It was great to meet the couple of you that I did. Many thanks to racefreakj77 and the Mrs for saving us the spot and the very generous pot of good eats that all the guys really enjoyed. Overall it was an excellent trip - couldn't have asked for a better weekend. There were TONS of buggies up there.

My buggy did very well for it's firt time out, the only thing I broke was a rear bump stop (stock) which I'm told doesn't count. I had some running issues... I had read up on 009 and 34pict-3 hesitation problems and tried the suggested tricks but that resulted in no top end which we didn't know when tuning it on the foor at work. I dealt with it saturday and part of sunday and changed out my main carb jet to a smaller size (1 up from stock vs. 2 up from stock) and it was a completely different animal, however it suffered from a pretty big hesitation when you step on the throttle, which the other jet had resolved, so I had to constantly feather the gas to pump the accelerator pump , which I'm pretty sure we had already "turned up" all the way.

I got stuck twice, once was when I high-centered on a ditch or rut or something and we moved the front end over, the other time was a bit more major... I was leading everyone up an orange trail that turned super crazy about a third of the way up as you rounded a corner. It had a huge washed-out gully down the center of the trail and I tried to saddle it but slid over into it at a pretty good angle. We got it unstuck only to have it slide almost completely sideways into a deeper trench, but were able to drag it out with the help of some guys on four-wheelers and their winch.

Mike's IRS gear reduction worked great, and the only problems he had were loose wheel studs on one occasion (the one side he didn't weld in place) his carbs acted a bit funny off and on, possibly due to some crud in them, and his distributor had some issues but he gave it a real beating and it came out shining.
Bruce had a great time too... On sunday afternoon we headed back to the camp and when we got there and he parked his buggy we were all suprised to see one of his rear control arms completely broken off - he didn't even know it happened, so we're not sure how long he drove it like that but it made it back onto his trailer ok. One guy in our group broke his hand when he had a bad landing coming up short after a jump onto the berm of another on his blaster and jammed his throttle thumb back when the bars jerked to the right.

I took a couple of videos and had a passenger shoot a bit while driving but it's jouncy enough to make you ill after about 10 seconds. I'll put what I have on youtube in a bit, and I'm working on getting the pics onto photobucket.

I'll add that we had two run-ins with "the law" last night - the first was around 11:30 from one fellow who basically told us to "keep it down" and was very resonable, (as were we) and the second was after I had gone to bed, I think about 4 or 5 people were around the campfire around 1:30 in the morning and a different guy came walking up towards the campsite (having parked his vehicle a ways up the main road) and identified himself when asked "can I help you??" - he said he had gotten compaints of noise from our site, but from what I gather, they weren't being loud at all, at least not recently. He gave out two breath tests, one to a minor (who had not been drinking!) and one to someone who had, for which he issued a public intox. ticket.

BTW, for those of you who were out there... you may or may not have seen me, but it would be easy to know, I was the one guy wearing a helmet. Also had my passengers wear helmets too. Super dorky, I know, but it was cheap, light and I couldn't see but a small bit of it whie it was on my head, plus my hair didn't get muddy. Some say it's not necessary, but I very easily could have used it when I slid over into the trench the 2nd time - I could pretty much rest my head on the on the trail from the driver's seat.

Hey Nick, it was great meeting you guys this weekend, pleasure having you camp beside us. You did a good job on building your buggy, hope you had fun in it. There will be lots more fun to come in it. Hopefully you still have my phone # so whenever you want to go ride give us a call or I've got yours & will do the same. See ya next ride even if it's just a day ride. We're close & can come pretty much anytime. Glad you enjoyed the chili !

Hey Nick,

We can be dorks together. Me and all my passengers wear helmets too. I hooked up music and an intercom system in the helmets so we can talk and listen to tunes..

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