Silver Lake - April 17, 2010

[Mad Dog]

Few pics from Saturday the 17th.  It was chilly and quite windy, but wasn't that bad if you didn't sit around on the dune tops.


Couple of pics looking back down test hill, first is our group minus me sitting at the bottom.



A Honda trike that was wheelying and playing around on test hill for a while.



This was our friend's first trip ever to the dunes, and this was his second attempt at Test Hill.  It had a good peak on it so we had told him to crest slowly, he was just a little too slow.



Here are a few pics from an hour or so later, we were watching a C/K that got high centered at the peak.  Another truck went up to help and he went over so fast and crooked we were sure he was going to roll down the back side.  Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks, but I thought I saw a mark in the sand where his bumper had landed.  Took a couple more pics just because I liked how the sand looked blowing off the dune.






After that we went down to the flats and one of the guys with us (Josh) decided to try a water crossing on his Honda 450R.  Got people cleared out of his way and the guys with the gas trucks with stacks on them stopped fording it long enough for it to smooth out and he made his run.

http://www.youtube.com/v/HawbB23_uYY&hl=en_US&fs=1&


A pic of mine down on the flats.



My bro-in-law to be after losing a roost-fight with another member of our group.



Onto the day's event.  The green k5 had been through the hole twice already and had been playing around on the beach.  At the point of this pic he'd been in for a while and a crowd was gathering.  Notice the water height as well, the truck was still running and trying to drive out with the towing help.



A picture of the 3 truck tow setup.  I would have tried 3 inline instead of 3 abreast, but I'm no offroad guru.



After the 3 truck setup didn't work this super duty tried.  If you take a look at the corner of the K5's rear window you can see that the water level is a noticeable bit higher.



Here's a vid of him trying, adding another strap, and then breaking a strap.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ORyAEB1LL9k&hl=en&fs=1


After the unsuccessful attempts up front they decided to pull it out from the rear.  The grey crew cab super duty you can see in the foreground in previous pictures was the one that hooked up.  First attempt ripped the rear bumper off the Blazer.  After that the Blazer's owner knew the next strap needed to go underwater and offered 50 bucks to anyone who wanted to hook it up for him.  This guy stripped to a pair of shorts and a short sleeve polo shirt and jumped in, it was quite funny.  They ended up pulling the blazer out from the backside just after this.  Around mid-afternoon I saw the teal chevy that was trying to pull it out at the beginning had towed the K5 Blazer out to DAR to get air, both right side tires were completely flat and the beads were broken.



I blew the clutch in my quad, so I took my Jimmy out for the first time ever.  I didn't try any of the directional hills between test and exit, but I did putz around the rest of the dunes for a couple hours.  Didn't go over 20mph, but it was fun.  I still prefer my atv, but I think I will be more willing to take the Jimmy out again if/when the quad breaks down.



The rappy is down and out with a bad clutch, and it made some not so nice noises when I tried unsuccessfully to limp it in.  Didn't get a chance to tear into it after we got home, so I'm not sure what the extent of the problem is, hopefully just a clutch but I'm prepared for it to be more.

[Peelz]

great pics MD!.

[Langford]

Nice pictures!  Looks too cold for me though. 

Your Raptor and Silver Lake don't get along too well do they?  I can't remember, were you running the stock clutch and everything? 

[Mad Dog]

Thx Peels and Lang.

Still was on the stock basket, but I was on my 3rd clutch since the bike was new in 03.  This one was an EBC DRC clutch with 10% springs, it was installed about 3 years ago.

[Krandall]

oh man MD. Awesome pics/vids...  I hope for the best w/ your rappy.

[Hefe]

sure is nice to see the rappy back in the sand

[Mad Dog]

Thanks fellas, hope to have her running out there again soon.