Rodger's Camp 5-19-02
We all met at my (Mark's) house at around 10:00 am, gabbed a bit, finished up
some last minute stuff and headed off.
Lance (Droz) was pulling his yellow
bug and I was pulling my black bug and Chris's roach on my double trailer.
After a quick stop and the gas station and the local pit stop to get off-road
tags we were on our way. The first thing to go wrong was the big
trailer. Right away I found that I did not have nearly enough tongue
weight and that trailer was whipping back and forth at speeds above 50mph.
So we ended up stopped at Rogers Camp instead of Lyda Camp
as we had originally planned, since it was about fifteen miles closer.
We
arrived and unloaded.
We headed off down the trail and came to the first big obstacle. This
is a pic of the three cars at the bottom and Chris and his daughter Brittany
teasing each other about how terrible it was to have sooo much junk food that
they may not have time to eat it all. Things are tough all over.
Here you see my car at the top of the hill. I made it on the first
try. The only problem I had, is that the new turbo motor has
a whole lot of power, and I had problems controlling wheel spin. Next to
try was Lance. He tried a couple times without success then got out of the
way for Chris. The next four pics are of Chris trying again, and again,
and again, and again. He ended up blowing both front tires and started to
limp back to the truck.
Lance finally made it to the top of the hill and we wasted some time
gabbing.
We decided to finish that trail and circle around and meet up the Chris at
the truck. I went about a hundred yards and blew a CV joint. That is
what I get for trying to douse Lance with mud. Lance headed back for the
spare axle and to check on Chris. He got back to the truck, got the axle
and sent Chris off in his truck for a couple tires. We fixed the axle and
off we went again.
We made it to the end of the trail and were about halfway back to the truck
when my bug died. No power to anything. I messed with it a bit, got
power but the fuel pump would not work. We hooked up my bug to Lance's and
he towed me back to the truck. Above you see one of the nice portions of
the trail. This is looking almost straight down the hill. You can
also see Lance's daughter acting like a goof as only a ten year old can do.
After getting back I winched the car up on the trailer and prepared to sit
around and wait for Chris and Lance to finish their run. After about an
hour I got bored so I dug into the bug to figure out what was up. Turns
out it was the main power switch had melted and was not providing enough power
to run the pump. A quick switch of the switch and I was mobile
again. I ripped that thing off the trailer and went and played for an
hour. I found some really cool jumps and wished someone had some pics of
it.
After it was all said and done we realized that we did not have much in the
way of pictures. We were so busy fixing stuff and off on our separate
missions that there just wasn't any. So we decided to settle for some
posed shots of the bugs parked on some big rocks. At least it is
something.
The last thing to happen was I took Lance and Chris for a
ride in the T-Chicken. For the
first time ever, (and I have tried), I actually had Chris scared. That
really made my day. Lance really didn't say much but his white knuckles
said enough. Once we got back Lance was heard saying that he had to get
one of those! The power that the thing makes is scary, but I am sure I will be
able to cope with it given enough time and practice (Hee Hee).
Summary:
Overall a good time was had by all despite the breakage. Lance and
Chris came back from their run with some flapping fenders and Lance had a bent
beam. That is what happens when you go fast over big rocks.
