MOTORSPORT
In horse racing, the Melbourne Cup is the pinnacle of the sport. In off-road rock crawling, it’s the Tough Dog Tuff Truck Challenge.
To win either event once is considered a remarkable achievement and to win four is virtually unheard of.
But Traralgon’s Mick “Pip” Justice and Tim Nolan did just that earlier this month when they paired up to take out their third consecutive and fourth win in total in the Tough Dog Tuff Truck Challenge in NSW.
The unbelievable feat has written the duo into the Tuff Truck record books as the first team ever to take a hat-trick of wins.
“It’s pretty unbelievable to be honest, we’re pretty overwhelmed,” Justice said.
“Even the event organiser and owner said ‘three in a row won’t be done, you’ll put too much pressure on yourself’, but we did it.”
Boulders, rock, mud, giant tyres and ruts make up the terrain that competitors try and conquer, all with a purpose built-truck.
With Nolan as navigator and Justice as driver, the win for Team Just Customs’ at the 2018 event made it four in total, and it could well have been five if not for a transmission issue in 2015.
“This is an all-year thing,” said Justice who built the truck in his backyard garage.
“We tinker away at the car and the last three months is really every day getting it ready and prepped.
“It takes a bit of time away from our children, but to have our children there … we go up on stage and the kids are proud as punch and have tears in their eyes.”
Just Customs racked up 1213 points throughout the three-day event to take out the perpetual trophy, 56 points clear of Red Zook in second.
Ahead of the 2018 event, the duo admitted they “had a target” on their back and said tactical, safe driving was the only way to win.
“Before we even got there this year, there’s people scrutinising the scrutineers who scrutineer our car,” Nolan said.
“But we kept calm, we didn’t make silly decisions and made some safe ones that really paid off,” Justice said.
“We worked out this year there’s a lot of mind games that get played … some teams say they had flawless runs when in fact they didn’t.”
The hat-trick was the culmination of years of hard work for Nolan and Justice, who haven’t missed a Tuff Truck Challenge since the event started in 2001.
“We’ve always either volunteered or watched and one day Pip said ‘that’s it, I’m going to build one’, and he did … and here we are.”
The trusty truck made it through this month’s Tuff Truck Challenge relatively unscathed against the best in the country in front of a livestream audience of more than 700,000 people.
“We built it right here in the shed … it’s supported by local business and the same people stick their hands up every year to help and we couldn’t do it without them,” Justice said.
“We have a very innovative car so people are starting to think it’s unfair, but it’s built right to the letter of the rules and we just thought outside the box.
“The sky’s the limit now.”
