I know you’ve been waiting to see the Jesse Haines Fabrication built Mahindra Roxor 4×4 in action since I first posted the video back in February before Jesse and Harry took it down to race at King of the Hammers. Well you wait is over!
Harry invited me to come out to the Supercrawl Rock Crawling competition in Mustang Nevada top see how the Roxor performed. Aside from being overwhelmed from the event which had rad 4x4s of all kinds bouncing, revving and, in some cases, rolling down the hillsides on their roofs, I was really impressed with the little Roxor’s capability in the rocks.
SupercrawlThe event is a rock crawling competition and Harry entered the Roxor in the “Stock” class. This class features vehicles that may or may not be road legal, though several were, but are basically like a 4×4 any of us would or could build at home, drive to work and take out on the weekends. Though certainly the Roxor Jesse Haines built is far beyond the average build. More on that later.
The competition featured 4 courses that were run one direction on Saturday and the opposite direction on Sunday. The stock class was broken up into two groups of 4 vehicles and those groups stayed together both days. Each course features 4 gates delineated with orange cones as well as several “bonus” gates with green cones. Drivers get progression points for clearing the gates, bonuses for clearing the bonus gates without touching the cone and points for every minute left on the clock when they finish. They lose points for hitting cones (10) and backing up (1) and hitting the boundary flags.
The 10 minute time limit starts and ends when they cross the start/finish gate. If they don’t finish in that time they get a DNF for the course. Harry finished each course in time, but DQd on one due to miss-understanding the rules about sequencing.
Each competitor gets a spotter who guides them from outside the vehicle and can assist by stacking or moving rocks. The spotter is part of the vehicle team so as Dylan McFarlane discovered, the spotter touching a cone is the same as the vehicle touching a cone. The final course on each day, C-1, was a course where teams get a bonus if the spotter rides in the vehicle the whole time. Dylan had to get out on Saturday when the Roxor got hopelessly high-centered, but managed to stay in the right seat the whole time on Sunday.
The VehicleWhile the vehicle may have begun live as a fairly simple Roxor made by Mahindra, it is far from that now. Harry and Jesse can chime in in the comments, but the list of mod includes:
- Custom leaf spring suspension with Deaver Springs
- Custom axles with Portal boxes
- Full roll cage
- Engine tune
- 40 inch tires
- Light bar
- Air Lockers
- Cutting brakes
It does, or did, qualify for the 4600 class at King of The Hammers so you can check the rules there for a better understanding of what “stock” means.
My ImpressionsThe event was fun, chill, family friendly and cool. The event takes place up on a rocky hill top above Mustang, Nevada at the wild west motor sports park. Competitors and spectators stage down in a dirt parking lot and walk or take a UTV shuttle up to the venue. There were a hand full of vendors, some food trucks and a dozen or so courses marked with caution tape. The more extreme classes with purpose built buggies with rear steering and custom built frames competed on basically 4th class rock climbs. Some were over a quarried hill slope that was sketchy to walk around on. There were gates on rock ledges and cliffs that most people wouldn’t be comfortable walking on at all.
The stock rigs competed on courses that were far beyond anything you’ve seen from All-Terrain Family to date, but certainly were a lot more sensible. Being stock, it’s the kind of terrain any “Rubicon Ready” rig could do. Though having to drive under a time crunch where staying within an arbitrary course is more challenging than you think, as Harry and Dylan found out.
The best thing about the event is the atmosphere. All the competitors I interacted with were friendly with spectators and each other. Everyone was a good sport and encouraging and supportive of their competitors. Two things stand out with regards to this. First, all vehicles are required to have doors. There were two samurai’s competing, one in each group of 4. They had one set of doors between them and they shared the driver door for the whole event switching it off between runs. Second, when Harry and Dylan got disqualified for misunderstanding the rules on C3 the first day, they took it well, chalked it up to being new to competition and thanked the course marshal for volunteering. This could have been a sore point as there was confusion and conflicting info on the matter, but sportsmanship won out, and I think that’s remarkable.
Lastly, stay tuned for day two. Dylan and Harry got better at working as a team, and handling the Roxor and the action was great!
Happy Trails,
-M
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