Cliffhanger April 2021

[BZOOK]

Looks interesting!
https://www.cliffhanger4wdevent.com.au/

[BZOOK]

The old Zook came second (see their Facebook deets below). Who's going to build and enter next year? Would be cool to have something in Vic like this in addition to wild dog.

https://www.facebook.com/Matchbox-racin ... 870346364/

[Cohengoo]

I would like to see more of the ultra4 style racing come to victoria!

[gwagensteve]

I would like to see more of the ultra4 style racing come to victoria!

Ultra4 is an interesting one. I went to King of the Hunter in 2015/2016 and it was pretty hard to get a field together at that point. There were maybe 4 actual U4 cars and a bunch of converted winch cars/tuff trucks which weren't suitable. I'm aware there are more cars now but not a lot more. There seems to be reasonable fields in Qld, but getting them down here for a race is unrealistic.

Additionally, finding a suitable property (with permits for new motorsport events) is super difficult. Generally, if a property has a history of motorsport use it's OK to continue, but getting a new permit is almost impossible. Bindaree would probably work assuming it could be get a permit.

The success of "new" motorsport categories always depends on healthy fields and a low step-in price. For winch racing, back in the 90's, people were (and could) compete in their regular cars, so it was easy to get a field together. When Cheezy was trying to get Ozrock off the ground, the biggest problem was trying to encourage a "modified" class where people could compete in their trail cars, which ultimately failed because it was too destructive and too hard to make a course work for both classes, so people had to build a car to compete. They wouldn't build a car to compete unless there was a good number of events. There couldn't be a good number of events without a strong field. Catch 22, and It's probably three times dearer to build a U4 than a rock crawler.

Ultra4 got off the ground in the US because it grew out of guys trying to race the cars they already owned, same as rock crawling grew from guys competing in their trail cars.

Interestingly, a few guys moved from the winch racing to class 8 offroad racing because they already had V8 patrols with shocks in them and they were sick of dangling on a string and wanted to go fast. They took the winches and 27 batteries out and they were sort of ready to go. There's a bit of this as a feeder class in the U4 rounds in QLD, but the cars get pretty messed up pretty quick from what I've seen.

Don't get me wrong, U4 is super cool, but it's hard to see where a big push would come from.

[BZOOK]

The beauty of cliffhanger is the class which allows essentially stock vehicles with certain safety equipment. To be honest that sounds more enjoyable to watch than a comp truck. I still don't really get the appeal of having to drag a vehicle up a rock face with a winch. Thanks for some background. Good to know.

[gwagensteve]

Doesn’t Cliffhanger require the cars to adhere to CCDS classes? If so, it’s very difficult to make a Sierra competitive. Maybe those guys manage it because of the balance of how the stages work. I know that outback challenge was set up to favour the big car drivers.

[BZOOK]

They have a 'Super Tourer' class which only seems to mandate a cage and the vehicle should be limited to what is available for that vehicle. Stages are limited to 80kph. I'd asked Mad Mat who ran his 80 series this year. There is no road reg requirement. There's a little blurb on the cliffhanger link at the start of this post.