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Oregon Trophy Challenge 2016

TORX

NAXJA Forum User
NAXJA Member
Location
NWC
Oregon Trophy Challenge
May 13-15, 2016
Tillamook State Forest, Oregon

After two consecutive years of holding the first place trophy for the Oregon Trophy Challenge, Team NAXJA was eager to register for this years event and try our hand at a third title. Some changes were made to the team this year as one of our previous drivers, Josh, had another event going on this weekend. That's where Dan enters the picture. We recruited Dan for his vast knowledge of all things botany, borderline superhero eyesight, compact size, and atypical taste in music. Welcome aboard, Dan!

Team NAXJA this year would consist of myself and Dan in my Jeep, Nick and Scott in Nicks Jeep.

The event this year kind of snuck up on us (read, we procrastinated). Both of us had some upgrades and mods planned for the Jeeps, but in the end we just did a thorough race prep, packed the Jeeps, and drove them to the event on Friday. I was last to arrive, around 9:30PM, which put us last to check in and receive our instructions. It was going to be a long night...
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While I set up camp, the rest of the team worked on plotting the coordinates, and developing a route. This would basically be like a geocache challenge all over TSF in the middle of the night. We set off for the first one at 11:00PM.


  • 12:00AM we were hiking through the brush on a hill side while the sky lit up with lightning and thunder.
  • 1:00AM with Nick's light bar lighting up the forest, we searched for another punch off the side of the trail
  • 2:30AM burned up a lot of time scouring a dead end road for another punch, Dan's GPS tracks resembled an etch-a-sketch drawing
  • 4:00AM knocked out a few more punches, and now found ourselves hiking up a hillside through the brush, falling into what seemed like bear dens, trying to pin point the exact location of the next coordinate
  • 5:00AM returned to camp, few words were spoken, we all crashed in our tents preparing to head back out in two hours
Our Saturday shove off time was to be at 7:30AM. We woke up at 7:00 after what seemed like a short cat nap. We grabbed some food, dumped some gas in the Jeeps, and prepared ourselves for what may lie ahead.


We received our direction packet, and set off on the route. Scott and Dan bounced upcoming turns off one another making for some good progress early on. We reached our first check point at Hogsback, where one vehicle had to drive down, and then reverse back up through a cone course. Nick handled this task. (pic credit to FB)

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We continued on up and over 7-Up, and then onto Saddle-Up. While bombing through Dogleg a relatively easy trail I managed to clip a stump with the front driver tire. It was a hard hit that brought the Jeep to a near stop. I immediately noticed my steering wheel about 180 off... upon further inspection my steering box was now dumping fluid out the sector shaft seal. This was a hard blow to the team this early on, but there was no way we could finish the day with the box in the condition it was in.

While staring at the box hoping it would fix itself, Scott came up with an idea, "guys, we're not that far from camp, lets head back and swap boxes with the MJ (his daily driver)." Brilliant!

We had a title to defend, and weren't going to give up. Once back at camp we settled into a pit crew pace of box swapping.
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While making repairs we sent Scott to Gales Creek to top off the gas cans as this might be our only time to do so. We had the new box installed and steering bleed by the time he returned.

We geared back up and headed back to where we left off. We lost a little over two hours with the repair by the time we got back on course.
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What Dan actually photographed.
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More checkpoints were completed. That's team work right there. (photo credit to FB)
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"Optional Hill Climb," yes please.
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The Nail Salon atop Mini Rubicon.
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We finished up the first packet of directions, and set off on the second leg of this event knowing we still had a lot of ground to make up. However, we felt we'd been doing really well on the challenges at the check points, and that's what this event comes down to, points.

Made a quick lap on Waterfall for one of the top times for the day. (photo credit to FB)
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Going on two hours of sleep, and twelve hours in the Jeep, spirits were still high.
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We continued on course, made a stupid mistake at an "and again...". That cost us some time, but we regrouped as a team and made sense of it to continue on. Eventually we found ourselves heading up Rogers Road as fast as we could push the Jeeps. My rig was pinned at 3K rpm for 8 minutes chasing Nick up the trail. Once up top we then navigated a slalom course over some slick logs to the finish. We netted the top time at that event. Our station wagons got it done. :cool:

We tackled another punch card coordinate, and then had a quick team meeting on where to go from there. Our cutoff time was 9:08PM, and it was now 8:30PM. We could have pushed on (which I really wanted to), but felt we had to get our score card in before the cutoff as that's what ultimately mattered. We rallied down Fox Creek Road to Highway 6, and then bee lined it for Browns Camp. We pulled into the event site at 9:08PM on the dot. At this point all we could do was hope for the best as we knew we gave it 100%.
 
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The next morning we gathered at the day use are with the other teams to here the results. Four teams would advance to the final shootout based on their points from the day before. 4th place was Team Toy/YJ (I forget their team name), 3rd place was Team NAXJA (we were in!), 2nd place Team Piston's Wild, 1rst place Team Auburn Car Repair.

Once at the shoot out all teams staged for the first challenge.
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It was a tire change test, and Karl (Los Lobos) got our performance on video. I'm amazed at how well we worked together considering we had zero prep time. We were all very pleased with our performance as we waited while the other three teams completed the task.


The next challenge was T-Ball. One vehicle pick up the balls off the tee's, while the vehicle placed them back on. While we had one dropped ball, which we recovered, our time was a top contender for sure.

Third challenge had our rigs strapped together back to back, and one pulled the other through a cone course, and vice versa. We had room for improvement on this one. :laugh:

Last challenge was the stretched course, where one team member laid on a stretcher while the other team members carried him through a laid out course. This is where Dan's compact size was advantageous to our team.

Here's a good time lapse video of the shoot out.


Once over all we could do was hope for the best knowing we once again gave it our best. The OTC crew put on a great lunch, and raffle for the teams and volunteers. Thanks to everyone who participated, and helped put this event on. It truly is something we look forward to every year.

When it the result were announced...

4th place... Team Auburn Car Repair
3rd place... Team Pistons Wild
2nd place... Team NAXJA
1rst place... Team Toy/YJ

Considering what we overcame we were stoked for a 2nd place finish at Oregon Trophy Challenge 2016. However, we were definitely a little disappointed we couldn't bring home the trophy for a third year in a row. It was tough to hear the final points difference between first and second, and factor that determined it. Next year we'll be gunning harder to bring back the title to the XJ's!

-TEAM6
 
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Also, a huge thank you goes out to our title sponsor this year, Unobtanium Ironworks, out of Oregon City. Unobtanium Ironworks got on board with our team this year thanks to Dan, and helped us out with some team swag, and covering the team's fuel bill.

The marketing definitely paid off as the number one question all weekend was, "what's UN?" when people read our shirts. We hope we represented the company well with our third consecutive podium finish.

If you have any sort of steel need from ordering material to CNC plasma cutting, or even an entire fabrication project in mind, check out Unobtanium Ironworks!

Unobtanium Ironworks
1800 Main St
Oregon City, Oregon​
 
I see they have a date June 2-4 for this years Oregon Trophy Challenge. I keep saying i am going to do this maybe this is the year. So fare the calendar is clear for this weekend i need to write it in and get out and get familiar with more trails we don't normally run.
 
I see they have a date June 2-4 for this years Oregon Trophy Challenge. I keep saying i am going to do this maybe this is the year. So fare the calendar is clear for this weekend i need to write it in and get out and get familiar with more trails we don't normally run.
Yes sir, Team Six is already is discussion and planning. I know Ken and Karl are also in the planning stages with their team. OTC17 should be another fun year!
 
Congratulations on victory!!!
Once again the Nail Salon shows them all that manicure are for men too.
Way to go!

One of these years i will get my stuff together and get out and try this event. Look forward to your trip report.
Joe
 
Congratulations on victory!!!
Once again the Nail Salon shows them all that manicure are for men too.
Way to go!

One of these years i will get my stuff together and get out and try this event. Look forward to your trip report.
Joe
Thanks, Joe. You and Lloyd gotta make it happen one of these years. I didn't get too many pictures this year as I was behind the wheel. I'll see if I can put together a little recap of our 2017 run though this week.
 
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