Dixie Run 07
Pics:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560950346LCTrJM
My wife and I have a love/hate relationship with the SFWDA Dixie Run event. I love to go and she hates for me to! Actually, she really doesn’t mind my going; it’s just that Dixie Run always falls on her birthday, which causes us to have to compromise. The compromise involves me being able to go every other year while we celebrate her birthday the other years. This year was my year to “stay home” but I was able to negotiate a few days of wheeling as long as I was home for the weekend. With negotiations complete, I headed up Tuesday of Dixie Run week for some early wheeling before heading back for Saturday’s birthday celebration.
Several NC4x4 members had planned to get in some early wheeling before the crowds gathered on the weekend and when I got to the camp Tuesday, upnover (Chip Price), 3DKRAWLER (David Minton), Larry Smith and Greg Slade were already there ready to go. Larry was sporting his new/used motor home with all the amenities including queen size bed in the master suite and generator power. David had purchased Larry’s old gooseneck/slide-in-camper combo and he and Beth were really happy with their new accommodations. Greg Slade’s group of 4 rigs was camped at the far end of the field with a setup consisting of full portable kitchen complete with sink and running water and LOUD Led Zeppelin music! Chip had his usual Taj MaPrice set up and that’s where most of the lies were told during the week.
Just a quick aside about Chip. Those of you who believe in God’s healing power please keep Chip in your prayers. Tuesday night he experienced acute chest pain due to a hiatal hernia he has. Those that know Chip well, know that Dixie Run is THE EVENT of the year for him and he had been pointing toward it all summer, so it wasn’t unusual to see him mount up in upnover for Wednesday’s ride though he really felt bad. His pain progressed throughout the day and his wife Leslie ended up driving back to camp. Back in camp the group finally encouraged him to make a late night run to the ER in Murphy where an ECG showed his heart was fine but the doctors wanted to send him to Asheville in an ambulance for further tests. Chip refused, it was Dixie Run week after all, and after they had given him some medicine and a prescription for the hernia he headed back to camp. The good news is that after taking Thursday off sleeping, recovering and medicating he felt much better Friday morning and was able to get back on the trails with us.
As most of you know, SFWDA is mounting a large “Rescue Tellico” effort in response to environmentalists suing the Forest Service to close trails due to sediment run off. While I understand and support Southern in their effort to keep the trails open, the results of compromise are disappointingly evident on the trails. The new bridge is in on trail 5 and paved with gravel past the camping spots on both sides eliminating the water crossing. The first difficult spot on Lower School Bus has been blasted and filled with dirt and the approach filled with gravel. The large ledge at the top of Slick Rock has been filled in and graded. Many of the promising rock erosions and mud holes have been filled in with gravel and finally in preparation for the bridge over Fain’s Ford, the rock ledges on the far side have been closed. All this, and more, may be necessary to keep Tellico’s trails open for OHVs but it may not be necessary. If the quality of the trail obstacles continues to suffer at the expense of environmental compromise, trail usage may decline anyway. From what I saw this week, it looks like the environmentalists will come out ahead either way. They either win their suit and close some or all of the trails or they force the Forest Service to reduce environmental impact by lessening the challenges of the trail system to the point where fewer and fewer people choose to ride there. As mentioned several times around the camp this week, SFWDA might better serve its membership by using the money and equipment they put into maintaining Tellico’s trails toward purchase of private land to develop for OHV use. Just some things to think about as we continue to lose more public wheeling venues yearly!
Even with the changes, Tellico still provides a nice challenge and we hit them all. Tuesday was a warm up run to Lower and Upper 2. Wednesday we hit School Bus, Helicopter Pad and Guardrail, Thursday brought on Slick Rock, Lower and Upper 2 and Guardrail and Friday it was back to School Bus and out through Pinch Rock. Make no mistake; Tellico still has its teeth. A Wednesday night run claimed Greg Slade’s front axle and a coil over shock as well as producing a roll over by a Suzuki in his group. During the week 3DKRAWLER suffered a broken accessory belt, upnover blew out a front axle ujoint and ripped his traction bar mount off the axle tube and Larry Smith broke a rear leaf spring center pin and flopped on Pinch Rock. Several other breakages were witnessed in other groups and Chip held up his rep as Trail Tool Man by helping everyone out with the Ready Welder, vise, air drill, air grinder, and assorted other implements of repair.
For those of you who have been following Chip’s NP231 doubler build and might be considering one of your own, it performed great! I have ridden with Chip many times over the years and the low gearing provided by the rock box allowed him to crawl and finesse many obstacles, which would have required throttle and the resulting bouncing and breakage in the past. The 231-crawler box is a super addition to an already capable trail rig and appears to be a great cost effective solution in the search for lower gearing!
All in all it was a great week! It was dusty but not as bad as recent Harlan and Uwharrie trips and showers Thursday helped settle things down. The turnout was the usual Dixie Run X-large. By the time I left Friday evening both camping fields were about full and Crawford’s was sold out. Traffic on the trails started backing things up on Friday but the other days the trails were clear. I lost count of the rigs I passed on my way home that were headed to Tellico so I’m sure it turned out to be another successful event for SFWDA. Maybe next years birthday compromise will allow me to stay for the entire event! Hope to see you there next time!
to you big woddy & wife.
