Photography Blog of Watcher Romano

Between December 5th and 7 th, URSUS the beer maker is sponsoring the first “urban offroad” competition. December 5th (Friday) was reserved for the ‘Hobby’ category, December 6th for the ‘Open’ category and Sunday December 7th is when the ‘Extreme’ category will be held. This is my (photo)report of the day.

The “Open” day meant that the track was pretty difficult and cars had to meet minimal requirements like having a winch, at least MT tires, etc. Judging by the going of events, a short wheel base was also vey useful, and the winch and MT tires were sine qua non.

To my shame I did not arrive in time to catch the start of the event, because, being Saturday, I slept until 11:40. But I was lucky enough to reach there just in time to see the perfect example that money is not all: billionaire offspring Costel Casuneanu was going at it when I arrived and he lent his name to a corner, because he did not manage to finish that corner on 4 wheels:

First "Attempt" - Nice going man!

Second Pass - a Save this time

One more thing is that the second pass was still in the first round. Yes, “WHAAATTT??” is the correct reaction to what I described happened

Nobody else had any problems with the same corner. Furthermore, Casuneanu Jr managed to completely kill the car in the second attempt. Case closed.

Here are some ‘standard’ shots of other drivers and their passings:

Land Cruiser

Samurai

Just Cruising

These guys went very smoothly in their first run, they made it seem easy, no events, no nausea, just went through it all very well

Mitsu Pajero - Round 1

but then did not manage to complete the second attempt – they got stuck at the early beginning. Too bad:

Mitsu Busted

The firs upped it’s trickiness in between  rounds – several drivers had some problems in their second pass:

Stuck at the first ramp

Part of the race, part of the track

As you can see, this Vitara’s driver  wanted to have some memories from this track, so they snatched a part of the first ramp. The most sought after picture of the first round must be this one (my account on club4x4.ro is not yet validated, so I was not able to post it where they asked for it ) :

See, Ninja, It's not like in the movies

Just a few days before the event, there were voices on the club4x4.ro forum asking ‘why is it compulsory to have a hard top? why can’t we participate with a soft top?’ Well, the organizers must have foreseen this :

Why you need hardtop

Just imagine these two shots if the car was a soft top. And keep in mind that the driver was the only one without a helmet !! There were also guys who sat this one out:

Not this time

but this is not about them. The second pass was much more difficult, especially because of the big hole, that was carved even more in the first pass, and became very hard to master in the second, causing a number of abandons:

Dive in

Unfortunately we need to tow you out

Another Victim

Mind you, the last two cars are being towed out in reverse! There were some that did make it out, some very easily (a red Wrangler came out incredibly smooth while everybody else were sweating it) and some with hard work, talent and copilot work:

Mitsu Rises

Land Cruiser emerging

G-Kklasse emerging

Copilot work

Hard Work

The situation became even more dramatic as the light disappeared and evening snuck in:

Land Cruiser by night

In the end of this post, I feel the need to also show the sponsor, because the everything was incredibly well organized (ON THE OFFROAD PART):

Sponsor - Alcohol free beer

Well, actually we should close this with another shot of offroad action: the tires

Storming through the tires

On December 7th the ‘Extreme’ category follows, and I will be there for more photos. Check back! (Or use the email or RSS to be automatically informed)