A New 4x4 Park

Are you an active user with truck within 100 mile radius of Raleigh

  • Yes

    Votes: 36 80.0%

  • No

    Votes: 9 20.0%
  • Total voters
    45
So this little 42 acres has a 40-60 foot drop to play on. A few trails. A few dried up creeks. 1 protected creek which would have a 25’ Wide rock garden to enable trucks to cross. A couple of clearings for mud pits. Possibly a small tent camping site by the marsh.but not likely. Food and beverages will be on site. No cookouts.

4 hour pass
$25 a vehicle
$5 a passenger
Kids under 12 free

$350 yr
$3 a head
2 hour pass daily

Would you visit?
How often?
Thoughts?
 
Never. I can get a whole weekend pass at most ohv places for a little more than your wanting for 4 hours.

Also crossing any creek that has flowing water would be a huge epa fine waiting to happen. Any sediment that is disturbed and flows down stream is min. 10,000 fine.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
NC4x4Park said:
So this little 42 acres has a 40-60 foot drop to play on. A few trails. A few dried up creeks. 1 protected creek which would have a 25’ Wide rock garden to enable trucks to cross. A couple of clearings for mud pits. Possibly a small tent camping site by the marsh.but not likely. Food and beverages will be on site. No cookouts.

4 hour pass
$25 a vehicle
$5 a passenger
Kids under 12 free

$350 yr
$3 a head
2 hour pass daily

Would you visit?
How often?
Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Nope
Never
Those prices are higher than bird pussy.
 
Wind Rick pricing to compare yours to..... its only got like 10,000 acres.....
f8d5bc7dbc0253cd89992e854ca76bc3.png



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
kaiser715 said:
Sooo...if I read that right...350 a year, and I can play for 2 hours on any given day? Drive an hour, play two hours, drive an hour? I'd spend more time loading/unloading at each end than playing. No thanks.
Click to expand...
No you pay 350 for a year pass then an additional 3 dollars per person for 2 hours


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. 42 acres can be covered very quickly. Pricing is insane.
So I pay that amount for 4 hours, but then I have some stupid wiring issue that takes me 45 minutes to an hour to figure out, or longer for another issue, I just blew my trip.

I think for that size park you’d be lookin at about $20/day maybe? And yes your target crowd might be Range Rover guys and mall crawling JKs and those goofy “overlanding” guys.

Not saying I wouldn’t come wheel on 42 acres, but I can go to The Flats in 2 hours which is 60 acres I think, and be at Gulches in 3 which is 80 acres and pay less at either park and have some killer trails and obstacle to hit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
These sound like more reasonable prices. Come on guys you don’t have to bite my head off. I’ve never paid to go wheelin so I don’t know prices. I looked at one site and saw prices like I mentioned.

As for 4 hours I wa sonku considering rotating people in in case the property did in fact get covered pretty quickly with vehicles. And if here was a time limit it would only be running time on the courses but in the place for the whole day.
 
For what you are describing,

Ideally you should be at $20/day or $100/year.

Year pass gets you 12 days.

No hour restriction that’s dumb.

Pay per rig of 2 people. Kids under 12 are free. Entry fee covers the rig, not just driver.


$5 for more than two people per rig.

$20 to camp over night.

Year pass not limited to certain vehicle. Just give driver a card to carry. Can bring whatever rig they decide. Pass only covers 1 rig at a time. $20 for extra rig per day.

Tow rigs/trailers/haulers are understood to not be wheeled and not charged for.
 
Before I committed to anything , I would take a look at the guy who started the small park, patriot mtn. up this way.
Of course a smaller market, but comparable size.
Its much cheaper than the price outline you have mentioned, 7 miles from me, and I haven't visited yet.......
 
Last edited:
We aren’t trying to bite your head off, just give some feedback. We may come off a bit harsh, but if you read the thread mentioned earlier, we’ve been thru this before.

You get something real up and running or close to it, and it has some good obstacles at a good price point and you’ll not only see us out there but most likely even see a bunch of folks show up for some volunteer work to make things better and keep things going.

Just know it’s not going to pay your bills and be profitable by any means more than likely.
 
Last edited:
For 42 acres you are right about possibly getting crowded. You would need to operate like Big Creek down at Uwharrie.

Scott Fields, may he Rest In Peace, ran that with the help of volunteers and some other groups. He would hold rides that would be on certain dates and reserved ahead of time.
Example: in January he would hold an “Ice Breaker” ride, and a Valentines weekend ride in February and a few other rides when the park wasn’t rented out for a private ride or in use for training.

He’d open up 25-30 spots, and people would pay their fee on PayPal and sign in that morning. People would break into groups of 12-15 rigs each and each group had a lead person that knew the property well and coordinated with the other group leader as to not get jammed up. We’d wheel one side of the park with one group on the other side, and switch a little later.
You could let some local clubs rent the park for a day or weekend for a flat rate. Something like $300 or something for the whole club. If it’s mostly mild, you may even get some of these Facebook Jeep clubs that mostly just meet in parking lots and restaurants to come out :D

You also need to figure out insurance, liability waiver forms, and most importantly erosion control. You may get by for a while with just a handshake and a $20 bill for a day of wheeling but if you start having the creeks get muddied up too much and it gets noticed someones gonna come looking to hand out some fines. They may give you the option to fix the erosion and set up sediment ponds and you continue, which will cost a boat load, or they shut you down entirely. It’s best to control it before they even notice by using proper water diversion and some simple straw bales and gravel. This takes money and time as well.

Trust me I’m in no way trying to discourage you, just give you some pointers on what this takes. I’ve dreamed of running my own park since I was a kid. I just don’t have the money/time/equipment/trust-fund/parents money/insert other unforeseen need/ ability to do it.

If you want to get serious about this, I highly suggest you call Skip who is the owner of Gulches Off Road park in Laurens, SC. Tell him what you want to do and that you’d like to ride down and see his park and discuss what it will take.
I had an in depth discussion with him years ago and I won’t share his financial situation, but I will say at that time he was making no money and he has had several battles with the county.
Some people get mad at him but he is doing what best when he does this, but there are many times he has to close the park due to rain because of run off from the park into the river.
Skip is a nice guy and if you plan a time for discussion when he has time, I think he’d be willing to point you in the right direction.
 
Last edited:
77GreenMachine said:
For 42 acres you are right about possibly getting crowded. You would need to operate like Big Creek down at Uwharrie.

Scott Fields, may he Rest In Peace, ran that with the help of volunteers and some other groups. He would hold rides that would be on certain dates and reserved ahead of time.
Example: in January he would hold an “Ice Breaker” ride, and a Valentines weekend ride in February and a few other rides when the park wasn’t rented out for a private ride or in use for training.

He’d open up 25-30 spots, and people would pay their fee on PayPal and sign in that morning. People would break into groups of 12-15 rigs each and each group had a lead person that knew the property well and coordinated with the other group leader as to not get jammed up. We’d wheel one side of the park with one group on the other side, and switch a little later.
You could let some local clubs rent the park for a day or weekend for a flat rate. Something like $300 or something for the whole club. If it’s mostly mild, you may even get some of these Facebook Jeep clubs that mostly just meet in parking lots and restaurants to come out :D

You also need to figure out insurance, liability waiver forms, and most importantly erosion control. You may get by for a while with just a handshake and a $20 bill for a day of wheeling but if you start having the creeks get muddied up too much and it gets noticed someones gonna come looking to hand out some fines. They may give you the option to fix the erosion and set up sediment ponds and you continue, which will cost a boat load, or they shut you down entirely. It’s best to control it before they even notice by using proper water diversion and some simple straw bales and gravel. This takes money and time as well.
Click to expand...
This is all about the best advise you're going to get.
The Cove up in VA operates in a similar model, Big Dogs Offroad generally runs the events but they also allow small clubs to do their own things too. Exact same format.
You're going to be able to maintain control of everything way better by doing it as specific, private events than by just open year-round, come as you can sort of operation. The places that can afford to run this way (Like WindRock, Rausch Creek, etc) can do so b/c they are HUGE space by comparison, and have a very large user base so that the income is reasonably more-or-less consistent. From an operational standpoint, keep in mind your operating costs (manpower) will also be limited to only on days you know you have income, vs having to be on-hand all the time (hence constant expense) w/o any predictability of which days you'll make money.

You also should consider carefully who your clientele is likely to be and decide how you want to cater to them. Frankly, being in this area you're going to get a lot of newbie guys who just bought their first Jeep or inherited daddy's Land Rover and want to try out his offroading thing. These are the people that will drive an hour from Raleigh, but not to the "real parks" like Gulches that are a pretty serious hike. In comparison, this board is full of pretty dedicated wheelers who are already accustomed to long drives for serious wheeling, and the honest fact may be that his park isn't for them.
What keeps the newbie city-slickers out of Uwharrie is the drive to get there. If you're in their backyard, they're gonna show up.

On that note - consider getting to know a local wrecker/tow service really well, for when Chet blows out his bro-dozer in the mud pit and needs a way home. Or having guys on call for extraction/fix-for-a-fee. With the tight space you have, you can't afford to have guys leaving vehicles there clogging up space to come back days later w/ a buddy.
 
RatLabGuy said:
This is all about the best advise you're going to get.
The Cove up in VA operates in a similar model, Big Dogs Offroad generally runs the events but they also allow small clubs to do their own things too. Exact same format.
You're going to be able to maintain control of everything way better by doing it as specific, private events than by just open year-round, come as you can sort of operation. The places that can afford to run this way (Like WindRock, Rausch Creek, etc) can do so b/c they are HUGE space by comparison, and have a very large user base so that the income is reasonably more-or-less consistent. From an operational standpoint, keep in mind your operating costs (manpower) will also be limited to only on days you know you have income, vs having to be on-hand all the time (hence constant expense) w/o any predictability of which days you'll make money.

You also should consider carefully who your clientele is likely to be and decide how you want to cater to them. Frankly, being in this area you're going to get a lot of newbie guys who just bought their first Jeep or inherited daddy's Land Rover and want to try out his offroading thing. These are the people that will drive an hour from Raleigh, but not to the "real parks" like Gulches that are a pretty serious hike. In comparison, this board is full of pretty dedicated wheelers who are already accustomed to long drives for serious wheeling, and the honest fact may be that his park isn't for them.
What keeps the newbie city-slickers out of Uwharrie is the drive to get there. If you're in their backyard, they're gonna show up.

On that note - consider getting to know a local wrecker/tow service really well, for when Chet blows out his bro-dozer in the mud pit and needs a way home. Or having guys on call for extraction/fix-for-a-fee. With the tight space you have, you can't afford to have guys leaving vehicles there clogging up space to come back days later w/ a buddy.
Click to expand...


I own a local towing company thank you all for the input.
 
NC4x4Park said:
I’ve never paid to go wheelin so I don’t know prices
Click to expand...

That's part of the problem

The folks you're getting responses from have "paid to play" at parks all over the country and have experience.

What you're talking about is the equivalent of me going to Bad Daddy's burgers and having a GREAT burger, and deciding to buy a food truck and start a mobile burger business. And if you've ever had one of my Burgers served at AOP in the rain, you know how good of an idea that is

@obullfish @Wildwilly87 @Jason W.

  • You don't have nearly enough acreage
  • You need to hire a Civil engineer and have them come inspect your property and introduce you to NCDENR. If you've never heard of NCDENR and you continue without consulting a civil...you will
  • You need a compact dozer for ANY kind of trail system
  • If you don't get a dozer, a skid-steer with mulcher at a min

Personally? With that acreage you're better off targeting enduro/single track dirt riders than full size rigs
 
Too small. Gulches is 80 acres or so and I rarely go there because its too small. JMHO. It's not a lot farther to go to the flats or shop. Not a whole lot bigger but better parks IMHO. Personally I feel like 100 acres is a min need. Listen to what these guys are saying though they know what they are talking about.
 
Back
Top