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Matt Browne drove his daily-driver 1994 T100 Toyota Pickup |
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Randy Underwood, in his 1970 FJ40, led the way on the trails. |
Matt's T100 was not locked front
or rear, but had no trouble getting up this trail at all. That would change later, but mostly
due to his truck's larger size, and his ability to maneuver around trees.
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Member Robert Waters with co-pilot Lance Van Tuyle cruise up a fairly mild trail. And Jody Potter,
in his "Outback-Equipped" 1972 FJ40, idled up the trails with ease. |
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Gary Don and his yellow V8-Powered FJ40 drove in from Arkansas to attend the event. |
And Dave Rising and son Josh drove down from Edmond, Oklahoma the morning of the event. Dave's
FJ40 is powered by a GM 350 with a SM420 transmission.
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Robert Waters surveys ahead looking for a safe route through the off-camber situation coming up
for Jody Potter. |
Jody then made it look easy for the rest of the guys behind him. The "pucker-
factor" wasn't as bad as it looked.
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Lance Van Tuyle and Robert Waters attempt to guide Dave Rising through a narrow route around
some boulders. |
Robert Waters attempting to climb "Hummer Loop",
which is much more steep in person than in
pics. |
There is a small ledge half-way up that causes traction loss, especially on the wet
Oklahoma clay.
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Determined to make it up, Robert reels out the winch. |
The inset shows what not to use when attaching the winch line to a tree. I'm not sure what this
strap's rating was, but it snapped at the height of pulling Robert's FJ40 up the ledge that was
giving him trouble. As a safety-precaution, member Bret Van Tuyle draped his Carhartt jacket
over the winch line prior to its breaking to help reduce backlash of the high-tensioned wire
rope line. It worked as nobody was injured when the line snapped.
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Randy and Gary Don tried their luck on the trail "TSOB", which is a 5+ rated trail, and is even
harder when it is all wet! |
Randy Underwood's FJ40 with 35 inch Super Swamper tires makes rockcrawling look easy. His rig
has a GM 350 engine, and has an SM465 tranny, and is locked both front and rear. Randy's rig,
since it is a 1970, retains its stock vacuum FWD engaging/disengaging button, which I noticed
Randy used quite a bit when having to turn sharp corners. That is something Toyota got right on
late 60's and early 70's FJ40's!
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Randy didn't quite make it, but that didn't stop Gary from trying |
After he got to this huge ledge-type boulder obstacle Gary got out to survey his next move (you
can see Gary Don's legs behind the right front wheels), while Randy, sitting in the passenger
seat, applies the brakes. Everyone else just looked on and played "spotter".
Continued in Part II ...
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