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Living in Durango, Colorado gives John plenty of good places to wheel at home and great hardcore spots not far away in just about any direction. While growing up, John honed his skills and learned the ropes on nearby Moab's famous Pritchett Canyon trail. More recently, John got the itch to see just how those skills stacked up against others - and the RCAA events were just the ticket to find out. At his first competitive event, John ran a mostly stock CJ-7 and ended up 13th after breaking both an inner and an outer Dana 44 axle shaft. As well as the old CJ did, John wanted to really make his mark on the sport and decided that a custom rig was what he'd need to claw his way to the top. John sold everything he could part with and called up Avalanche Engineering and had them build him a CJ-based rock buggy. The rig worked great and John placed 4th and 5th overall that year in the then-named ARCA series. But he wanted more. This rig was beat up, too heavy and too big.
Drew built a fully-custom four-link suspension with coil-overs for extra-long travel. With the resulting light coil weight, the buggy needed a little sway control, which came in the form of Currie's Anti-Rock sway bar. Dynatrac answered John's call with a pair of their new Pro Rock Dana 60's with 5.13 gears, Detroit Lockers and dual caliper piston disk brakes to help bring it all to a halt. The high clearance and smallish center of the Pro Rock gave John about as much clearance as anyone could ask for. Getting John moving on the courses is a ZZ4 350 motor mated to a Turbo 400 tranny and Atlas II transfer case. The radiator and coolers were installed in the rear of the rig in order to allow the motor to mounted further forward in the chassis. In order to guide John through the tight courses and avoid hitting cones or taking backup points, a Howe hydraulic power steering pump was used and individually rear turning brakes were added. Summit Truck Style supplied John with everything he needed from brake lines to zeus fasteners and even the Simpson lap belts that keep him secure while driving and - well - hanging upside down.
Once Drew and his gang had the rig together and functional, they wrapped it all up in sheet metal and had Pete's Auto body narrow a Jeep Liberty hood and grill, giving the rig a very unique look. The buggy ended up looking exactly as John dreamed and came in weighing only 3,100 pounds. During the
2002 season, the Liberty buggy has been proving its worth bringing
John top positions throughout. This is one rig you need to keep
your eyes out for!
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John
Gilleland, with the help of his spotter, Kip Gilleland, took his
custom rock rig to the top position in the final event of the
2002 Goodyear Skyjacker Extreme Rock Crawling Nationals last month
in Johnson Valley, California. Just 10 points shy of first place,
the Gillelands finished 2nd overall for the season in RCAA, proving
that they had what it took to take rockcrawling to the extreme.
Once
again, he sat down with Drew Barber at Avalanche. The two of them
sketched out John's idea onto paper and John called up all of
his sponsors and lined up a whole new set of parts, while Drew
got to work on the all-chromoly tube chassis, which weighed a
mere 375 pounds once completed. 
Holding
John to the rocks are 
