Its early on beautiful Sunday morning and my buddy and I roll in to A Zee and its quiet, not a soul around. We make our way across the pit area and up to the top of the little cliff, throw it in park and kill the ignition. I roll my window down and take in the fresh crisp clean air. Man I love it here way out in the country. We have nothing to do but kill time so out comes the First Aid kit, in it is some fine indoor "tobacco" ready for us. As we sit there in silence taking in the view I start thinking. I've finally got my own Wheelin' rig and I've found my off road paradise and I've been coming out here for a few months now and I've seen some rigs do some really cool stuff but I have never really put my truck to the test. Maybe today will be the day! After a while I decide to take a slow cruse down to the lower mud hole and find a good place to park so I can see all the action right from my seat. The trail down to the lower hole is rocky and the little Ranger with its tiny Twin Traction Beam front axle doesn't handle the boulders too well. So we're bouncing back and fourth as we make our way down the trail. When you get to the bottom there is a small brook crossing that is a runoff area from the hole. I slide the lever back into 4HI and drop into it. The water level is high today and I am pressured to use a little skinny pedal to make it across. We made it just fine except for the wet pant leg I get from the water roosting up through the holes in the floor but that's ok, it's a Ford thing right. After the brook crossing the trail goes up a short steep embankment and veers sharp right opening up to the area known as the Lower Hole. Now the Lower Hole is sort of like an arena, the cleared side area is gradually sloped from the tree line down to the water line. So the higher up you park the better view you get. We find a nice spot at the top where trucks usually use as a starting line when getting a good run at it. After a few minutes we hear the sound of some other trucks rolling in, nice, the show begins. First guy up around the corner is a dude called Ol' Redneck, he's from the Carolina's and runs a pretty nice early 90's model Toyota pick up. Its lifted 6", geared, locked, 35" Swampers and the guy new how to drive it! He was one of the wise as*es out there, the type of guy who would make fun of everyone but be the first to jump in and hook up a chain to lend a hand. Behind him was a few more of the regulars, John, Prinney, and Stone. Stone is the guy who owned the Chevy I mentioned in the previous tale, his pockets are bottomless but his friendship is endless. To this day one of the nicest guys I know! Well following these guys in is this dark green old New Hampshire Forestry Department truck. Its bone stock with all terrain tires on it. Wouldn't you know he was the first one to line up to hit the hole.
So the guy pulls up to the edge of the water and sits there as if he's sizing up a giant. His truck clunks as he pulls it into 4LO. Still no movement. We wait for what seems like an eternity as he reaches deep down and musters up the balls it takes to hit a hole you know could swallow you. Then without warning he guns the throttle, the motor screams as he stuffs it to the floorboards. The truck takes off into the mud, determined to show everyone that this old Chevy has what it takes to conquer the baddest mud hole in Southern New Hampshire. He makes it in about one truck length and forward momentum can no longer hold out. Mud flies up off the all terrains as best it could and the truck began to sink. Like a rock! Way past the rocker panels, up over the tires, and it finally came to rest about four or five inches below the door handles. He let off the accelerator slowly and a steady blub, blub, blub, could be heard as the exhaust bubbled away. Out of nowhere Ol' Redneck starts hollering, something about not knowing how to drive and welcome to the bottom of the hole.
Now the task of getting him out began. Ol' Redneck is the first to give it a try. He backs down to the truck and hooks a chain, hops in his Toyota, drops it into 1st gear 4LO and yells out "GO!" and nails it. Both trucks come alive, roaring and tearing as best they could but to no avail. The Forestry truck didn't budge. John is next to try. He backs down and hooks a chain. Now John's truck is a bit bigger than Ol' Redneck's. Actually quite a bit bigger. Its a 73 Chevy, lifted about eight inches rolling on forty inch by 15 inch Gumbo Monster Mudders. He was packing a 400ci SBC and locked up one ton axles. John has a reputation of not knowing when enough is enough so after about five or six tries he decides he wants to try it in reverse. So he turns around and hooks it up to the D ring on the front. He pulls the front tires down into the mud giving the chain a lot of slack. He pushes in the clutch, slides it into reverse, guns it, and side-steps the clutch. The truck rips backwards at an alarming speed. The chain goes from slack to full tilt instantly and before anyone could blink an eye it snaps! It is at that moment it hits me... I am directly in the line of fire! John's truck is now heading full throttle straight at my Ranger! My truck was pulled in forward with the bed facing the mud hole so I could sit on the roof and watch. John tries to stop in time but old Chevy brakes have a tough time stopping forty inch tires and I jumped off the side just in time to see his rear bumper make contact with the top of my tailgate. He flew out of his truck in a panic, asking if I was ok, which I was. My truck however suffered some damage. The tailgate had a nice dent across it and both tail lights were smashed out of it. John was extremely apologetic. He went over to his truck and reached in and grabbed a twelve pack of beer and handed it to me and said that it was mine now. He also handed me three hundred dollars in cash even though I tried to refuse it telling him I would probably not get it fixed anyways but he insisted I take it for the damage, so I did.
Now it was on! My truck suffered it's first damage out at A Zee and I didn't even cause it. So I went all out. A group of us headed for the upper hole, the one with the hill climb at the end. I watched a few guys go through it and as they went the ruts got deeper. I was running the smallest tires out of everyone but I didn't care, I was ready to go all out. So I lined up at the far end and stared it down. I gripped the steering wheel with the intensity of a man possessed. When I hit the gas the little 2.8L protested in the form of a cloud of dark blue smoke. But it went! It went right in to that mud hole and I just stuffed that pedal all the way to the radiator and held it down as hard as I could. I could not see out the windows for the amount of mud that was building up on everything. As we came up to the deepest part I hit a rut and hit it hard! The truck took a skyward leap and everything went into slow motion. I remember thinking ooooooohhhhhhhhh sssssshhhh******ttttttt!!!! as both of us came up off the seat, it was like zero gravity for an instant. When the truck landed it landed hard and because we were both in the air when it did we crashed together. I found myself jammed up against the drivers door and my buddy was driving! I just yelled "jam it!" and he did. We didn't make it up the hill climb and after we got ourselves back into the proper seats I ended up burying the Ranger as deep as I could. I was pulled right out but the laughter and pats on the back from everyone made it well worth it. I had finally given my Wheelin' rig a proper initiation. It may have been the smallest truck there, and the biggest P.O.S. out of all the rigs that visited A Zee on a regular basis but I had proven that it had what it takes to give it a damn good shot at the hole the big boys play in. I was proud of the old beater.
nice, good writing..
Thought it was gonna end with a chain snapping and killing u. Or maybe cutting someone in half. loll
Great story! (but never pull with a chain) use straps!
Quote from: KORNBREAD on October 13, 2011, 05:47:23 AM
Great story! (but never pull with a chain) use straps!
This was over ten years ago, no one even knew what a strap was. We used chains.
nice