All Wheelers Off Road Club Top Member Challenge
Hosted by Eastern Washington Off Road.
Report by Clay Graham. Photos by Clay & Hank Graham / CegPics.com
On Saturday January 19th, 2008, Eastern Washington Off Road hosted an event for the All Wheelers Off Road Club members for their devotion toward the Eastern Washington Off Road group. This event is called, “All Wheelers Off Road Club Top Member Challenge”, and was held near Cowiche, Washington on Cowiche Ridge.
We had 6 rigs competing. Built-not-bot, BecauseSheLetsMe, Demontang, Dr Turbo, Rednk1980 and Waycrazy. The goal was to race (wheeled ORV of choice) to the top of the ridge through the deep snow and get the challenge marker. The first driver that gets the marker wins the AWORC Top Member award. Benw and Jay W were the judges on this event.
We headed up toward the starting point and had to stop because rednk1980 got stuck. We got going again and Hercules got stuck and found his 4 wheel drive wasn’t working. They got it fix and we were on our way again.
As we climbed the side of Cowiche Ridge, the snow got deeper and softer. We had a few problems with rigs getting through one section. Tiny got stuck twice and Jerry lost a bead. Benw and Jay W winched Tiny. Some guys helped Jerry air up his tire.
On top of Cowiche Ridge, the snowdrifts were huge. The first of many hug snowdrifts was so deep, Punisher’s 44″ tall tires wouldn’t reach the ground. Punisher blew up his Chevy’s front diff on that drift.
The next challenging snow drift was in a section of trees. It took a lot of work and time for rigs to work their way up. There were a lot of rigs winching.
BecauseSheLetsMe won the All Wheelers Top Member Challenge in his 1984 Jeep Cherokee. He won a trophy & an AWORC windshield banner from EWOR, and a 1/4″ thick AWORC logo & weld on bead locks from Ron Palstring.
During the race to the marker, Demontang broke a rear axle on his Ford Ranger. They used a log in place of the wheel to get the rig down to Cowiche Mill Road onto a trailer they had brought up.
Here are some photos of the All Wheelers Off Road Club Top Member Challenge:
