Team ScalerFab WINS BIG at the 10-Hour Endurance G6!

The 10hr Endurance G6 at Superlift ORV Park in Hot Springs, AR

2.2 Solo WINNER

Team Driver, Tony Hurayt

​2-Man Team WINNERS

Team Driver, Steve Crotts, & Partner, Chris Carman

Here's what G6 first-timer, Team Driver Randy Williams, had to say about the day:

"So, I've been hearing a lot about the G6 events in recent past and had made my mind up a while back that I was going to give it a try. I had spoke with many G6 veterans they all said the same thing. "You'll either love it, or hate it but you need to run one to find out." Well, I did and let me tell you, if you want to know just how good of shape you are in, this is the event for you!

A word that has never been used to describe me is spry. Nor have I ever been described as swift, nimble, deft, or agile.

See, I believe everyone in this world has a purpose. I also believe my purpose in this world is to not go fast. You see, physics works against me. I'm simply not aerodynamic, and gravity has a grudge against me and tends to fight my every movement. My shape is more akin to one of the various, large rocks lying around where us RC crawlers tend to frequent. Thus, the reason I feel so at home while rock crawling. I'm in my element with like thinking objects, round and stationary.

Now, I will be the very first to admit that I am the reason I am the way I am. I take full responsibility for my shape and lack of speed up hill, and my tendency to retain all of my potential energy for future use the majority of the time. I argue that I am a product of my environment, which happens to be large immobile round objects. We call them rocks. See, these other fellas that were out running the course, occasionally muttering something under their breath when they tripped or stubbed their toe on my mostly stationary self or those objects like me on the course are also products of their own environments.

One could almost tell what each driver surrounded himself with as they whizzed past. Once, while trudging along arguing the whole time with gravity, I thought I heard a rhino crashing threw the trees and bushes behind me. When I looked back, I gave a yip as Team Texas came rolling by. I didn't think they had rhinos in Texas. That happened a few times.

Then, while rolling along contemplating my lack of sturdiness compared to my surrounding objects, I look up and see Mr. Tony Hurayt gracefully bounding up the trail like a gazelle with his Scalerfab Bomber bouncing along in front of him. I pondered this for a moment. Mr. Tony is quite tall for a gazelle and a bit more grey than most gazelles I've seen in books and on TV. Again, when did they get tall get gazelles in the Carolinas?

Later on, I happened across Mr. Steve Crotts as he made his way around the stage verily resembling a badger, steadily about his business, not letting anything deter his mission with a stern but serene look about him. Note to self, watch for badgers in Tennessee.

I got to see others, as well, while on course. Evidently in South Carolina they have bearded cheetahs that never got the memo that they are supposed to run out of energy after 30 minutes at a dead run. All these guys running, jogging, and walking behind these tiny toy trucks up and down hills that many off road vehicles strain to traverse. Slate, red clay, and gravel, through ditches, creeks, over carburetors (yes there was a carburetor on the course) up wash outs through rock slides. It was intense to say the least, critters and all.

I made it 8 miles total. I lost a shock made the repair as best I could and set out again. I made it to the eight gate on course one and couldn't go any more. My little Deadbolt was limping almost as badly as I. So we limped back to the pit area and sank into a seat. I had a lot of time to reflect after I caught my breath the evening of the next day.

I came, I saw, and I participated in a G6 event. I watched members of Team Scalerfab totally own the competition. I was humbled by the tenacity of these guys and most of all, their positive attitude throughout the whole event. That and the fact that they didn't seem to have to stop and convince gravity to stop trying to bear hug them to the ground for an extended wrestling match every 100 yards like myself.

So now, keeping with the theory that we are a product of our environment I've placed an order for 50 down pillows and some hummingbirds. I will be keeping them with me at all crawling events also. I've also decided to get out and get some darned exercise. It was nice seeing those guys up there. Would have been better if I'd have been up there with them. I count myself lucky indeed to be a member of Team Scalerfab. Their product and their team members are top notch." - A very sore and hurting Randy Williams

Things went a little smoother for 2.2 Solo Winner, Tony Hurayt. Here it is in his words:

"The day started early with drivers starting to roll in around 7:30. The temperature was in the low 40s with a light breeze. While some drivers where checking in, others where busy charging batteries or giving their rigs one more look over.

As the time grew closer to the start, drivers started taking their rigs up to the stage for the start. To avoid a giant bottle neck at the first gate, drivers left one at a time with a couple of seconds between each other.

I opted to start later to allow the drivers ahead of me to lead the way and give me the chance to see the various options for getting around any obstacles or make it up any of the harder hills. For the next 10 hours it was man or woman and machine against the water, mud, rocks and hills of the ORV Park.

When I was on my way back to check in, after completing the second stage of my second lap, my steering servo succumbed to water and started twitching from side to side. I was forced to walk back to the staging area and see if it could be salvaged. After over a hour of working on getting the servo out or the rig and dried out, I was back to driving.

I went back to where I picked up the rig to finish driving the second lap and went on for laps 3 and 4. Everyone was required to check in after each stage. When I checked in for the completion of lap 3 I was told that I was currently tied for 1st place. With the help of a candy bar and an energy drink I took to the course with a bit more energy determined to take the lead.

About halfway thru the first stage I came up on the driver I was battling for first and squeezed a little more on the throttle and started to jog past him up one of the longest hills that we had to climb. With a good lead I slow my pace as I came up to the next gate and went back to driving smart and steady.

I continued running the stages and when I checked in after lap 5 I was informed that I had the lead by a full lap. I decided to take a short break, get a quick bite to eat and something to drink.

At no time did I ever think to time myself to see how long it was taking to complete each section. At 6 pm, Josh Harris announced that there was 1 hour left. I took a deep breath and decided to try and complete at least one more stage before time ran out. It was 6:05 when I left the pavilion to start stage 1 for the 6th time.

With the determination to complete the stage before time ran out I found a new energy and ran from gate to gate. The hills that I had endured 5 times already did not exist in my eyes. When I finally got back to the staging area and checked in it was 6:27. I was spent.

To give everyone a perspective of what the hills where like. If you have been to RRW on the 1:1 section, the big sandy hill the goes up and loops back down is about as steep but about 1/5th the length of the longest hill we had to go up. The concrete hill with the pit at the bottom is at steep as the worst hill, but the hill we went up was 10 times longer. I don’t think a single driver had anything nice to say about this particular hill.

After the awards presentation I had some time to meet with two other team drivers and we took the opportunity to get a small team picture." - Tony Hurayt

And last, but not least, Our 2-Man Team Winner, Steve Crotts, and his run down:

"Wow...what a day, what an event! First I have to give a big thanks to Josh Harris/Roland Rock Shop for hosting an awesome event in Arkansas and all the sponsors that stepped up for prizes, trophies, etc. Without those people there would be no event.

The name pretty much sums up what this event was about, 10 hours with a tiny truck navigating the course. The class formats included 1.9 solo, 2.2 solo, 1.9 Three Man Teams and 1.9 Two Man Teams. There were two stages, each stage was roughly two miles long with 50 gates total and a bonus stage at the beginning of Stage 2. If you were running as a team such as I was, one rig was used to navigate the course and there was a support rig to bring parts, etc. out on course in case the main rig broke down. Teams had to rotate drivers after each stage and used two way radios to communicate in the event of a breakdown.

The weather was just about perfect, it started off cloudy and cool but by late morning the sun was out. There was a chilly breeze all day but it probably helped more than hurt and I never noticed it while out on the course. The event kicked off at 9:00am and I took out first for Stage 1 along with the rest of the drivers. There was a log obstacle that I got myself in trouble with right off the bat but once I cleared that it was all uphill from there...literally. There were 30 gates on Stage 1 spread out over roughly two miles and finding these gates was a little tricky on my first pass but by my third pass I had their locations memorized. Stage 1 contained a little bit of everything, there was rock, dirt, clay, water, mud, creeks, and hills...did I mention the hills? There was one hill in particular that was brutal, the only good thing about this hill was it came towards the end of the stage. I ran a steady pace while out on stage, nothing too fast or too slow because part of endurance racing is also keeping the rig in one piece. On lap 6, at Gate 9 of 30, an issue did occur with the rig, a cross pin came out of the front driveshaft and I only had rear wheel drive. I was apparently in a bad reception area and couldn't communicate with my teammate so I continued on. And let me tell you, driving a 4x4 without the front wheels pulling isn't easy, especially when it came time to go up the biggest hill on Stage 1. It wasn't easy but I managed to navigate the course with RWD only, a fellow competitor gave me a push up a small hill at Gate 30 where I was going to winch and it was back to the pits for a quick repair. The ScalerFab equipped rig never missed another beat the rest of the day and the support rig never left the pits. I never saw Stage 2 with the format of team driving. We made the decision early on to each stick with the stage we already knew how to navigate but Stage 2 was no easier than Stage 1 from what I was told.

My teammate and me never stopped for a break, when one of us came in off a stage, the other went right back out. I did this ten times on Stage 1 and my teammate did this nine times on Stage 2 plus he ran the bonus stage nine times. At the end of 10 hours we had completed 9.5 laps total, equaling about 36 miles. We ended up running more laps than anyone else and won the Two Man Team Class. And I will tell you this, we felt it afterwards and we are still feeling it...sore calf muscles, hamstrings and blisters on our feet.

Lastly, I have to thank my teammate, Chris Carman aka littletoyboy on the forums, without him there would not of been a team and he pushed all day long. I can't say enough about his driving and hard work. We did what we set out to do which was to win our class and have fun with tiny trucks...we did both!" - Steve Crotts