[dhanushs]

Note: This is not a detailed thread, but, one which will have some pics and vidoes from the event.

JK Tyres Xtreme 4Play 2nd Edition, North India’s biggest off-roading competition, happened on 2nd, 3rd & 4th of February @Kikar Lodge, Punjab. . The event happened in Kikar Lodge, which is a beautiful resort and also supposed to be India’s first private forest reserve, spread across 1800 acres on the foothills of Shivalik Mountains in Punjab. I had a pleasant experience last time, and hence, this time it was decided that my Jeep and I would be there. Also because the event can be easily named one of the top 3 toughest competitions in India, where top offroading teams from across the country come to participate.

This time the competing teams were: 4 Teams from Gerrari Offroaders Chandigarh, 2 Teams from BODA Bangalore, 2 teams from MOCA Arunachal Pradesh, 2 Teams from KTM Jeepers Kerala, 1 Team from KASC Kerala, 1 team from KROC & Renegade Jeepers Kerala, 1 team from MARS Hyderabad and a couple more local teams from North.

Each team consisted of two cars and four personnel, two drivers and two co-drivers and both competed in a stage to qualify for points. My team was team 10 A (Dhanush S/Arun Vasu) & 10 B (Anand Manjooran/Vishnu Raj).
.
Our cars were trucked on 22nd of Jan to Chandigarh. There were total 14 Cars from South. 6 from Bangalore to Chandigarh, 6 Cochin to Chandigarh and 2 from Hyd.





With BODA boys when I loaded my jeep from Bangalore.


I left to Chandigarh on the 31st Early morning. Me, My Co-Driver Arun (Driving the car) and my trusted Mechanic Manu on the way to Bangalore airport from Wayanad.



By the time we reached Chandigarh, the Gerrari boys had picked up our cars from the Truck and parked it safely in Sunny Siddhu's house.





We picked up the cars from there and went straight to the hotel. As usual the cars had some last minute works to be done and a whole day was spent working on the cars.

Sarbloh motors, Jaskirat and his boys lent a helping hand in fixing my winch and some other minor tinkering jobs.






Once done, we left on the 2nd Morning to Kikar Lodge, from Chandigarh. The distance was about ~70kms.






Reached Kikar Lodge by around ~2PM and it was a treat to watch all fully prepped up machines. There is no question that these were India's highest performing and top rated offroading machines.















Our Team - Team 10A and Team 10B - A Jeep & a Gypsy.





The Scrutiny already stared by the time we reached. Here's the scrutiny sheet. To get an idea of the vehicle preparation.





Once Scrutiny done, the vehicles were all lined up for Flag Off. The Ceremonial Start was done after the prayer.



The vehicles lined up



Flag Off

[dhanushs]

The First stage was a night stage. On the 2nd Feb. Started at around ~7:30 PM.

Going to the stage.



Incidentally, this event is also my first event running a PTO competition winch. Which is probably India's first PTO winch used in competitive offroad events. Will start a detailed thread on it later on.

Here's the only video of the night stage named "One Night Stand" & my PTO winch. The Stage was such that, two vehicles had to climb a hill from two sides, and come down a very tricky decline. I decided to go through the right side and winch myself up, while Anand chose the driving path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoMHPQb7Ra0

However, once the stage was done, I forgot to disengage the PTO lever and broke a hell lot of stuff on the Jeep. Nevertheless, we came 2nd (overall 3rd) after the first day was done. The Score sheet.




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The 2nd day started on a bad note for us. We were unlucky and picked up the first lot in stage 2 which was named "Morning Glory". I got stuck in a weird angle on a tree. However, the marshals realised that the track is impossible to complete without modifying it, and removed the tree and we got a re-run. The track was such that, we had to manoeuvre some tricky ruts, climb up a steep incline, which most of the Jeeps had to winch up and then come down a super steep 12 feet high ~ 80-degree decline. A detailed video attached below the pics.

Some pics from "Morning Glory" Track.













Where seat belts matter.





The complete video of our team

https://youtu.be/auT-HWUw8_U

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The next stage was "Humping & Bumping". This stage included a tricky side inclined decline, and then a steep climb which needed to be winched up and then a super long and super steep decline. I lost my power steering fluid in this stage, and did the whole stage without power steering. Point to point turns were a pain! Also, caused some scary moments. A detailed video attached below the pics.

Some pics.



































The complete video of the stage.

https://youtu.be/MiEMFCQqhZY

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The 3rd stage for the day was "Sweet & Short". One of the most trickiest stages. No photos, since it was night. However, got a nice video of the stage.

https://youtu.be/OWfyFTv7wAE

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The 4th and the last stage for the day was probably the most difficult ones. However, we couldn't complete the stage because of mechanical issues in our team.

4 super tough stages. Most of them even tougher than the Rain Forest Challenge India. And the day was done and dusted.

Here are the scores (before correction) after the completion of Day 2. We stood 3rd, after the end of the day. Repaired the vehicles and had a good sleep.

[dhanushs]

Day 3 was the deciding day for us. We were in the top 3, but, not by a huge margin. To keep the position, we had to place in the top 3 even in the last stage. But the stage was a super hard winching stage through slush. Since we did the stage last year, we knew only monster winches will make it through this stage, and didn't have our hopes high. Still decided to try the best.

As luck would favor us, my winch packed up towards the end, with only a few feet of winching remaining.

Watch the video of the stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZSshN2byzo&t=23s

Some photos:





































We couldn't finish the stage because of a broken winch towards the last few feet of winching and got a DNF with 40 points.

The final scorecard. We came 4th.



The winners





Some media coverage.

[dhanushs]

Some videos from the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auT-HWUw8_U&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiEMFCQqhZY&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWfyFTv7wAE&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZSshN2byzo&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcRNWjjV1PY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVAs33er00E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMPALCZSWXk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGhvkYDMYvo

[crdi]

Your jeep has been your own baby, right? How did it wind up with ktm jeepers? Kurian sponsored/prepped it further?

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by crdi

Your jeep has been your own baby, right? How did it wind up with ktm jeepers? Kurian sponsored/prepped it further?

Nope. Nothing of that sort. I just teamed up with Anand from KTM Jeepers for this event, and he named the team KTM Jeepers. If I had my own team member with me, it would have been The Jeep Club Wayanad, or Kannur Offroaders.

[Jaggu]

Nice report Dhanush! and nice to see the jeep performing well. I guess in slush the weight is acting against your performance but otherwise lovely this build. Looking forward to your thread on PTO winch. Wishing you the very best in future events also.

cheers
Jaggu

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Good detailed thread and the track looks yummy! Especially that chocolate slush!

How fast is your PTO compared to the competition electric winches? Have you added an extra GB to control the PTO speed?

Why did the winch pack up at the end? PTOs are usually very reliable.

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

Nice report Dhanush! and nice to see the jeep performing well....
....Looking forward to your thread on PTO winch. Wishing you the very best in future events also.

Thanks Jaggu.

I guess in slush the weight is acting against your performance but otherwise lovely this build.

From 3-4 years back, my intent is to reduce weight. The Jeep isn't that heavy. It's just 1590kgs.

Originally Posted by dhanushs

...

The body part of the project focusing on Weight and its distribution: .. Should be as light as possible, and as heavy as needed. ie, not too light and jumpy like Gypsy, or too heavy and get bogged down in slush like the Thar/SUV's. And, most of the vehicle weight concentrated as low as possible.
Safety: Roll Cage, Seatbelts, Stinger/Tip Over Bar.

The real problem in the slush was the 4-year-old mile marker recovery winch, the only winch I was running once my PTO packed up, just decided to die towards the end.

Anand had an old 8274, which worked only one way (IN). So we couldn't do anything.

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Good detailed thread and the track looks yummy! Especially that chocolate slush!

How fast is your PTO compared to the competition electric winches? Have you added an extra GB to control the PTO speed?

Tejas, I can control the speed or load of the PTO using my main gearbox. In First gear itself, it's faster than all the top rated electric competition winches (Giggle Pin, Red Hornet etc..). I can only imagine what it will do in other gears. However, the rope needs to be atleast three times rated than an electric winch. I'm running a 16mm ~30 tonnes rated synthetic rope.

PTO is the way to go man. For competitions. Sad that RFC isn't allowing PTO.

Why did the winch pack up at the end? PTOs are usually very reliable.

In the first stage itself, I forgot to disengage the PTO lever, due to lack of experience operating it. (I finished work on the Jeep 2 days before competition). Resulted in the rope and hook being pulled into the chassis and got jammed in the chassis and then along with the chassis being pulled in by the PTO, which bent and broke everything.

The winch which packed up is the 4-year-old mile marker recovery electric winch, which was used in all the above videos, since the first stage.

[Samurai]

Lovely report Dhanush. Sorry to hear about the PTO winch debacle.

Originally Posted by dhanushs

4 super tough stages. Most of them even tougher than the Rain Forest Challenge India. And the day was done and dusted.

Tougher than RFC! To be frank, this sport is becoming so tough and complicated, I can hardly relate it to the gentle offroading I used to be associated with. I still remember the days when the scrutiny was limited to the presence of a working 4WD.

[nanju]

Lovely report Danush. Your build has come a long way. Was wondering how there wasnt any sound regarding this event and then you publish the same.

Knowing the northern team and their capabilities, I must say u really did quiet well, just in case if your PTO held on till the event lasted, then it would have been a real fight for Gerrari.

Kickass stuff mate. Great write up.

[megazoid]

Wonderful report Dhanush. Made for great reading and the videos gave good indication of the difficulty. Good performance too but for the winch fiasco.

[sudev]

Lovely narrative and pictures + videos. A delight.

[simeonovitch]

Anybody know what engine those gypsies are running on?
Stock 1.3 or baleno swap or even more powerful motors?

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by simeonovitch

Anybody know what engine those gypsies are running on?
Stock 1.3 or baleno swap or even more powerful motors?

Most of them have a Baleno swap, however, there are Innova 2.0L , Accord 2.4 L even Vitara V6 running around.