Just got back from Stoddard, had a great time..... well maybe myself and Brian did. I would imagine that Jorge and Fred did too, except for breakage, Fred's rear air locker wouldn't engage and Jorge broke something inside his tranny. We think Jorge's clutch fork snapped or something happened to his slave cylinder but since there was a loud metal snapping sound we don't think it's the slave. He couldn't get the clutch to disengage after that point and he was just starting down a long steep off angle hill.  I guess he was trying to feather his clutch as he approached and something inside just snapped. Fortunately for Jorge this occurred directly above our camp site as we were coming back from Ackey-Breaky........ OH YES I DID do Acky-Breaky in the little Toyota that could.

SATURDAY: That's right your eyes are not deceiving you, I did Ackey-Breaky on 31's and stock gearing.  It was rough, it was tough and I sweated my  &$$ off working my way through but I made it without a scratch.... well except for my front right fender got pushed in a little on a large rock. Other than that I made it through un-scaved.... except for my right-rear marker light. I had my reservations at first but then I remembered that Paul Acosta did it without a low-low gear. At that point my only fear was my lift or lack of lift and sitting on 31's, so I said aw what the  $#@@ and headed up. No real problem at all...... oh wait one more bit of damage to report, my rear bumper has been rearranged a little too.

Fred tried a line that some of you may remember, it is a V-notch about half way up, unfortunately that's when he discovered his rear-end was not locked up and it took some skill to back out of the position he was in. About 15 mins. and we had him out and he finished the trail without any rear locker. Brian decided against this route but I talked Jorge into trying it since he was wider and also has a longer WB. Got some great pics of this, Jorge walked right through, Jorge was even impressed with his new set-up.

While Fred and I were trying to figure out what was up with his locker we happened to look up to see Brian's Sammi standing straight up in the air. It seems that Brian decided to take the right route to the top which requires you to climb a vertical ledge and he was quickly running out of WB but Jorge was guiding him and advising him he was about to come down. He did with a big thud, but he did get through at that point, but you could tell Brian "Didn't like it".

Fred in the "V Notch" 1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5 Jorge in the "V Notch" Brian Ron Ron Fred Fred Left to Right, Ron, Brian, Jorge, and Fred