This past weekend was Texas Rovers’ annual SCARR(South Central America Rover Rally) event held at Barnwell Mountain in northeast Texas. About 80 trucks turned up for a weekend of wheeling, eating, drinking, and socializing.
Thursday afternoon we in the Austin chapter hooked up with folks from the San Antonio chapter and started the 6 hour long trek to our nirvana. We weren’t allowed to go wheeling Thursday because the park was offically closed. They were nice enough to let us in early to setup camp though. After camp was set up before sunset we had nothing to do. Well, nothing to do but drink and play loud offensive music. We did this well past midnight.
Friday started our first real play day. We started off with a few easy trails to get limber and wait for hangovers to settle down and aspirin to kick in. Our first tough trail was one called Polititian. Supposedly a 3 diamond trail. (Trails out there are rated from 1-4 diamonds. Our trucks should be able to easily handle any 3 diamond and some 4 diamonds.) Last year this trail ate 4 trucks. Bent trailing arms were the order of the day then. Only one out of 7 trucks made the climb without damage or being winched last year. We wanted revenge. We kind of got it. We did get all the trucks that wanted to try up the last pitch. No damage other than hurt pride of those that needed winching. I, sadly, was one of those.
It doesn’t look like much but that’s a 2 foot ledge hiding in the shadows under my truck and those holes dug out in front of my truck made for a traction nightmare. Gaze upon my shame.
Chris’s D-90 earned a couple bruises on Clyde’s Ravine here.
Here’s Chris conquering Twister. We were looking at it deciding if we’d make it. Right then a Rubicon driver walks up and said he made it but didn’t think we could. We took the challenge and made it up without problem. And without lockers. Screw you, Jeep dude.
Scott’s Disco playing on a tight trail. Cleared the tree by about an inch.
One of the chapter members is a chef and hooked us up. He helped us perpetuate the Land Rover driver image. We had folks wandering over from other camps asking what we were cooking and we’d lift the lid on 15 lobster tails and stacks of ribeyes. They’d look back at their hotdog and nearly cry. For lunch the next day it was bacon-wrapped filet mignon and caviar. That’s how we roll, bitch
Waiting to start trail runs.
After breakfast I volunteered to lead a trail run. I had about 8 trucks in my group and we hit a few 3-diamond trails. I’d go through first then spot them coming after me. There’s nothing more nerve-racking then being soley responsible for someone’s $60K truck coming down a tough trail. If they follow your directions and something goes wrong that damages their truck, or worse hurts someone, you’d never forgive yourself. Luckily the worst thing to happen under my lead was some scratches from trailside branches.
Particularly hairy trail called Binder Boulevard. I hadn’t run it before leading a group down it. I ran it without a spotter and came close to rolling two different times. I’m still picking pieces of seat cushion out of my ass. Sadly there are no pics of my run. After watching some of the more hardy trucks struggle down this, 1/2 the crew decided to take a pass and head in for lunch. Pussies.
Even old SeriesIIs came out to play.
Descent of right side of Sierra Skyview. After I finished my run my spotter, Chris, who talked me into doing the run, said there was no way in hell he’d do it. Fucker. This was probably the scariest run all weekend. The hill was so steep that you were constantly on the edge of losing traction and going barreling downhill. This was evidenced by the scars on trees and tire marks running off randomly into the forest.
Bone stock LR3/Disco3. This thing still had the sticker in the window. They had bought it only 3 days earlier I believe. They had been sticking to bunny trails and we convinced them to follow us down a 3-diamond trail to show them what their trucks can really do. After an hour with us they were already talking about what upgrades they were going to buy. Someone somewhere owes us some commisions.
If you ever wanted a better look at a Defender suspension, here you go. My next mod is to replace those wimpy ass trailing arms.
Joe’s Disco grabbing air.
And I didn’t enter.
All in all a good weekend. Hanging out and getting stupid in our trucks was a blast and the food and drink couldn’t have been better. My truck earned a few battle scars(dented slider and brush guard and scratches from trees) but performed flawlessly. No one had any major mechanical problems and everyone was able to leave under their own power on Sunday. In most cases these trucks are people’s daily drivers and it takes balls to go throw them around on trails on a weekend like this.
Friday night I got home from work and started ripping out the old stuff. There were two layers of the stuff there and we attacked it with small chisels and a giant tile scraper. Pulling up the 25 year old bottom layer took nearly 3 hours.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to start laying the new tile. We decided to run to Lowe’s to grab some accent tiles to compliment the new tile. We figured without the accents the floor would be rather boring. After planning out what the pattern would look like I realized my little hand operated tile cutter wasn’t going to be up to the task. The pattern called for every single tile to be cut in some way. We rented a large wet saw to do all the cutting. Without it we’d have never gotten things done.
We had a good system going. I’d cut the tile, my wife would lay the mortar, and my son would lay and space the tile. Laying all the tile took us about 3-4 hours. After using the tile saw all day I decided I’ve got to get myself one of those.
This morning we woke up and got around to doing the grout. This only took us about another hour. After all the cleaning and such was done we ended up with what we thought was a pretty damn good job. I’ve done tile work before and actually enjoy doing it. I guess if things don’t work out in the IT career path then I’ve got a backup.
