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Jim can be reached by email at: James.Hassi@allsop.com. Hi - Thought I would jot down a few thoughts on this years Island Rock Crawl. I'll use the time tested format:
Prologue: In the week before the IRC, I built a family cage, installed a new 3rd member and Lock-Rite, added a PS cooler, did a rear disc brake conversion and on the day that I was taking the ferry put in a new seat and bracketry. I arrived in camp Thursday night, and set up camp near fellow lister and WA resident Scott Shannon. Hung out with many listers from the ORD and TLCL, including Rob M., Gord P, lars, Wil, John B,Lori, Rob B, Bruce L, Tim L., Paul W., Rob L. etc (hope I am not forgetting too many folks. Unlike Gord who took a bunch of fun trails, I opted for the 'Extreme'category. On Saturday and Sunday I got Extreme!
Friday's Trails: Did Pigpen's and Gollege Creek. Lots o'fun. Fellow Cruiser head on this trail was limited to Rob M. The day was good solid wheelin, with no stucks or tip overs for me. I did watch Matt & Eric lay their Mustang 5.0 equipped CJ lay it on it's side on Gas It Hill. I think Matt might be bad luck here. Back in camp, ramped my Cruiser. Ramped respectably, but could have used a few tricks to get my score up a bit. Didn't really care about the ramp # as much as checking extension and compression issues.
Saturday's Trail: Morningside trails: YIKES!!!!!!! I had heard about this trail from Wil. He had competed in the Morningside 4WD club 'Tough Truck' competition in the fall. I believe he took 2nd place. This club graciously allowed the IRC to use their trails (if you can call them that!). I am sure they were much harder when they were wet. The Trails consisted of one major loop that went from the bottom of the mountain to the top. There were about 15 loops off of the mainline that basically consisted of the nastiest terrain on the mountain. Imagine a 4+ trail with a series of obstacles on loops off of the main trail - as if the trails were created by a hardcore 4 wheeler driving up the trail looking into the hillside and saying - 'I bet nobody could get their rig up that!' or alternately 'If we made that a trail would anybody be stupid enought to believe us and try it?!' Basically turn off the main trail, point your rig at the mountain top (or blue sky) and start wheelin. This was the nastiest set of trails that I had ever done. There was one drop off rock where I was being spotted by Tim Lund of ARB / Wild West Offroad, and Paul Weitlauf (XJ driver extrordinaire). As I was dropping off, I looked right at Paul and said (with an obvious look of terror in my eyes captured on film by his co-pilot) 'Grab my bumper - I am going over!' He didn't flinch or even budge. I guess this is one area where wheelin with a bunch of Cruiserheads is an advantage - they don't want to see you bend up a Cruiser, so they would have jumped on! Anyway, I drove out of it, and promptly tipped over the other direction and leaned my cage against a tree - whew - no damage! This was one of several times this weekend where I was glad that my softtop wasn't new! Tho it suffered no damage, I bet it smells like cedar bark! A notable group throughout the weekend was group of hardcore wheelers from a WA club called Blast. There were 2 Cruisers on the Saturday run with me (one with a gear drive on his SB that kept making me think my newly cooled PS was overheating!) and again on Sunday. Morningside was perfect for these guys.The Cruiser guys (and most of the jeep guys) had cool tube edged fenders that looked stock. The tubing bender just went up to first place on the 'next tool I will buy' list. The top of the hill has the southern-most point that you can drive on on Vancouver Island with the exception of the missle storage area (and you can't wheel there!). The view from the top across to the Olympics was very cool. From the top we could also see the property owner's place (where he has a 100 yard side by side mud drag course in his back yard!!!!). Thanks again to Paul Cooper. The trail down was a lot of fun until you got to a section called 'Hells Gate' (which appropriately ends at 'Heavens Door'). This was a very steep downhill on greasy mud and large loose rocks. It was sort of a right hand sweeper with a downed tree and rocks on the downhill side and then a hard left at the steepest point. I watched scared sh*tless as Tim's Sami on very wide Boggers just toboganned down the hill, bouncing all 4 tires off the ground, caught the rocks on the left hand side, avoided the trees and then went over a rock, lifting his rear 2 feet off the ground - but also fortunately pivoting the end around to the right and lining him up for the hard turn. Then Paul went down carefully picking his line and without much drama - his XJ's long wheelbase definitely giving him an advantage. I was the last rig of the day. I couldn't tell if the feeling in my bowels had more to do with watching the Sami go down the hill or the Lion's Clubs pancakes doing their part. Either way, the pucker factor was extreme - 4++. I put it in granny low, feathered the brakes and tried to remember 'Aim for the hole'. The decent was hairy, and I had a gallery of all of the 20 rigs or so drivers and passengers, plus all the trail bosses watching and puckering right along with me. In camp that night, I saw on video (I need to get a copy) articulation had my 35" tire all the way below the sheet metal and gasped in horror as it lifted about 24" off the ground. I was seriously close to going over... I just kind of hovered there for 3 seconds. One of the spectators got up to grab my rear bumper and then just sat down again. I vaguely remember lifting off the brakes, stabbing the accelarator and steering left - towards the hole. Then it was done! What a rush. A few guys in the gallery said that they were all puckering with me on that one! Trails were pretty Extreme - Pucker factor was as high as it has ever been! Suffice it to say I had a few beers in camp that night. Didn't win anything in the raffle. Had a great conversation with Lori (the event chairperson) late that evening (see Soapbox).
Sunday's Trail: DSS - not too much to say here. A great trail if you were setup well and used your driving skills. There were 4 Cruisers in our group (1 Canadian not on the list, myself, Rob & his friend Duncan). It was very interesting to watch similarly setup rigs and see how important picking a line and driver finesse is. There was one spot where some rigs made it up, but most, myself included decided to get to a good location and winch from there - about an 18" pull. Thanks to Rob for playing Winch Boy for 1/2 of our group. Highlights of this trail were: - watching Rolands Monster S-10 (383 stroker -sounded like a diesel) with a ford 9" rear and a D60 front with 39" x 20" wide boggers in the rear and 38 x 18 in the front - go for the Mud pit - and then winching him out afterwards! - reseating a 40" Swamper (16.5 rims ca not hold a bead can they?!) using the ether trick - took about 10 trys to cooordinate the whole think. Exciting the first couple of attempts. - A great trail led by 'Rye Guy' who was a bit under the weather!
Epilogue: Once again, I left the IRC looking forward to attending next year. I had a great time and hope that I will get a chance to go over for a long weekend this summer, wheel in to one of the lakes and spend a couple of days relaxing, wheeling and fishing. I enjoyed meeting listers and non listers alike. I wish that I had someone occupying my passenger seat (as it worked out, my wife bagged out on me and I didn't even bother installing the passenger seats). The spirit in camp was great too. The ramp was 'by donation' and a fair bit of change was raised there. The winners of vaious cash prizes donated their winnings to the IRC to help with unforseen expenses.
Soapbox: An event like the IRC is a huge undertaking. The people who organize it give up their personal time that they could spend with friends & family or wheeling or working on their rigs so that we can all have fun. Having been involved in a few clubs, I can tell you that there are a lot of people that talk a good game, but few will really step up and take responsibility and put the effort in to make something happen. If you are a club member, see what you can do to ease the load. If your club puts on an event, are you involved? Not just the glory jobs of leading trails, but the drudgery of following up on delinquent applicants (#98 guilty!), reluctant vendors for prize donations, doing the word processing and photocopies, helping keep the peace in camp? Doing PR around town? As an attendee of an event do you make these volunteers jobs as easy as possible? I want to personally thank all of the IRC club members, but especially Lori and the Executive. I hope that they can find a way to spread the load so that this event can occur again next year. These people put their time, money and effort where their hearts are. When land use issues reared their ugly heads just days before the event, they had to make the difficult decision to PERSONALLY guarantee responsability for any damage or lawsuits (don't forget in Canada you are allowed to sign your life away!) I for one will be back next year! And hopefully I can find a way to help (besides getting my registration in on time!) Jim Hassi 71 FJ-40 350, SM465, 4 wheel discs, F - Auburn, Rear - Lock-Right, PS, SO & reversed, 35"BFG MT, Ramsay 9K Pro+, Family Cage Bellingham, WA - Member TLCA
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