pixeldzn wrote:
Man I'm really sad to hear about all the problems on this run. This is why there needs to be a drivers meeting at the beginning of every run, to find out who is a newbie, or needs some advice, and to lay out some dos and donts.
It seems like every run to the badlands lately, organized here, someone is going home with some damage that could have been avoided on a daily driver. It's really sad to see a day of fun turn into thousands of dollars in repairs on a vehicle that probably wasn't taken offroad with the intention of this kind of breakage. Stuff happens, for sure, and sometimes can't be avoided, but a lot definitely can.
Good luck to those of you who have repairs to carry out. Those of you who went home without breakage, take some of the mistakes folks made and try to remeber it. Be sure to pass on the info next time you are out.
Don, I assure you this run was not as bad as it seemed...more just bad luck for both of us (Chris's friend). We both know the 30A's are very weak (a few midwesterners know this besides me), and I may have been pushing it a bit...besides that we didn't really run into any problems. We all discussed what we wanted to do before we departed on the trails, and I definitley opted out of orange, as many wanted to run. We ran basically the same route as we did last year at this run, and nothing to difficult for a lifted KJ with skids. We got everyone through every obstacle clear and safe, there were no problems with spotting, and there were no cases of trail damage as far as scratches, dents, dings...etc. It was just a spur of bad luck. You know we go out there to represent L.O.S.T. Midwest and the Liberty owners the best we can...we don't want to start a bad reputation. Many of us are new to this, and a few were completely new to this on this run. It was accounted for and we took special effort to get those guys around the things that may have given them trouble. I felt that we had a good day....just bad luck. Chris's buddy just got going too fast into too much water and I just had bad luck. I did the same obstacle earlier this year in my STOCK KJ...it was not hard and it wasn't too much...I just got ahead of myself and before I knew it, it was too late. We do our best at this...damage is definitley not something we look to do. We also don't drive like maniacs.
-Evan