Outdoor Recreation Network - Off-Road, Jeep & 4x4 Fun

Goodyear Extreme Rock Crawling Championship

Phoenix, AZ - March 2000

Short Cuts

by: article and photos by Joshua Lowenstein, edited by: Randy Burleson

A Field of Goliaths


Don and Robert celebrate a hard-earned victory. Joshua Lowenstein

Exclusive 4x4Wire Interview with Don Bernier, winner of the 2000 Phoenix ARCA Extreme Rock Crawling Championships. March 10-11.

While looking over the competitors' rigs in the hotel parking lot, it is easy to get the feeling that there is no way normal folks can afford to run with these big dogs. You start by asking who builds this stuff, and how did they figure out how every component fits together, much less how do they ever get any time to run practice trails with them. Many of these teams are even still bolting their rigs together in the staging area. Bringing a complete spare set of tires mounted on bead-lock wheels is normal for these competitors. Many of the body tubs of these competition rigs are so cut up, that they barely resemble the Jeep or what ever it was that they once were. Some are so bizarre that they don't really look like anything: the Snipers, Scorpions, Pinkies, and other custom rock buggies. These rigs have super flex, big tires, and even bigger axles. Dana 60's and Rockwells are just about the only axles that can handle 38- and 44-inch meats. "Trick high-dollar goodies" is just about the understatement of the year for these rigs. Even though hardly any of the super-duty way-cool ultra-neato rigs has manual transmissions, 5 of the top ten finishers in Phoenix ran manual gear-boxes.

In Farmington, people started saying, "We should have a separate class of rigs to make it competitive for guys like you and me, folks who can't afford $50-90,000 to build a rig." Those same guys said, "Just think how cool it would be if a near-stock rig won the whole thing."

David (Don Bernier) Slays Goliath


Don drives, Robert spots, and Hoss (the Jeep) claws up Stage 5 of Course 2. Joshua Lowenstein

It was pure luck that I happened to be the one press guy that got several interviews and a introspective look at the guy who "took it all" with a basic no-frills rig. I came to Phoenix at the last minute to cover the event. Hotel space was full; camping out was my only alternative.

When 4x4Wire Jeep Tech guru Terry Howe and I pulled into Phoenix, Don Bernier and his support crew of friends was just pulling in also. After some talk about the drive down from Colorado, Don asked me if I knew where we were supposed to camp? Just then, a hotel official came out an told us that open camping was in the field across the highway. (Which came out sort of like being exiled). We crossed the highway and set up camp about a quarter of a mile into the desert. In the course of evenings spent sitting around this quiet camping spot, enjoying the light and smell of a small camp-fire, we got to know Don and his friends and family.

Don and crew told us that they love wheeling in the Phoenix area, and that they come down this way every year for the last twelve years just to spend a week or two playing in the rocky dry wash trails on the east side of town. Ajax, Highway to Hell, Woodpecker, and Axle Alley are a few of the areas Don and his hard-working spotter/hard-core wheeler Robert McMahan like to run.


Nothing special, here - just good, solid design. The drag link parallels the tie rod, and the springs live UNDER the axle. Joshua Lowenstein

A CJ-7 is Enough

Some of you may say, "Don WHO? Won with what? NO WAY!!"

Here it is guys: a few simple tricks that made the difference for this competitor. Don's Jeep is a basic 1976 CJ-7, with a throttle body injected 350 power plant, and SM465 four-speed behind it (Don't give up your 4-speeds yet!!) Backing up this stout gearbox is the only high-dollar trick piece of iron (aluminum, actually), and Advanced Adaptor Atlas II 4.3:1 transfer case. Stock-width Dana 44's contain 4.10:1 gears and Detroit lockers at both ends.

The part that will stun you is the old, worn-out 2"-lift springs mounted under the axles. Simple fender trimming, quarter panel cuts, and a shackle reversal clear the 35" SSR Swampers.

You say, "Come on, that's it? My rig is more tricked out than that!! Where is the double-shackles 3-link suspension with coil-over nitro race shocks, or at least a spring over axle setup?"

When I asked Don, "What makes your ride trick enough to be "King-of-the-Rocks?" He replied "First I'd like to say that Robert (his spotter) could have easily driven while I spotted and most of the Geckos could do the same." (The Geckos club is basically just 12 hardcore 'wheelers who know each others' phone numbers - 5th place finisher, Mike Palmer, is also a member.) Don went on to say, "I keep it low, slow, and simple... and I never mash the gas to get over obstacles". After a closer inspection of Don's Jeep, I spotted a few "home grown" tricks that help to make it a champion.


Stout angle iron replaces the snag-prone body mounts, ramps up the spring mounts, and 45-degree angled skids replace the rockers and carry the all important 4x4Wire stickers. Joshua Lowenstein

If you have done a lot of dry wash boulder-crawling, you know that the frame side body mounts get smashed and hang you up. Don solved this by removing the stock steel body mounts and building new ones out of 3/8" thick 5" angle iron. This netted two inches of body lift and allows Don to run a wide-open rocker area.

After years of 'wheeling on these types of trails, Don also added (fixed side) spring hanger ramp plates to prevent the frame from getting jammed up on huge boulders. Don's skid-plated 45-degree rockers and rear corner cut-outs are the main areas of body modification. The home-designed spring u-bolt reversal works well to "ski" over the rocks, too.

Indexing the Atlas II transfer case until it was nearly flat across allows for less spring lift and better rock clearance.

That's it, a champion rig built with pure experience; if you hit it or get stuck on it, build it so that stuff is not there. When I asked Don how much would it cost to copy his championship Jeep from a stock CJ7, he quite candidly said, "Not much, about 8k excluding labor."

One With the Rocks


Basecamp on a budget, tenting in the desert. Joshua Lowenstein

Camping out in the desert, well away from the late-night festivities and fun at the hotel, certainly didn't hurt Don and Robert's ability to concentrate. When the party was just getting rolling at ARCA central, Team Hoss was kicking back a ways away in the dez, with a few close friends and some good dogs. While sitting around the campfire late after the awards dinner I asked Don, "Did camping out help you to win?" He replied in a joking way but completely serious, "It makes me one with the rocks."

That was good enough for me, and it just goes to show that David still can beat Goliath even in the new millennium.