's like trying to drive over a log boom except that the logs are sitting on muddy ground. The gaps between the logs were very deep, enough to cause lots of grief for all the trucks. The Hulk received its first damage here: a bent front shackle and rear torque arm. Having driven on lots of fallen trees and logs in my time, I can say with confidence that competition is not indicative of a real-world trail log situation. Competitors did well by watching previous TTC's and having the winch cable already unwound for immediate use. It was obvious that there was no driving through it with anything other than a tank, so it became a competition of who could run the fastest and had the fastest winch. A word to future competitors: the event organizers are aware that competitors know how to do this event quickly, so expect a change that will require new tactics.

The Frame Twister, like the hill climb, was a timed event, and has room for improvement. Almost always, where time is a factor, the first item to be sacrificed is safety, and TTC is no exception. For example, spotters had no time to drape a blanket over the winch cable. And in the log sort, Cory's cable actually did break. Luckily, nobody got hurt. Possible remedies are: a) deduct points when a blanket isn't used (much like points are deducted when a tree saver isn't used); b) assign someone as the safety spotter who can handle this task for all the teams; c) simply stop the clock once the cable is hooked up, and re-start it after the winch cable is used, to give the crew a chance to get the blanket over the cable. It's little things like this that can really improve on the safety of the event but without impacting the excitement. Even with this rule, spotters can (and were) still be used for traction (that did happen in the tank traps)!

The Mud Bog was next. The bog itself was actually a bit disappointing. The mud just wasn't that deep. Sure, there was water on the surface, but that doesn't mean that the mud was deep, and that was the case. Lots of water, not that much mud. This is where Tim's problems started. Some of the fuel cell's liner broke off and blocked the fuel flow, which caused more draw on the pump and consequently blew out some injector fuses. It's a shame, it was his event to win, and the truck just was not cooperating. Lots of guys made it through on the first pass but a second pass was required. The second pass, which went in the other direction, was supposed to be more difficult. I'm not sure if it was. There was enough mud to get the trucks really dirty, though, and it did stop a few. But it could have been better.

I think the organizers of TTC felt the same way about the mud hole. From then on, we could hear the water trucks pouring more water into the Tank Traps!

The Mini-Rubicon was the last event of the day. It typically eats up a lot of time because there's generally a lot of breakage. This year was no different. Very few trucks came out completely unscathed. To their credit, the Four Wheeler staff was always efficient and careful when it came to extracting broken trucks. We had a chance to hike the track before driving it. I've driven in rocks before, but these were different. They were big, and positioned to grab trucks and tires. Cory and Frenchie, from Calgary had never seen rocks before. In fact, Frenchie walked in to find a line (spotting), kinda shrugged, and said he didn't have a clue. Considering that, it was amazing that they did as well as they did in there. The rocks were big enough for me to contact my rockers, and to put a dent in the rear quarter. That's over 40 inches tall. Chris was spotting for me, and we felt really good in the rocks. I calmed my nerves down a lot, and was really happy with the way the Hulk was idling through. In fact, I'd say it was going exactly the way I wanted it. Almost no bangs or scratches underneath, the odd back-up, but generally nice, steady but slow and careful progress...until the sector shaft on the steering broke. Even now, I'm not sure why it did, but why doesn't matter. It did. With no steering, and no real way to route the winch cable to work the steering, we were dead in the water. We basically idled back and forward until we decided that we weren't going to gain any more distance for points. After that, extraction happened and we were towed back to camp for repairs.

That night saw a lot of trucks being fixed. John Reynolds was washing is Bronco, and I think working on the cooling system. Jesse and Matt were rebuilding the front suspension in the Toyota. We were fixing the sector shaft. Tim opted to patch the broken TH400 case on his transmission instead of replacing it. A handful of other trucks were replacing broken front driveshafts, too.

Thursday:
And the next morning came too soon. The start was earlier than the previous day's. We had the Obstacle Course and the Tank Traps to do. Even with a broken transmission, Tim put on a great show. At the end of the obstacle course was a short climb with a lip to kick your front tires in the air. Good for picture shots and also good for breaking trucks. Tim launched his truck off that lip and had enough air that people could walk under his front axle! Of course, nobody could have actually done that because it came down just as quick. To his credit, he was off the throttle, so he didn't come down to break parts. He was able to back up and try again. The orange Oklahoma Willies wasn't as lucky. He did a similar launch but broke a D60 ring and pinion in the landing, as well as the front output on his Atlas transfer case. Yep, those things break too! We did okay, I think. Again, nerves got the better of me, and had I slowed down a bit, I think I could have done better. I took out a few more cones than I needed to.

The final event was the Tank Trap. It was forbidding. We had heard the stories. We'd also been told of the rumors of it this year. 5 feet deep. No, 6 feet. Correction, 7 feet deep. All week long we had seen a continuous stream of water trucks heading up there. We lost count somewhere in the teens. I was panicking. We busily worked on our mini-snorkel. The original plan was to route it in place of the heater fan, and suck from the air intake just after the hood. We were wrong, that routed into the interior, which was in fact good. So we busy duct taped up the heater outlets in the dash. Meanwhile, Marylin was busy timing John Reynolds for how long he could hold his breath under water! So, in brief, there was a lot of worry around camp. When we walked up to inspect the first hole, a few threw rocks in. It sounded deep. Great...

Barry from Israel had the ominous task of being first in the holes. Everyone is first in exactly and only one event, and he hadn't been first yet. Shortly after, more rumors came back. The Frog's tires couldn't been seen in the first tank trap....he didn't complete the course....he only made it as far as the 6th tank trap. They were random draws, I was #4. I tried to trade for a later spot, but not surprisingly, there were no takers. Then another rumor came back...the Lavendar brothers had completed the tank traps in some 24 minutes. How was that possible? The Frog was on 44's and the Lavendar bro's truck was on 38.5's. Did they just leave the Frog stuck to let the Lavendar CJ drive over it? Did they carry it through the holes? Were they just that good at winching? We never did find out. The red Toyota was ahead of me and I was hoping he'd empty the holes out some more since his truck was built for mud. Unfortunately, he had problems in the first hole and had to be extracted before hardly beginning the course. Then, it was us.

We had a plan.

Before even getting into the first hole, we'd unwind the cable so Andy could hook it up faster. But we didn't need to winch, we cruised right through it. Cool! There was no time to catch our breath; we entered the second hole right away. Once again, no problem. But right after that hole, we needed to winch our way out of the Tank Trap section and into the canyon. The canyon is off-camber. It's okay if you have a narrow body on wide axles, but that description doesn't apply to a full-size Blazer sitting on Unimog axles shod with 44" tires.. We just laid the body over into the rocks and drove. No choice. About here, we basically forgot about any plan that we had. At least, I did. It's a good thing I've heard sheet metal crunch before, 'cause I heard enough of it there and I didn't panic. Before we knew it, we came up to another hole. How much time left? What, that's it? My mind was racing so fast, I don't even know what Jim Piatt said. I didn't think we were going to make it. But, after winching up to in line with the last series of holes, Andy hopped in and we gave it some stupid pedal to make the best use of the remaining time we had. And we didn't stop. That felt good. The truck, with all its clearance, made short work of the rest of the tank traps. We had to turn, then climb up the hill at the end. After one jockey, we did just that. Despite having mishaps, troubles, and nervousness in our face the whole event, the truck climbed right up to the end. In fact, it made that last section easier than any other trucks. That felt good, and it was a superb way to finish off the event. We didn't beat the Lavenders' time, but we were close.

But after driving the course, it was obvious that it was going to get faster. And it did. Cory was after me, and he put on a great show. Into one mud hole, his rear tires landed before his front! He beat us by about 5 minutes, and generally speaking, the remaining trucks continued to go faster. Just the luck of the draw. John Reynolds was 2nd to last, and drove almost the entire course, with a final time of just over 7 minutes. Amazing. The Israelis complained that the course had changed since they had done it. They were correct, but it came down to the luck of the draw. It wasn't the only course to change between first and last vehicles, so did the mini Rubicon. Barry, we're all thankful for you draining most of the holes at the start!

In retrospect, the rumors were all unsubstantiated. We drew #4, fairly early. I was half expecting to drown the motor completely. That didn't happen. I had resigned myself to the fact that my stereo was going to be full of mud. That didn't happen either. In fact, my carpet in the cab didn't even get wet. Was the truck that great? No. The tank traps just weren't as hard as we expected. But somehow I suspect that this will be remedied at the next TTC. Good luck there, guys! Hopefully, they'll learn that water sitting on dirt doesn't necessarily make deep mud. Water only serves to kill motors, hopefully they'll make sure there's more mud than water.

There was a good wind-down after the event that had truck stacking, a tug of war. Cory may have beat me at TTC, but I beat him in the tug of war! Plus, he broke a 35 spline Dana 70 shaft there, 2 full twists before snapping! Just before dark, we went up to play in the rock garden, where we got to see at least two judges' trucks end up on their sides - I think that was as many rollovers as there was during the entire event itself!

And remember that guy who broke an axle before we left for the ferries? He had fun through the week taking pictures of the wild hogs that were in and around the campsite at night. That last night after the tank traps, he managed to catch a couple piglets and put them in some of the shower stalls. Toby from Texas found one in the morning! Over the past TTC's, we've all forgotten some of the people who have entered, and even some of the people who have won. I know I have. But I think the hog in the shower story will live forever!

The Winners

Congratulations to John Reynolds for winning TTC 2002. There was no question even before the prizes were given. It was good to see the Raptor in 2nd place. It was built on a much smaller budget and worked admirably. Cory took 3rd with his red Chevy. It was good to see a Canadian in there, and a vehicle with a full body at that.

Without a doubt, Tim and his spotter worked the hardest. You know that's the case when his spotter needed oxygen after the mini Rubicon! For this reason alone, I wished his truck had worked better so he could have placed higher.

We placed 8th, a bit disappointing but okay considering the caliber of trucks this year. Everyone had excellent trucks, and were great drivers in their own respect. If the sector shaft had held up, I think we would have moved up a number of points. But that's competition.

The Damage

All in all, I'm quite happy (and amazed) with how the truck held up, considering the real and true abuse that it received. Many times, I was expecting portals and shafts and parts to absolutely grenade. And that didn't happen. Other than minor small wrinkles in the body, this is the damage report (in order of occurrence, that I've found so far):

• Front bumper extension for bumper height laws (log sort in the frame twister)
• Front spring shackle (log sort in the frame twister)
• Rear passenger side torque arm (log sort in the frame twister)
• Sector shaft (mini Rubicon)
• Driver's front fender (tank trap)
• Driver's door (tank trap)
• Driver's tail light (tank trap)
• Passenger's front fender (tank trap)
• Driver's rear torque arm (tug of war after the event)

Special Thanks

There are many people who helped me on the way to TTC. I know I'm going to miss some people, but here's the people that stand out right now, in no particular order:

• The Victoria Team: Rob, Bill, Gina, Steve, and others worked to help me make it through my list of "must-have's" for the event. Without them, the truck wouldn't have been prepped for the event.
• The TTC Team: Chris, Ben, and Andy all worked together to keep the truck going and make sure we could complete the event. I can't say enough good things about them.
• Jesse from Michigan, for the spare sector shaft. And the local circle of 'wheelers for rounding up a spare steering box. Our first choice was to replace the box, but we ended up replacing the shaft instead.
• Richard Sheridan. My 44" TSL's could not arrive in time, so he offered up his, and even went so far as to mount them. For a lot of the event, the Dick Cepeks would have worked, but without the TSL's, I would have been stopped in the mud.
• Jon Bruce. Without his trailer, we would have either had to modify Richard's immensely, or just drive the Hulk there and back.
• The people who voted for me to go. Without the votes, this would not have been possible.

Epilogue

Overall, I'm glad I went. Some things worked, some things didn't. Some things I'm happy with, others I'm not at all. I would have preferred to have placed better, but the crop of trucks this year was amazing, and in reality the truck wasn't built for this type of competition (or any competition, for that matter). And it likely won't see another, 'cept maybe the odd mud bog.

The event is well run by a group of professionals, no question about that. They covered a lot of small details that are missed at other events. These little details are hard to pin-point because they are all behind the scenes and help the event run like clockwork. Things like liaising with the park staff, coordinating with the airport, etc. It made the event run smooth from start to finish. That said, there were some events after that TTC competition was over that is best left not mentioned but must be dealt with at future TTC's.

I must say that I've also had a camera, flash, video, or microphone in my face enough times that the next time that occurs will be too soon!

This event took place the OHV park at Hollister Hills, about 1.5 hours from San Francisco, I'm told. It's a perfect venue for this type of event, and it's clear that Canada is behind the times when it comes to OHV parks. The area was manned by paid state employees with proper equipment to maintain, service, and monitor the area. It was good to see.

For anyone thinking of entering, here's some advice:

• I'd have to say you really have to want to go. Actually, you should feel like you need to go. The event is grueling on both man and machine, and you have to be prepared to do stuff to your truck that you likely never otherwise would do. In fact, I'll go so far to say that they don't want to take the trucks up to the breaking points, they want the trucks to break for carnage pictures. And in reality, the trucks held to together admirably this year, so watch out for the next few years!
• I'll pass on some of the best advice I was given: if you make it there, drive like you would at home. I tried to, but my nerves got to me and I made mistakes that I normally wouldn't otherwise. I'm sure others did the same. Even when against the clock, it's important to think and not just rush, your truck will thank you and continue to live for the next event even if you lose one or two seconds.
• In the paperwork they send you, they state "Remember, it's all for fun." It isn't, it's to sell magazines. So don't get too excited about how you place. Compete against yourself, not other people, and you'll know yourself how well you do. And that's what matters.