Whatta (or water?) Mess at Rausch Creek: From Garrett's POV

I was able to make the second day at the run at Rausch Creek. I guess I didn’t miss much on Saturday because reports from those who attended reminded me of monsoon season. There was so much rain that the trails were rivers as were many of the highways. I guess the crew tackled many green and blue trails that were challenging. Just ask Tim about his 9-hour trip from L.I.

We began the second day by meeting at the world famous Rausch Creek Truck stop where we had breakfast and a yearly supply of second hand smoke. When we made it to the park we were surprised to find that most of the trails had dried up nicely. Mark, Scoutmaster, Yaron, Garrett, Thrasher and Little Jay from Fire Island headed out and tested the rigs on some blue trails.

We had just started moving along pretty well into some upper blue trails when we had some misfortune. After passing through a decent rock garden Yaron called everyone on the talkabouts. When we stopped we discovered his oil pan skid plate had been ripped right off his oil pan leaving 6 holes that leaked oil. After surveying the situation it was decided that we could make trail repairs in order to get the heap back to the staging area. Trail repairs included borrowed sheet metal screws from various places through out Yaron’s jeep and spares from other people. After plenty of rtv and scrounged up quarts of oil Yaron was ready to go. Scoutmaster in the meantime had managed to break his temporary motor mount that consisted of a one-inch ratchet strap. He continued wheeling for the rest of the day, but in his own words decided to “take it easy.”

One of the most memorable moments of the day was when Thrasher, our fearless leader, decided to test the center of gravity on the YJ. In one of the most graceful rollovers I have seen, Rob was able to get the passenger side of the YJ up on two different rocks and just managed to tip slowly over to the driver's side and luckily land softly on a carefully placed tree. After taking plenty of pictures of this scenario we threw a strap around the roll bar and pulled the Jeep back down onto 4 wheels.

We ran the rest of the day on mostly blue and black trials without any major incidents. The next minor incident that occurred happened as Mark was trying to load Snow White on his trailer. He tried once and was not on strait so he tried once again. One or two subsequent attempts proved the same results. Once Mark got out and looked under the vehicle the problem became evident. One of the bolts holding the leaf springs had come loose and shifted his rear axle slightly so the vehicle would not drive perfectly straight. This problem was quickly solved with a chain and a come-a-long. Once we were all set we hit the road and headed east without further trouble.