2n17x

Note: This report was written by IE4W Club Member Jack McCafferty (edited for grammar and spelling only)

Members Present:

None

Guests Present:

Jack McCafferty-CJ7 84-Trail Boss
Frank (Bad Boy) Bell-CJ7-86-Tailgunner
Peter Griffith-Cherokee 82 
Don & DJ Bridgewater-CJ7 77 
Tommy Souza & Big Daddy Tile Setter Frank Van Aresdale-YJ 95 
Bruce Ferrel-CJ5-75

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful and I woke up excited (hold up a minute.....this sounds too familiar). Let's start again. Sunday I fell out of bed and I knew I was going to have a blast in stead of going to Mass. Yo much better. But I knew that on this day the Club Members were the "Charter Members" and with them guiding us nothing could go wrong. Yo wrong again. We get to the start of the trail and my tail gunner Bad Boy Bell decided he would be different and go high to the right onto a burm just to be different. Well after about 4-5 tries going side ways lifting wheels off the ground, tires squealing at the "Charter Members" for "mercy". Bad Boy Bell was for-given his bad ways and allowed to continue on the windy but straight & narrow road road to the top. By the way he did not mend his ways but continued to go a stray all day.

Now Peter (not the Rock/Saint Peter) Griffith (hammer time as he is known to some by his friends) and that Cherokee were a team by themselves. He is locked up front and back now, and he showed us what it was. Just a hunk of chunk of burning metal going up the trail. Nothing, and I mean nothing, stopped him, except when he slipped just a little to the right and ended up doing one of those Super-D Slinky tricks called, "lets all fall into the V notch and high center on BOTH differentials!"  He was quickly jerked back (dislocated) and off (forward) he went on to the top. Then the big hill climb came up on us with that 
three lane HWY. We all decided to take the center as it was the baddest. Don (open and determined) took off & he was jamming all the way to the top. With a smile on his face and a wink of the eye he flew by us grinning from ear to ear yelling something about ride 'em cowboy something or another. He is a real redneck with a real red jeep to match. Ya he did everything we did locked up. Good job Cowboy Don.

Now, about the notorious Tommy the Dredger. Well, Tommy the Dredger decided that Bad Boy Bell wasn't going to show him up so he takes a real hard line to the left of the main trail and gets all jacked out of shape. Then the dude starts yelling on the CB.....Help-Help-Help while others murmured something to the effect of, " I do believe he might roll over." With that we we all jumped out and ran down the hill and with Peter & Don on the front bumper and Frank and me on the drivers high side we saved the day with Tommy the Dredger repenting of his wicked ways of taking the wrong road and promising to go straight again for the rest of the run. He lied: the "Charter Members" knew he needed another test and had his differential spit out the rubber fill plug from his differential. Pete seeing a stream of black goo running out from under & behind his jeep quickly convinced Tommy the Dredger to stop what he was doing and with that we all went back to look for the rubber fill plug. Tommy the Dredger found it and was a saint for the rest of the run. 

But not all are saints. Not Bruce (The Big Bruiser). He was banging, jamming, sticking, twisting and running that red jeep like it was not part of this planet. Most of the time it looked like the space shuttle trying to lift off. Man what a show. Helen was not with him and he was hell bound on two wheels most of the day, only strapped once by the Bad Boy himself. DJ was riding with me, what a dude, he is so cool, so brave so........DJ why were your hands shaking so much? And what was all that praying to the "Charter Members" all about. Ha who knows, all I know is he sure helped me get through some bad stuff that I know I could not have done with out him as my co pilot. Thanks DJ you can ride with me any day. Good Man. 

Now on to the rock pile: I was so cool, calm and collected picking my line with wisdom, knowledge and experience. Only after about nine set ups did I decide to bump the rear wheel up and onto a (spectacular if I must say) larger than life huge (new?) rock to the left of my new 35" non-slip tire. I placed the rear wheel up on it and continued gingerly over the top with such style (I must say I was impressed) barking my tires "at will" only to show off to all the onlookers in attendance. I started looking for a harder line/spot to take because I knew I was being filmed and figured I could sell this moment to ESPN for big bucks being the superior driver I am. Oh ya.....Frank did it on two set ups. LUCK-luck-luck, I must say.

The run was just about over, until we came to the last water crossing. We stopped and took about a 30 min. break to cool off. Don and Bruce found some neat rocks around the middle of the pond to sit on and BS while DJ set out exploring the river bed to see how deep it was. Frank went skinny dipping, (shorts on), Tommy looked through his wish book he got from Currie Enterprises and Peter was on his cell phone trying to let his bride to be know he was about to come home. I was just hanging out in the back taking videos. We finished the day off with Frank taking us to a place by the lake so we could all have some dinner.

By 6:00 PM we were all back in our jeeps heading down the HWY to home.
We all had a great time with no break downs and lots of laughs.

Jack