Relief Ride at Paragon, October 7, 2001
by BS

Just got back from the relief ride.

LOTS of trucks showed up, but the Paragon staff did a great job of creating order out of what I expected to be chaos. There were more than 250 trucks: Heeps, Rovers, Nissans, Heeps, Broncos, Heeps, very few Land Cruisers, Hummers, and some more Heeps.

Met up with JH and lined up for Whomp-Um. We had a little snow, some sleet, and a little rain, but mostly it was just windy and cold.

First thing we did was a hillclimb, then a drop into the bowl, then another climb out. Well, a climb for everyone but me ... I made several attempts, then gave up and pulled cable .. kind of a bummer, but that's why the winch is there.

Got through the lower end of the trail pretty quickly with JH's able spotting, then went back to spot Jon through. He got bypassed by some Heeps while he was spotting, so he was last on the trail. Did fine until we got 30 feet from the exit of the trail, where I had an abysmal lapse of attention to detail, and spotted him into a rock that took a nice straight steering rod and made it v-shaped. Man do I feel like crap about that! Jon was pretty philosophical about it, and refused to allow me to accept the blame, but I feel like sh*t anyway.
Well, we used three winches, a ratchet strap, and, of course Hose Clamps to get the rod near straight again, then hose-clamped a Hi-Lift handle to it to give extra support. Johnny Hoseclamp was able to get off the trail, and once on the road, the only noticeable effect was the steering wheel pointed the wrong way, according to Jon.

Hopefully, Jon is home by now too, with yet another wheeling carnage story!

Thanks for the great spotting, Jon, and thanks for letting me practice spotting on you.

Good Night Ladies,

BS