Can we get more details on this blue board obstacle? Maximum height of the boards, spacing, etc? Would a typical RC chassis be able to drive over this?
If it is the same as last year; it was about 4 ft wide and 8 ft long (4 ft to center line). About 18 inches high, maybe. Basically it was a sheet of plywood forming two ramps to the center with randomly cut chunks of 2x4 screwed onto it in random locatiions at random angles (and fairly densely populated with these chunks of wood). With a running start, a 1/5 scale RC vehicle could get over it, but I would guess that anything smaller would have problems with high centering on the 2x4 chunks. Maybe a 1/10 scale rock crawler. My conclusion was that it would take a very large RC vehicle to reliably navigate it.
I wasn’t able to attend last year so I don’t have a reference. Since my rover is a 1/10th scale Slash, I’m going to assume I would have trouble with the boards. Can we push the barrels without penalty? Or are the barrels too heavy to move? I managed to push the hoop a few feet 2 years ago. 
I had a 1/10 scale Exceed there last year. It was able to push the barrels about 6 inches, with a running start. The only thing I’ve seen that was able to plow through the barrels was Jesse’s 1/5 scale. It is big and heavy! And he used this technique to win last year. Not a bad strategy really, but I still prefer a bit more of a sophisticated approach. With a 1/10 scale vehicle, there is just barely enough room to maneuver around the barrels. And yeah, a 1/10 Slash is not going to make it over the boards.
Thanks for the info, that’s very helpful. Sounds like a cow catcher front end would help to nudge between the barrels. With the barrels that tight it sounds more like a logistic run instead of a speed demon.
For reference, my 1/5th scale could push the hoop around the course and even turn corners dragging it, but I wouldn’t count on that working every time. 
I believe even for an rock climbing truck at like 1/10th scale the wall is not passable. I used brute force to ramp over it, but it was very risky. The risk of damage to my rover was way too high. Rover caught something the last time I went over, and flipped upside down. It was ramming speed from that moment on! Fun fact, I actually hit the barrels much harder during testing… slowed down for competition. Also, I had a lot of damage to my rover during testing at home from hitting barrels. It’s hard on parts!
If you want to see the wall, look at the following video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEP8B8YMi6w I’m sure there are other videos that shows it well. If you try to go over the wall, be prepared for them to rotate it 180 degrees at some point during competition. (Relying on a route over could backfire).
JesseJay