Motorsport: Drivers ride their luck in test of nerves

HAIR-RAISING: Tauranga's winning driver Andrew Gardner clears the "Balls of Steel" course at the Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge in Turakina on Saturday.PHOTOS/DEVYN STAINES 310515WCDS4X401

They got well above the earth and well underneath it as the truck drivers in the inaugural Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge put on a great spectacle for the hundreds of spectators who parked up on the hillside of the Cowper farm property in Turakina yesterday.

The brainchild of organiser Dan Cowper, who wanted a more fan-friendly version of 4x4 Trials, the six natural hazard and partially dug cliff-face courses were perfect for viewers to watch on the adjacent hillside, moving from section to section.

The 15 invited drivers and co-drivers had to navigate the muddy horizontal and survive the sheer vertical as they looked to steer their custom trucks through 10 "gates" on each of the 100-200m long courses for a maximum of 1000 points.

Spin out, get stuck, or touch a "gate" flag and 100 points were deducted each time.

Tauranga's Andrew Gardner was strongest through the day to finish on 5400 points, followed by Wanganui's national champion Hamish Auret on 4950, just 50 points ahead of Wellington's Mitch Seymour.

Oakura's Raymond Hill and co-driver Karl Looney earned the "Best in Show" award after their spectacular crash on the third course - "Need for Speed".

As the only course of the six to be time-based, Hill was careening down to the finish when he ended up tumbling end-over-end.

Putaruru's Graeme Kingstone also rolled on the twisting "Balls of Steel" course, with the mud permanently claiming the GoPro camera which the TV3 crew from CRC Motorsport had mounted on each of the vehicles.

The "Balls of Steel" proved very popular with the crowd as the final climb to the 10th gate created powerful leaping finishes from the 600hp engines, with Gardner and Auret especially, getting up high.

"It's probably amazed everyone, how well the trucks handle the jump," said Cowper.

"The crowd love the jumps. That was a good gauge of what they can do."

Another popular course for the fans was No4, the appropriately-named "Walls of Death".

But everything finished deep in the mud with "Full Noise Mud Run" - a narrow cliff descent followed by 100m of deep, near impassible swamp.

Gardner took a 300-point lead over Seymour into this final leg, with the Wellingtonian being 50 points ahead of Auret.

Going down last, Auret and co-driver Paul Barnes spent most of the round at the bottom of the valley, making and then remaking plans on which line they would try to take through the squelch as they watched the others have a crack.

A number of drivers sacrificed gates and points in order to get the right angle and keep their revs up so they could claim the honour of making it through without the crane having to pull them out.

Using this strategy, Kingstone was the first to make the distance, with Lower Hutt's Brian Howat following him and getting stopped in the middle.

Both South Auckland's Dean Foster and Auret would go wide routes on the corner turn, showering one section of the crowd with a long spray of mud.

While he could have used similar tactics given his points lead, Gardner stuck to his aim of scoring the maximum 1000 points from each round, cautiously working through both hill gates, and although he was stopped short of the finish, the eight gates completed was more than enough to secure the title.

"They're all good hazards, the whole lot of them," he said.

"One wasn't harder than the other, I was having so much fun driving them."

Cowper was delighted with the crowd turnout, and Gardner was also keen for another go if the event becomes a fixture.

"I'm pretty sure I'll be back. The crowd loved it, which was the whole point of it."