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| Johnson Valley, CA - November 1999 | Short Cuts | ||||||||||||||||
by: Randy Burleson
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| [ | Organizer: Bob Hazel |
| | Judge's Perspective |
| | Contestant: Jason Bunch |
| | Contestant: Steve Friend |
| | Spotter: Jefe Reynolds |
| | Spotter: Mike Garner |
| | Spectator's Perspective |
] |
Izzat a STOCK Wrangler Kicking Butt at WRCC?!?!?!
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| The belly of the beast: no leaf springs here. Mike Pulskamp |
That's the question I heard repeated over and over by spectators watching from the sidelines. Is this a stock Wrangler YJ?
Well, no.
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| Respectable but rugged flex; no ramp-taming 'tricks' here. Mike Pulskamp |
A 1989 Jeep Wrangler served as the base for the Tri County 'Rock Star' YJ. The stock four-cylinder motor is the most stock piece remaining, but Tri County chose to build light and sturdy, instead of going banzai with one-ton axles all around. In the back, a Tri County Gear reverse-rotation Dana 44 contains a Detroit Locker and Warn Full-floating kit with drive flanges. Up front, Tri County built a reverse-rotation Dana 30 with a Detroit Locker, Warn High Strength Alloy axles, and a 5-on-5.5" Warn hub kit. At the end of these axles, brand new Goodyear MT/R 35x12.50 tires wrap Champion Bead-locked American Racing Wheels. Low end grunt torques out of the four-banger via a custom Standard Flywheel-made heavy-duty flywheel, then flows through an AX5 tranny (3.93:1 1st gear), Klune V Planetary Crawler (2.72:1), and Atlas (4.3:1) transfer case, delivering a 209.6:1 low-low crawl ratio through the 4.56 axle gears. TCG provided custom CV driveshafts front and rear for the Rock Star. A modified Warn XCL suspension controls the axles, and Tri County provides its own custom spring-over steering. L&G Enterprises slathered a blinding coat of yellow over the Rock Star.
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| This YJ was right in the thick of competition. Mike Pulskamp |
It may not be stock, but I'd wager that it was one of the smaller-built vehicles there. It was pretty cool watching a D30/D44-driven YJ on 35" tires place eight on each qualifying trail and fifth overall, well above some other rigs sporting 44" Swampers, full-width Dana 60 axles, and one-off custom suspensions. It may be small in comparison to some of the other rigs that were present, but it was clearly more effective than most.
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