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Today, yet another perfect day with sun shining bright and just a little wind to keep it nice and cool for the trail rides. Even better, I did not have to wake up until 7:00 AM and not 6:00 AM, it was so nice to sleep for that extra hour!!! Excited for the day and a little bit hangover from the night before we all got a quick shower and jumped in the truck and headed on out. Running just a little late we pulled into a gas station to fill up on gas for the Jeep and low and behold, who do we find at the gas station but the entire BFE group looking like we felt and wanting to go back to bed. They were all in high sprits for the day and once we started talking about it you could see the excitement grow. Today was the Press Day and all the major magazines and wheeling companies were out in-force. Four Wheeler Magazine, JP Magazine, and more from the PRIMEDIA company, Rubicon Express, Rancho, Maxxis, PSC Steering, and Poison Spider Customs just to name a few. As we were parking the truck Tom and I were just talking about how we need to meet up with Shane Yost from the Crane Wrecking Krew to go out and wheel, and then we saw their truck and buggy. So it worked out perfectly!
As everyone started to get there Robert from BFE reminded me of a conversation that we had the night before where he asked me to model with the rigs while everyone there. Although I kind of remembered and knew what he was talking about and agreeing to do it, I thought that he was just being sweet. When he handed me one of their white tank tops and booty shorts and asked me to go change in the trailer, I looked at Tom and he said go for it, so I did. All the shots that Tom took are posted. I cannot believe I did that in front of so many people. It was kind of fun!!
As we lined up it was amazing to see how many rigs made it out for this event and all the buggies. There was Walker Evans, Tracy Jordan, Rob from Washington (sorry Rob I forgot your last name) Shane Yost and many more. The run that we did was called Helldorado and there were minimal requirements that let us know that this was the run for us. Over half the rigs were buggies of some kind and all of us were pretty built. Every vehicle was unique in its? own way and almost everyone took a different line over the obstacles, some had issues and others were just fine. We only really had 2 breaks; a guy?s Bronco had a steering pump blow and Chris from BFE was leaking from the bead lock ring. We were able to help Chris with The Right Stuff and he was back on the trail. Unfortunately, no one had an extra steering box for the Bronco. At the end of the run there is an obstacle called the waterfall because when the land flooded this run was actually the river bed and this was a full running waterfall at one point, hence the name. As you come up to it you think that this must be the end of the trail but then you look around and realize that the only other way would we to be to turn around. The angle is about 85 degrees and the height was about 10 feet. There was one line and one line only. As I started to watch the rigs pull up to it I soon realized why a winch was required. Many of the stockish rigs would only pull about half way up and then hook up their winch line to the anchor point that was set above the obstacle. Most of the buggies gave it an honest try but only a few made it up. Tom gave it one hell of a run but we were just too top heavy and our bumper kept getting stuck on the rocks below due to the angle. We had the right line but just not the right vehicle.
JT was able to get a right seat with Adrian, who was friends with the BFE crew. They ran the same trail as we did yesterday, Greenday. The huge Nissan Titan seen in the magazines broke their driveshaft on the first obstacle. Robert with BFE took his brand new 2 seater buggy up a different waterfall run that Matt, with the yellow Yota, attempted but was only able to get to the top but not over the edge. They then traveled down a dried up creek bed where a guy in a different group was about to flop so JT stopped and helped him through. The last one in that group came down the same ledge and got his tire pinned against a rock and sheered his steering shaft. Adrian and JT were the first ones in their group to go over this ledge and with the help from the BFE crew spotting it was uneventful. Then Matt, in the yellow Yota, blew a bead in his drivers front tire. After they reseated the bead they continued on the trail and came across Alex from BFE on his side in his well built TJ. So they pulled him out and they were on there way. At the last obstacle, Adrian and JT saw Alex?s rear end getting really light when he went over the ledge but he made it down just fine. Adrian and JT were next for this fun obstacle and as the front tires went over the ledge they gained too much momentum and ended up with their stinger in the ground, standing straight up with there engine stalled, just teetering in the air. When Adrian finally pushed in the clutch the rear end slowely started to fall back down and they barley escaped an endo that would have been a mess. I later found JT chillin in the BFE trailer.
Four Wheeler Magazine fed us all a great lunch and a lot of people stuck around to mingle and meet everyone who came out for the run. Tom finally caught up with Tom from PSC and was able to get all of his parts for his steering and is almost done with it now. We have found some neighbors at the campground that have an onboard welder and are able to tack weld the bracket in place for the new reservoir. I cannot wait to see how it does with steering tomorrow.
Well when we tried to post this article and the pictures last night we found out that the internet had gone down so we had to post them this morning. Sorry for the delay.
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