GenRight Off Road
Made in the USA!
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2013
- Location
- Local Guy: Mooresville, NC
This was written by our President, Tony Pellegrino:
As I come off the 6th Annual GenRight Turkey Run, I am reflecting on how this event has grown and how much fun I had last week… Keep in mind this “event” started out as just me and a few buddies going out for the Holiday week to challenge ourselves on the trails. Now its 6 months of planning, permits and lots of good people!
We hold this event at Johnson Valley AKA The Hammers. This area is not for everyone. It is tough. It will test a driver’s skill and a vehicle’s durability. Many people will not consider bringing their Jeep out to the Hammers, because they know it will never return the same! But for those of that do, we find it a challenge that is incredibly rewarding!
Through the week we had over 200 different people join us. I arrived the Friday before Thanksgiving and the first part of that week we had rain, which was great! The rain keeps the dust down making it easier to see and easier to stay with your trail group.
This year was different as we had several companies from the industry join us for the week of fun. (Should we add links to their websites?) Falken Tires, Yukon Axles and Gears, RCH Designs, DynoMax Exhaust, Raceline Wheels, Rugged Radios and Rebel Off Road all helped to make this “customer appreciation” run be more fun for those who attended. In addition to the industry folks, we had a bunch of Ultra4 racers (Stock, Mod & Pro class guys) show up to run with us. It’s winter in many parts of the country but it’s time to get the rigs out to the desert and start testing and tuning for these guys.
I like this event in particular because we get GenRight customers from all over the country to join us! It’s a family event; in fact many guys bring their wives and kids for the entire week. I get a chance to socialize with everyone out by the fire each night. It’s a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make some new ones. I also love the Turkey Run gives me a good chance to test run the race car for several days in a row. This year I put nearly 700 miles on the #4485 car without a problem!!
I also had a bunch of GenRight staff members join me to lend a hand and lead trail runs each day: Corey Osborne, Andrew Harris, Tim Pellegrino, Cory Kaiser and my oldest son Jami. With them came a bunch of GenRight vehicles; Terremoto JK, Bowtie TJ, Triton JK, Genesis #4585 TJ, and the #4485 Ultra4 car.
The week started our rough, the wet sand and rocks took its toll on a bunch of vehicles right away. 3 customer vehicles were broken almost immediately! We had people running back to town for driveshafts, axles, u-joints, etc. We got them fixed up and back on the trail.
Saturday I got an early start and put in a full day. My brother Tim arrived and we both had a lot of fun! I logged almost 100 miles racing around the Johnson Valley desert while getting used to the changes we made in the race car. Then we all came back for a nice big camp fire (we had 4 cords of wood for the week).
Sunday more people showed up as the sun came out. We ran 4 groups on a mix of Hammer trails and desert: Turkey Claw, Chocolate Thunder, Claw Hammer, Elvis, Aftershock and HWY 19 & 20. Some of my friends brought their dirt bikes, so I hopped on mine and rode a nice loop with them too!
As I come off the 6th Annual GenRight Turkey Run, I am reflecting on how this event has grown and how much fun I had last week… Keep in mind this “event” started out as just me and a few buddies going out for the Holiday week to challenge ourselves on the trails. Now its 6 months of planning, permits and lots of good people!
We hold this event at Johnson Valley AKA The Hammers. This area is not for everyone. It is tough. It will test a driver’s skill and a vehicle’s durability. Many people will not consider bringing their Jeep out to the Hammers, because they know it will never return the same! But for those of that do, we find it a challenge that is incredibly rewarding!
Through the week we had over 200 different people join us. I arrived the Friday before Thanksgiving and the first part of that week we had rain, which was great! The rain keeps the dust down making it easier to see and easier to stay with your trail group.
This year was different as we had several companies from the industry join us for the week of fun. (Should we add links to their websites?) Falken Tires, Yukon Axles and Gears, RCH Designs, DynoMax Exhaust, Raceline Wheels, Rugged Radios and Rebel Off Road all helped to make this “customer appreciation” run be more fun for those who attended. In addition to the industry folks, we had a bunch of Ultra4 racers (Stock, Mod & Pro class guys) show up to run with us. It’s winter in many parts of the country but it’s time to get the rigs out to the desert and start testing and tuning for these guys.
I like this event in particular because we get GenRight customers from all over the country to join us! It’s a family event; in fact many guys bring their wives and kids for the entire week. I get a chance to socialize with everyone out by the fire each night. It’s a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make some new ones. I also love the Turkey Run gives me a good chance to test run the race car for several days in a row. This year I put nearly 700 miles on the #4485 car without a problem!!
I also had a bunch of GenRight staff members join me to lend a hand and lead trail runs each day: Corey Osborne, Andrew Harris, Tim Pellegrino, Cory Kaiser and my oldest son Jami. With them came a bunch of GenRight vehicles; Terremoto JK, Bowtie TJ, Triton JK, Genesis #4585 TJ, and the #4485 Ultra4 car.
The week started our rough, the wet sand and rocks took its toll on a bunch of vehicles right away. 3 customer vehicles were broken almost immediately! We had people running back to town for driveshafts, axles, u-joints, etc. We got them fixed up and back on the trail.
Saturday I got an early start and put in a full day. My brother Tim arrived and we both had a lot of fun! I logged almost 100 miles racing around the Johnson Valley desert while getting used to the changes we made in the race car. Then we all came back for a nice big camp fire (we had 4 cords of wood for the week).
Sunday more people showed up as the sun came out. We ran 4 groups on a mix of Hammer trails and desert: Turkey Claw, Chocolate Thunder, Claw Hammer, Elvis, Aftershock and HWY 19 & 20. Some of my friends brought their dirt bikes, so I hopped on mine and rode a nice loop with them too!