Rocktoberfest
Cass, Arkansas
October 3 - 5th, 2003

Every year for one weekend in October, the Rock Crawlers 4x4 Club puts together a multi-day event at Byrd's Adventure Center in Cass, Arkansas.  This year, the 3-day event consisted of 28 competitors, 2 different trails, a rock garden, and lots of prizes.  Several vendors from Arkansas and surrounding states were on hand to give away tons of 4 wheeling goodies, like tires, axles, and transfer cases. 

What would a road trip be without the proper gear?  For this trip, my buddy chose Crown Royal Special Reserve.

Here are two pictures of a stock H2 climbing the rock garden.  The catch: yeah they put BFG MT's on, but the pilot and co-pilot were women.  Note that they cannot wheel without the help of at least one man, and in this case it happens to be John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever!

Even kids were driving their lifted rigs, although nobody under the age of 16 was allowed to compete.  This youngster has high hopes of taking his heavily modified YJ through the courses as soon as he finds a large enough phone book to sit on so he can see over the steering wheel.

I'm not really sure what this is.  It is definitely unique.  I can't even think of anything funny to say about it except that I never saw it move, it just magically appeared at different places in the park but there never was anybody driving it or standing near it.

Here is a line-up shot of most of the competitors.  This event was 80% Jeeps but there were a couple of other vehicles such as Toyotas and Samurai's.

This was not a competitor's truck but I just wanted to take a picture of a full-body rig.  Apparently he had a good time.

Here is one of the first competitors through the course.  Directly behind him is a mud pit that was swallowing 44 inch Boggers all day long.  Not a single person made it through the pit without winching out, and this is also where all of the damage occurred.  The tricky part was that if you made it through the very thick cement-type mud, you had a 4 foot vertical slope to climb up.  Even Boggers were getting gummed up in this sticky mud and therefore nobody had any tread left unexposed to grab onto the incline and crawl up. 

This was another very nice CJ, notice the 2.5 ton Rockwell axles.

This was the biggest Dodge at the entire event!  A Superlift 5 inch kit and some 35's.  I did not drive my Dodge so I was not able to show him up.

Here is a very nice XJ... again please notice the 12 year old driver.  Kids these days are just not satisfied with Power Wheels anymore!

This was my favorite vehicle of the entire day.  I drove past this TJ and declared him "My Hero."

Okay, I lied, this was my favorite vehicle.  The gentleman that owns this rig was very nice and I had a great conversation with him.  He did not compete because his spotter was not able to attend, but there is no doubt that he would've done very well. 

This was one of the best drivers I have ever seen.  When you have an excellent driver and a very capable rig like this Sami equipped with quadrasteer, that surely spells trouble for all other competition.  The co-pilot is John Travolta from the H2 rock crawling picture.  A lot of times, co-pilots don't get much credit, but this guy was on top of his game as he was jumping out to hook up the winch before the Sami even stopped moving.  Not a real safe thing to do but it is nice to see somebody so enthusiastic about helping out.  The reason everybody was in such a hurry is because the courses were timed.

And then there was a problem with people's wheels just falling off.

Here is a good picture of the mud pit and one guy having to be winched out by another two rigs.  If you have to be pulled out, then you were immediately disqualified for that event.

It did not matter how fast you turned your tires, the mud stuck to every inch of rubber.

Here is one guy hitting the hole as hard as he could, but he wound up like everybody else - winching out.

This rig was one of the best out there.  The kid driving did very well in the mud hole and came in so fast that he knocked over a couple of fence posts that were holding up the flag ropes.  He got about halfway up the incline and then winched the rest of the way.  And yes those are 44 inch Boggers covered in mud.

This guy wasn't sure if he wanted to go fast through the mud or not until he already had half of the Jeep axle-deep in it.  He eventually had to be pulled out and DQ'ed.

Here is the Ace, #1 competitor.  Check out the chunks of mud flying through the air!  He hit this hole so hard I'm surprised he didn't just fly right over it all. 

All in all, Rocktoberfest was a great time.  Byrd's Adventure Center is a great place to have it because there are a lot of different type of terrain, from the mud pit to the rock garden, from the frame twisters to the dried up creek beds.  You can stay at Byrd's anytime and camp out in their very large campground.  The campsite is right on the river so the setting is great, and then you can wheel the trails anytime you want. 

DJGASTON