Cascade Crawlers April 2001 run
April 21, 2001 Blind Chicken Racing joined the Cascade Crawlers for their
inaugural run. It started at Jordan Creek in the Coast Range of Oregon and
covered some of the best trails in the area. Due to engine problems with
my junk rail I was not able to run for very long and they went on without us as
we limped back to the truck. There were some nice trucks and one very
nicely done rail. Chris brought the "toothed" bug and since
Craig's (Insayn) baja is still in the works he rode along.
The POS blue rail, tossed together out of spare parts, loaded and ready run.
Nathan Kahler showed up at my house at 8am with a couple other friends from
Aberdeen Washington. He brought along his Toyota powered woods rail with
some very trick components, and what looked like some time-consuming aluminum
work.
We showed up at Jordan Creek at about 9:20 and met up with the rest of the
group. We spent some time yakking and oogling over the other rigs. The
weather was perfect.
There were a couple problems right off the bat. The flat bed Toyota had
a plugged cat converter and was overheating the engine. A hammer and pry
bar to the bottom of the cat remedied the situation and we were able to
continue. We also found that the TW dirt bike that was along for the ride
had a bunch of dirt that was put into the tank the night before. We
flushed the tank as best we could and crossed our fingers. I feel sorry
for the family of the one that ever gets caught doing something like that to a
toy (not for the idiot that did it of course).
As we headed up the trail there were some nice hill climbs. This is
about where my rail decided it had enough so I snapped some pics before heading
back.
This was the first hillclimb of any difficulty. Most of the trucks made
it up okay. The Jeep had to have a winch attached when he got VERY crossed
up. Nathan missed on his first attempt. Of course he did it several
times earlier when nobody was looking. It was funny to hear the rest of
the group's shock when he turned around in the middle of the hill. Nobody
on the hill would admit to wanting to try it in their rigs.
Chris tried many, many, many..... many times, to crest the top but
never quite made it. Made for a good show though. Especially when on
his way back down he zigged when he should have zagged and ended up in a ravine
backasswards.
One big problem I had was that I was taking pictures. I figured out too
late that if I do all the picture taking then I don't get to be in them.
Maybe next time I will designate a photographer.
In Summary:
It was a good day despite having problems. The weather could not
have been better, everyone had a good time, and we all had a chance to meet more
off road individuals. We will definitely have to
do it again.
