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Saturday, January 28, 2012
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Rock Stars - Mountain Crawling
Enthusiasts Tackle Race
|  | | Team Faultline 4X, including (from left) Troy Stone of Winton, Mike Samaniego of Farmington (front), Chris Hill of Modesto, Chris Madsen of Modesto, and Corey Williams of Oakdale, will tackle the King of Hammers off road race in early February.
Photo By Carol Stone
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If you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, then you certainly have to learn how to rock crawl before you can tackle anything quite like The King Of Hammers off road race.
A group of local rock crawling aficionados on team Faultline 4X is on a quest to take part in a grueling 165-mile race across the desert and rough mountain terrain. It's a test of mechanical prowess, physical endurance, and extreme willpower against one of the toughest race courses ever conjured by man.
"Some people say this is the most ridiculous race you can do," Faultline 4X founder Mike Samaniego of Farmington admitted on Monday. "You will spend between $50,000 to $100,000 on a race with a cash prize high enough to maybe pay for a couple of tires. But it's not about the money.
"It's about who can take a vehicle 165 miles across hell in the shortest amount of time."
Oakdale resident Corey Williams will ride shotgun as navigator for the five-man race team at the Sixth Annual Griffen King Of Hammers in Johnson Valley in early February.
Williams and Samaniego are joined by Troy Stone of Winton, Chris Madsen of Modesto and Chris Hill of Modesto on team Faultline 4X.
The five rock crawling enthusiasts have labored tirelessly and emptied their pockets to build a buggy capable of withstanding a grueling chase across dry lakebeds and rocky hills. They will compete against teams with corporate sponsorships and the experience of having competed in one of the five previous King of Hammers or similar desert (Baja) races.
It will take an incredible performance just for the locals to make it past two days of qualifying races, but the team has a few tricks up their collective sleeve. All five members of the team have extensive rock crawling and off road experience.
"We want people to know that a bunch of average guys from Oakdale, Winton, Farmington and Modesto are good enough to hang with the big boys," Samaniego said. "We put all of our ideas into this car, and hopefully that will pay off."
The King of Hammers is one of eight races of its style to mix desert racing with the rugged landscape of mountainsides, but is the biggest and most anticipated event for the rock crawling community.
The race spanned 130 miles a year ago and saw a top finish in six hours and 20 minutes by racing legend Shannon Campbell, who became the only driver to twice win the King of Hammers.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 |
News at-a-glance 01/25/12 to 02/01/12
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| Opinion
| | Stuff 'n Nonsense -
Delving Into A Dangerous Place | Recently, I turned in the rough draft of my 18th novel to my publisher. Initially, there's always a sense of exhilaration that I completed this monstrous creative task but after the high fades, I'm swamped by feelings of loss.
For months these imaginary people have lived in my head, their voices have twittered about whatever plot point I happened to be working through, and I've become accustomed to the chatter.
But once the book is finished, the voices go away and I'm left with just myself.
Ugh.
On my Facebook I wrote, "Somedays I wander into crazy and it feels familiar." This statement was starkly true. But then artists are stereotypically odd, right? I mean, if I didn't wander into Crazytown and book a room now and then, could I create character after character, plot after plot repeatedly? It's a good question.
One thing I have discovered about myself after 18 books is that my creative process is dangerous.
I need pressure to get the words to flow. And I'm talking extreme pressure; the kind that would pop the eyeballs from an ordinary person's skull.
Last weekend I spent every waking moment writing so I could meet my deadline. I took very small breaks to eat and then I went back to the computer until late at night, then rose early and started again. I wrote 100 pages within 72 hours. My fingers were swollen, my brain started to misfire and I'd started to lose feeling in my rear from sitting too long. When Monday came, it seemed as though I was punch-drunk. I'd gone to bed at 11 p.m. the night before and rose at 4:30 a.m. to write the last two chapters. That's roughly 20 pages. Remember in high school how you used to lament writing a two-page persuasive essay? I can write two pages in my sleep. (I think I have, actually.)
But the end result? The words flowed from my taxed brain onto the page in large torrents of prose that when I went back to reread what I'd written, I couldn't believe it was me.
Sure, there were some missing words here and there, which is a natural consequence of writing at a speed that would send some into a paroxysm of shock, but overall, I was impressed with the essence of the story.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 |  |
| Sports
| | Matmen Successful At JV, Varsity Tournaments |  |
Four JV wrestlers brought home top honors from the Enochs Tournament on Saturday, while two medals were earned by varsity grapplers in the Tim Brown Tournament, running Friday and Saturday.
"There were 90 teams at the Foothill (Tim Brown) tourney and we took 11 varsity guys," explained head coach Derek Scott. "We wrestled as well as we ever have at that tournament, we got six guys to the second day."
Turning in efforts of 2-2 were Garrett Wade at 160 pounds and Travis James at 220, wrestling their best individual matches of the season, said Scott.
Four Cougars made it to the top 12 to get into the medal hunt.
"Jason Robbins went 4-2 at 145 pounds and Johnathon Costa went 4-2 at 152 pounds, both their losses to get knocked out of the medal round were by one point," explained Costa.
For the two Cougars that did medal, Dylan Furtado earned a third place at 138 pounds, going 6-1 over the two days.
"He beat the number two through five ranked guys in the section," Scott said of the good run by Furtado through the field.
But the big story of the weekend for Escalon was the emergence of Tyler Lawrence as the Cougars' first ever finalist at the prestigious tournament.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | | | Basketball Girls Seeing
Some Court Success |  |
Escalon's JV girls split their games on the basketball court this week, while the freshmen took a pair of tough losses.
At the JV level, coach Andrew Beam said his squad was frustrated on Tuesday night on the road, losing to Hughson in the Jan. 17 contest by a 34-22 final.
"They were a lot taller than us, they played great defense and they shut us down offensively, we really couldn't get anything going," Beam said. "It was a very frustrating game."
Melissa Mullins had the hot hand for Escalon, hitting double digits in the loss by putting in 10 points against the taller Huskies.
"We get another shot at them in a couple of weeks," Beam said, noting that he hopes to make some adjustments for the rematch, which will be in Escalon.
On their home court on Thursday night - playing in a heatless gym because a prior gas leak forced officials to cut off the supply to the campus - the JV girls pulled together for a 4-point victory over visiting Hilmar. With the gas turned off, officials said there was no danger in being on campus and the contest was allowed to go on as scheduled. Beam said the lack of heat in the gym didn't pose a problem, as the girls just went about their business to take the win.
"They were up early by six, we came back and eventually went up by seven," Beam explained. "Then they caught up and it just went back and forth, we were just able to make a few good shots down the stretch."
Leading the way was Claudia Gomez with 13 points and Rachel Larsen chipping in eight.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | |
| Obituaries
| | Theodor Ehrler Jr. | Theodor Ehrler Jr., 71, died on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 in Reno, Nevada.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | | | Shirley Gannon | Shirley Gannon, 74, died Tuesday, Jan. 17 in Chico.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | | | Cheryl Gonzales | Cheryl E. (Cohagan) Gonzales, 63, passed away peacefully in her sleep at the Marquis Nursing Care Facility in Oregon City, Oregon on Aug. 6, 2011.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 | |
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