November 2001 -- What the heck is a Kremmling? Well, let's put it this way, it's a small town that rock crawling put on the Colorado map. It sits somewhere between Grand Junction and Denver and may not have hoards of housing developments, but it does have a particular series of rock formations that are of particular interest to the local 4WD club, the Kremmling Crawlers.

Spotters wiped the sweat from their brow when the action heated up, but the rocks remained.

Friday was set aside for "pre-running" the boulder-strewn course of competition. With fingers crossed, the 40 teams made their way through the trails in search of the "perfect line." In rock crawling, such a thing does not exist, and what began as a "walk in the park," became a trail full of fear and ultimate lip biting.

Big rocks, 20-point turns, drop offs the size of a Superman leap and hill climbs that would send Sir Edmund Hillary hunched over in the fetal position were among the tear jerkers of the course. Wait, there's more! Off camber crawls outfitted for a ballerina, and well-place flags that turned the mind's eye into bleak tunnel vision, created a sense of what was to come for the weekend's event.

Just when the pilot of this rig thought it was over, he ended up against the wall of "truth."

During Saturday's competition the day's temperatures sailed into the triple digits. With no shade to be found, the drivers and spotters had their work cut out. After the first day of hardcore wheeling, the point totals tallied extremely close, with only 22 points separating the top five. The pressure was on for most of the competitors, because only the top twenty would be lucky enough to compete in the next day's event.

Day's End After a day of relentless torture on both man and machine, the Kremmling Area Chamber of Commerce lit up the barbecue and the entire town, competitors included, unwound to the sound of live music, a free barbecue and countless tales of who did what on the trail. It was the kind of day that fourwheeling boils down to, good times for all.

This 'Cruiser called the shots to many Jeeps dismay, but the Jeeps had the final say when Lillard crawled his YJ to the overall.

At the drivers meeting of Day 2, a few of the rules were re-vamped. "If the spotter stays in the vehicle through out the obstacle, five points will be removed from a vehicles score." This is similar to the innovative approach to scoring that UROC has enlisted. It makes for an interesting game of guts, glory and smooth moves. Loopholes A few of the more experienced competition crawlers found a loophole in the rules and chose to leave the spotter strapped to the shot gun seat, sending the driver out scout for the perfect line and perform the work of the rock stacker.

After a few short rounds, the Kremmling staff put a stop to the "loophole" and told all Day 2 competitors that the loophole would not be looted of its nectar. To get the five points, the spotter had to stay outside the marked course and no "funny business" such as verbal or motion signals could be used to aid the driver.

Super-sized 'Zuks had an advantage on the tight course, but the short wheelbase proved tough on the final ascent of this obstacle.

At the top of the totem pole, was Neil Lillard, the cool hand behind the wheel of the red coil-sprung Jeep YJ Wrangler.