Cliffhanger is a week long off road event every second year involving winching up rocks, speedy creek runs, navigational tasks, rally stages on farm trails and across virgin terrain and is famous for its vertical winch walls. The stages are all long lasting and typically combine several facets of winching, navigation and speed.

In 2019 over 800 klm were covered in stages which meant teams would spend hours behind the wheel every day. The Buggies said there was no other event in the country that offers this much seat time.

Cliffhanger runs every second year to ensure everyone can attend and we have great numbers. The next event is in April 2021.

Our Super Tourer Class caters for 2 types of entrant 1) The budget entry build. Teams are buying old patrols and cruisers for just a few hundred dollars and build them up with some suspension, tyres, a winch, lockers and a basic cage. Their rigs could be in that $5000 to $10,000 price bracket and still be competitive and they have a stack of fun. 2) The guy who still drives his rig on the road and takes it on 4wd trips. This competitor wants to keep it somewhat roadworthy. Either way, these two types of entrant want to be able to afford to race and have all the pier pressure of super fast winches, trick suspension mods and go fast trimmings removed. Requires a minimum traditional 4 point roll cage which can be removable like the mines cages. Teams retain the original engine type and the chassis, wheel base and suspension mounts remain unchanged. These guys are speed limited to 80 klm p/h. The concept is that it is affordable to "fit in", still be competitive and have fun.

Our traditional Winch Truck (Challenge) Class vehicles started life as a conventional 4WD but the gloves came off and they were transformed into super tough and super capable power machines. These guys love stretching their legs in the rally and long creek bed stages yet still take on major winch climbs. There could be water and mud depending upon conditions.

In 2019 we introduced Buggy Class. Mostly built from scratch these guys can show off their super flex rock crawling tendencies in the big rocks, and like the rest of the classes also stretch their legs in our long open creek beds and rally stages and have heaps of seat time in the nav stages and also get to race at night. We keep these guys out of the mud and water.

Typically every day will have a speed stage, winch stage, navigation stage and then a few stages that have a bit of everything. Teams can expect to be racing every second night (to approx midnight) with an off night for rebuilding and socialising in between. Competitors are known to quote "Now that was a Cliffhanger Stage". In 2017 we started stringing stages together to create longer stages and in 2019 we started seeing stages last over 5 hours and exceed 100 klm.

The hardness of challenges will be commensurate to your class and vehicle restrictions.

BASE CAMP - Cliffhanger is a Family Friendly base camp, week long event where competitors, pit crew, friends, family and marshals all camp together in a social and friendly atmosphere.

Speaking of Base Camp we still have the same location at the far end of the Mt Gap Rd.

SUPPORT CREW Don't forget to round up your mates as support crew. They can help you in between stages, carry your extra fuel (Note Jerry Cans not allowed on competing cars) and they can go and recover you if broken down once the stage is ended and clear. They would enter the event as a spectator.

Note that a good support crew should have the following attributes before we can send them off to recover you

• a good radio
• live axle suspension or the capability of handling rough terrain
• 33" tyres or taller
• a gps offering the ability to follow an arrow to a given waypoint
• A second capable car as we dont send anyone out alone.
• We need to be able to call upon your support crew. It's no good if we cant alert them to your need.

If you dont have a crew or your crew is missing any of the above we shall arrange your recovery but you will be added to the list and it could be a while before we reach you.

School Holidays We have set the dates to coincide with school holidays in NSW and VIC and is 2 weeks after Easter so you can still do your traditional Easter "thing" and still do Cliffhanger and most kids don't miss school. Also kids under 15 are FREE.

There is also a week in July each year where the school holidays line up and that's our back up standby week in the very unlikely event we get rained out. Given we have already had our 1 in a hundred year big wet we should be right for another 96 years.

GPS TRACKING - Once again we will be using Rallysafe. We can find lost or stranded vehicles, we can send basic messages and we can also see who is going the wrong way, taking a short cut or speeding in Super Tourer Classes. There are also safety features like warnings of approaching vehicles. It also manages start and finish times of stages as well as achieving waypoints in nav stages. Teams need to purchase and fit the mounting kit to their vehicle before they come. We wont have any mounting kits at the event and Rallysafe cant be used without it and you cant race without Rallysafe.

Here is the link for purchasing the fitting kit ...

https://shop.statusas.com/shop/rallysafe/rallysafe-permanent-installation-kit-everything-you-need/

WRONG WAY GO BACK - in rally stages we often use arrows at gates and intersections to guide you. On the back of those signs we now have signage clearly saying "WRONG WAY - GO BACK !" If you choose to ignore these signs you are clearly going the wrong way and place yourself and others at risk of collision. A practice we can not endorse and so we have a rule that says teams will be disqualified if the Rallysafe alerts the office they have been going against the signs. Not only are we making the track easier to follow but making it a lot safer too.