Any route you take, Hannibal is a long drive from Wisconsin. That, however, doesn’t prevent Chris Endres of Janesville, Wis., from regularly visiting the Hannibal Rocks Off-Road Park.
“This is my favorite place to play. I come down here all the time, about six times a year,” he said.
Endres is not in Hannibal just to “play” this weekend. He will be among the competitors taking part in this weekend’s Cooper Tires All-Stock Nationals, which will take place at the park located approximately four miles south of Hannibal off of U.S. 61.
“The event we have going on this weekend is probably the single biggest event the mod stock class has ever had. It should be quite a show,” said Endres. “You should see a lot of broken stuff.”
Dustin Webster, a marketing specialist with W.E.ROCK, says Endres’ damage assessment is on target.
“What the crowd is going to see is carnage on four wheels ... destruction derby,” he said. “It’s vehicles and teams against the rocks; it’s not a vehicle against another vehicle. The gigantic vertical climbs these guys and gals have to do are unimaginable, then they have to turn right around and drop back off a ledge that’s maybe longer than their vehicle is long. There’s lots of excitement.”
Lil’ Rich Klein, course designer and event director for W.E.ROCK Events Inc., says the course is designed to test driver and machine.
“It will definitely be a challenge. The whole idea is to challenge every bit of the team - the vehicle, the driver and spotter. And out here these vehicles are some of the most capable vehicles in the world as far as terrain is considered. Our job is to test every aspect of that,” he said.
Jake Good of Kansas City, Kan., and Scott Angell of Overland Park, Kan., were among the drivers on hand early to begin plotting their strategy after inspecting the course.
“A lot of times we’ll walk the course ahead of time and figure out what we want to do. Most of the time it holds true to get where we want to be,” he said. “Sometimes we’ve got to go with the flow and the courses will tell you where they want you to go and you’ve got to work with that. If you have the luxury of following some of the other competitors, if they come up with different ideas you can copy off what they’re doing if it’s working for everybody else.”
Despite the challenging course, Good is excited to be a part of this weekend’s field of competitors.
“This is a really awesome event to have everybody from the east coast, the west coast, a handful of regional series throughout the country all come to one place and put on the best show they can to find out who is the best stock mod rock crawler,” he said.
According to Webster, the event is bringing in the best of the best in rock crawling.
“We’re excited to be here at Hannibal Rocks because the competition that’s come here is the crescendo of the season. An entire year’s worth of work among the stock modified rock crawling competition is right here. The top 20 teams in the nation,” he said.
A good deal of media focus will be on the local park this weekend.
“The whole world is tuning in. Extreme 4-by-4 TV will be here with 1.2 million viewers,” said Webster, adding that another 35,000 to 40,000 viewers will be watching the live stream at any one time over the Internet.
The most fortunate fans, according to Klein, are those attending in person.
“This is really one of the only motor sports you can get literally 10 feet from the action and be completely safe. You’ll hear the driver and hear the spotter yelling at each other, and you’ll hear the sound of the motor. Heck, you even get to smell the motor. Other races you don’t quite get the chance to do that; you’re really restricted in your access. Here it’s almost unlimited access,” he said.
This is the second major event Hannibal Rocks has hosted in less than a month. On Sept. 6 and 7 the 2008 W.E.ROCK Grand Nationals took place locally.
Klein explained the difference in the two events.
“Two weeks ago was more of our NASCAR type classes, with full-tube chassis and bodies that are placed on,” he said. “This weekend is the same vehicles that you guys drive on the roads as far as Jeeps, GEO Trackers, Toyota trucks. It’s a stock vehicle out here doing the same things that our other classes were doing two weeks ago during the Grand Nationals.”
Tom Wombles, who along with his wife, Debbie, own the local park, is excited about the weekend ahead.
“It’s going to be an exciting event. These guys are out to put on a show and a national title is on the line,” he said. “What’s really neat about it is some of the guys from the local series could easily walk away with the national title.”
Competition both Saturday and Sunday is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.
