Ocala Toys for Tots trail ride
...with possible overnight stay December 16th – 17th. Be sure to bring a new unwrapped toy for the less fortunate in our communities. More to follow on the BB, keep a watch out.
LINE EM UP!
The 2006 Fall Rally Recap from a “Treasurers” perspective
To start, I need to thank a whole slew of people for helping make this rally go off without a hitch. Gordo, thanks for always being there for me. As I said at the raffle, if not for you I would not be here. Not only because you got me into the club, but also because you help me keep my stuff running, you always help me find my way out of the woods, and are always up for a trail ride. You’re like a brother to me. Thank you, I owe you a couple. Jonathan thank you for taking such great care of the website. Without you the site would look like dog poop. You’re the man. Sean thanks for keeping the money safe. You’ve done an excellent job over the past several years. I hope as the new Treasurer, I can do an equally good job. Sean, you got a headache? Enjoy that new winch. Congrats. Hillary thanks for stepping in to a position nobody wanted. You and Dave have always been supportive and I thank you. Adam, Tony and Mandy, thank you for always going to the clean-ups and always willing to lend a hand. Your efforts are noticed and appreciated.
Kaz thanks for being funny as hell and being the Spring Rally Master for me and doing it with vigor and enthusiasm. Jake, thanks for helping Mark out with the Rally’s. Also, thanks for helping me get my junk back on the road. James, thanks for making sure everyone’s rigs are fixed for their journey home. Next time leave your tools at home. Also, thanks for the replacement TBOX. Doug thanks for buying that Busch Gardens special and giving me a deal on the motor and front diff. The old girl purrs like a kitten. Thanks to Camp Cartier for fixing my diff while I was at the clean-up. Kris, Jimmy, Merv, Matt, Steve and everyone else that assisted, you guys rock. I can’t remember the last time I got to break something and not get dirty fixing it. Thanks guys. Pete and Sara, thanks for bring a great sponsor to the club. I appreciate it. Diana thanks for doing the T-Shirt and Sticker designs the last several rally’s. They are always great and always fresh. Thank you. Thanks to everyone that made the first ever Rally clean-up. It was a great success and something I hope is carried on. Josh thanks for always willing to lend a hand. Also, thanks for spending so much coin on the raffle. The club appreciates it. A big FLRC Hell Yeah goes out to our sponsors! Look to the top right everyone. These guys make our raffle outstanding. Ask the folks that attended MAR this past year about their raffle. Our raffle kicked their ARSH. It’s because of the folks to the top right. Buy from them and tell them you’re part of the good ole FLRC. Stephen and David, thanks for stepping up and willing to put the time into the club. You guys were a great asset at the Rally. You helped out tremendously. I appreciate it and so do all of us. I look forward to working with you guys. I also want to thank everyone that came out to join us. I see a lot of new folks that are no longer new. That tells me they are having a good time and enjoying the camaraderie. The club appreciates everyone that could carve out a weekend and go wheelin. Thanks to my wife and kids for enjoying the club as much as I do. It has truly become a part of our family. I am 100% sure that I forgot some folks. When I remember them, I will be sure to add them in. Finally, I apologize for such a long thank you list. It’s just that so many people helped over the past two years and they deserve the recognition.
It seems that every year I get there a day earlier. I’ll meet everyone at the 2007 Spring Rally on Monday!! I arrived at Silver Lake around 10:30am Wednesday morning. It was full. I went on down to Cypress Glen hoping for some goodness. I pull into the campground and what a site for sore eyes. EMPTY! I found a great spot right in the middle. I proceeded to set up camp. I then called Jonathan asking him to post up on the board about the change in campsites. Gordo and family arrived about an hour or so later and grabbed the spot right next to us. We then went about securing a half dozen or so campsites. Jonathan, Stephen, David, Merv, Kris, Jimmy and family all arrived later that day. For a Wednesday, we had a great turnout.
We woke up to a beautiful Thursday morning. By this time we had nearly every site secured for our group. Morning was flying by and everyone wanted to “Line Em Up”. We headed for the trails just after lunch. Gordo lead the pack of about 6-7 trucks. The chosen route would be Fenceline. The trail were super dry, but there we a few nice holes along the way. No water just mud. We came across one of the nasty holes and I attempted dead center. STUCK! Jonathan attempts to recovery me from the back with a couple big yanks. Next thing you know BANG! Strap broke and put a big dent in my tailgate and tore my license plate off. Its nothing a little duct tape and zip ties can’t fix. After that we decided to winch me out. I get out with no problem. The next hole is one of nastiest around. You had three choices. Go around to the left. Big deep ruts dead center. Ride the fenceline to the right. I choose dead center. Guess what, I didn’t make it. I got pulled out the back. You know I got to try it again a couple times. Still nothing. After a couple unsuccessful attempts, I went the go around. I don’t think any of us made it. We were all heading out when I decided to hit one last deceiving looking hole. I went for it and stuck again. I tried rocking it but to no avail. I got the winch out and strapped up to a tree dead ahead. Coming out of the hole, we all heard a nasty sound. Well you’ll never guess what I did. I blew out the front diff. It was giving me troubles prior to the Rally and I should have changed it out. However, I figured it might just make it through the Rally. Well it was Thursday and the Rally officially starts on Friday so I guess it didn’t even make it to the Rally. I limped back to camp making all kinds of noise. We were pretty much done for the day so I had time to decide what to do. I fortunately brought a spare with me so at least I had the part. That night we hung out at camp and enjoyed our red cups.
Friday came much too soon. We had a scheduled clean up that morning. Well you know how Rally’s go, morning turned into noon. We got a group of eleven people to participate in the clean up. While our group was at the clean up, Chris, Jim, Matt and others changed out my diff for me and Gordo and Dave scouted for some fresh trails. The clean up crew got back around 2:30. We cleaned up Richloam Clay Sink Road and found a lot of garbage including tires, cinder blocks and an old dog cage trailer. We did pretty well. After we got back to camp, we set up the registration booth. We didn’t set everything up because rain was in the forecast. We needed the rain badly to keep the dust down. Night came upon us and we planned for a Friday Night run. We had two groups go out. Stephen lead one group of about 15 trucks and Gordo took out another with about 8 trucks. I rode in Gordo’s group. We planned on running Plees Place to Cabbage Patch then to Powerline Road. We come to the first hole of the night and I went first. I took the wrong line and started to get a little off camber. I got pulled out the back for a better line. I took dead center right in the ruts. I almost made it but came up short. I decided to winch myself out so I hooked up to what I thought was a decent size tree. Next thing I know the tree falls over (turns out it was also dead). I guess it wasn’t big enough after all. I hooked up to another tree of more substantial size and winched myself out. No problem. We ran the trails to Powerline Road with no real problems. Then we get to the second to the last hole on Powerline Road. Gordo goes for it. He gets stuck pretty good. Doug gets set to recover him but Gordo starts taking on water and his truck stalls. One attempted crank over and sure enough, hydro locked. I get on him with the winch and try for a straight pull. That wasn’t really doing much good. I let out a little more line and put a snatch block on him, had Jonathan back me up with his truck. Brought him out but he sure was buried. I am sure glad I bought a winch because I’ve used it like four times so far this weekend. And better than that, I am sure glad I bought a Superwinch EP 9.0 because that baby sure does have some pulling power. While we were pulling the plugs on Gordo’s beast, one of Jonathan’s belt tensioner pulley’s threw a bearing. So while we’re getting Gordo’s truck running, Jonathan is pressing in a new bearing on his tailgate. After a little bit of time, we’re back on the trails. By this time it’s 2:00 in the morning, we’re all wet (winching in the rain!) and tired, so we decide to head back to camp. I over-heat on the way home, and after 27 bottles of water (ONLY evian and land-o-lakes bottled water for my rover please!), we are really on our way and safely back at camp.
Saturday morning arrived and it was time for an official truck count. We counted a total of 45 trucks. How awesome is that? One group went out about 10:00 and the other group that I rode with went out about 11:00. We ran Fenceline and had about 10 trucks in our group. We came to the three option hole and Kevin McCormick choose to go the Fenceline option. He hits it pretty hard and them BAMM! He came to a dead stop. He hit it so hard it broke the bead on his tire and bent his rim. We pulled him out to high ground and changed his tire. After that, he jumps in his truck and goes to start it. Nothing!! A couple light taps on the starter with the tool of choice (hammer) and sure enough, she fires right up. We all ride out to the last hole. There we had a couple folks get a tire off the ground riding the ruts. Cory in the Series was first to get one off the ground. That was very cool. Another guy in the stock Disco, his name escapes me, but he was in the Cartier Clan. That guy was totally stoked. We all gathered at the hunt camp at the end of Fenceline and then proceed back to camp for the BBQ and raffle.
As we rode back into camp you could smell the BBQ in the air. David took care of the catering and it sure was good, a special thanks to Mike Lesco and company. I liked having it cooked on site. Something about the smoker and the aroma of BBQ that makes it so much better. Prior to the BBQ we took care of some club business. The club elected the following officer line up:
Stephen Peters: President
David Zymowski: Vice President
Mike Costello: Treasurer
Eric Millich: Secretary
After the election of new officers we proceed to enjoy the BBQ and raffle. After dinner, Gordo started with the kids raffle. We had more kids this time than I can remember. We had 19 kids. Being that I have 3 kids I was glad to see more families are coming to the Rallys. After the kids we started with the big raffle. The raffle is something we have always placed an emphasis on because essentially it is giving back to you guys. Once again, please buy from our sponsors! The items raffled were; A Superwinch EP 9.0, a powertank, 2 sets of diff guards, a set of 3 inch Rovertym springs, 2 hi-lifts, spotlights, gift certificates, oil, baseball caps, t-shirts, gloves, DVD’s, headliner gift certificate, hood blackouts and some other items. After we gave away everything else, I asked the big winners Jonathan, Josh and Adam to come with me. We went back to my RV and brought out TWO MORE Superwinch’s (EP 9.0)!. Everyone went crazy!! Sean and Adam won them. Sean could not believe it. Dave Squire had to tell him he won because he wasn’t even looking at his tickets. Sean had his installed the next morning, way to go. Adam’s truck didn’t make the trip as he had over heating issues on the way up. He was so frustrated with his truck he was considering getting rid of it. After he won the winch he went home and fixed his rig and she’s running again. For me, that was the icing on the cake, seeing everyone so excited about winning all this cool stuff. The raffle was just plain AWESOME! After that a group went for a trail ride while most of us stayed back at camp.
Sunday came like the other mornings, much too soon. I’d been there since Wednesday and couldn’t believe it was Sunday already. A small group went out for a quick trail ride. I skipped it and basically slowly broke everything down. A group of us watched Sean install his winch. It was yet another successful rally.
I had an awesome time. It’s not because the trails were spectacular, it’s because it was like one big family, all together sharing our passion for what we all enjoy. We had Earl from Miami, Mike from Savannah GA and the fine gentleman from a little country near Russia (Baltic's). People from all over coming together to enjoy the Rover epidemic that has all hit us.
The trails we ran were awesome considering it hasn’t rained for 2 months. The camaraderie was at an all time high. The thing I liked the best was that we had an itinerary and nobody even used it, Trail rides went out when trail rides went out. People grabbed people and small groups went wheelin. That’s how it should be. Get a group and go. No schedule, no big convoys, just go. As I said earlier this has become a family event for me. My wife loves it, my kids love it. I thank you all for making these past two years so much fun! The FLRC blood will always flow. Thank you for granting me the wonderful experience of being President for the past two years. You all have been great to me and my family. I will never forget it and will always be thankful.
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