Pictures added 10-10-03 7:29PM PST

Lance Clifford throws his weight into it and pulls Mike Shaffer around a cone to finish A4 with 6 points. Great driving and plenty of heft are how these guys came into Farmington with a third place ranking and are defending their title win from last year’s series.

Even the judge has time for a smoke break. He only had to mark 12 points down as season leader Jon Bundrant cruises through A2.

Joel Randall was on a roll, watching the cones roll by with plenty of room on the way to the finish line with a very clean run, when all of a sudden the judge says “Time”. Both Spotter and Driver were a little miffed that the judge was not calling out time warnings, but they are only obligated to do so when asked. Most judges give a countdown, but it is the Team’s responsibility to keep track of where they are, as Randall found out the hard way.

Michelle Billington in rig #74 gets a little tug during an 8 point run on A6. Maybe her wafer-thin spotter could use some diet tips from Lance Clifford on how to bulk up for ballast.

The Sheriffs get a bird’s eye view of this season’s ninth place Matt Peterson over on the B course.

Seventh place Mitch Guthrie walks over some rocks stacked next to a cone by his spotter. They ended A3 with 22 points even with the two bonus points for squeezing through the right gates.

Everybody’s taking a picture of Tracy Jordan getting up the entry gate of A4. It only took three tries to make it up, but he finished with -2 points.

The judge was looking the other way when Jordan’s spotter jumped up on a tire to hook up the pull line.

Is that a cone? The metal square in the lower left of the picture is the exit gate, so says the powers that be. Team Sisson cruised through the cones with 16 seconds to spare. Not good enough. The judge said the exit gate was the metal square. Time ran out, they contested to a Marshall. They didn’t like that ruling, and got another Marshall. The second Marshal wasn’t going to touch this powder keg. Ranch himself was called over. The obstacle was closed for 20 minutes while both sides were heard, and the judgement came down.

Judge’s ruling stands; full 40 point timeout for Team Sisson.

Scores updated 10-10-03 4:41PM PST

Updated 10-10-2003 10:45 A.M. PST

Steve Hastings in rig #92, coming into Farmington in 5th place for the season, pulled a pretty clean run in the first run of the day on course B3. Despite extensive use of the Atlas II and a couple back-ups they still hit a few cones and managed 14 points for the obstacle.

“Sh*t, dad! Why don’t you start spotting!” yelled 8th place for the season Josh Bureau to his father / spotter Scott Bureau. They ate up a few course boundary flags, avoided a very near roll over and pulled rig #170 to a total of 14 points on B2.

Bob Standage, fourth for the season, in the triple zero rig showed ‘em how it’s done with just 7 points on B4.

Jeff Mello and spotter Kevin Carey, hoping to maintain their winning streak from Supercrawl, third in the points race, went below par by scoring -5 points on B2 by hitting the bonus gates just right.

Joachim Schweisow showed how they’ve worked up to their second place season standing, by piloting their rig below par with -2 points next door on course B3.

Just as a few sprinkles started coming out of the cloud cover, RCAA Season Leaders Team Sisson put on a great smoke show for the fans. Sadly, they had to take full points for a timeout on B4. They spent a couple minutes amusing the crowd by flopping the rig on its side, backing out onto the wheels, back on the side, backing, flopping.. Even after giving up and taking the timeout, they put on a good show just getting themselves off the course and out of the way.

Updated 10-10-2003 8:55 A.M. PST

Up at six in the morning, bleary eyed, we group up in the parking lot of the hotel, head over to the gas station next door for a last minute fuel stop to top off the rigs and grab some ice for the coolers. Off to Burger King for some fine eats, driver meeting at 7. A little late, but who’s countinf?

A nice little dirt road winds through the desert ten miles outside of town. There’s a few sandy spots that are really going to soften up by tomorrow once all the spectators start breaking it up. The brave souls that bring their street cars down the trail are really going to sink in. If their lucky, maybe they can find some sort of four-wheel drive vehicle to pull them out..

Most fans and crew out this early are anticipating the heat to start mounting in a few hours and are in shorts, but the morning chill has brought out the coats. Tension is a little thicker this morning than it was yesterday at tech check-in, not as much joking. Drivers and spotters are in the zone.

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