2007 HOBIE TRAVELS

a2b · Post by **a2b** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:59 pm

well, for those of you who asked about what trips i have been on:

i won the FTOY championship last year. and i became a Tin Bender and i won that Red/Blue Blue Torch Fab internship. all in all, it was a big year. if any of you picked up any issues of crawl magazine last year, i was in a3 of them and thank you to who all here who voted for me!!! i benefitted alot from that experience.

well this year has been just as big. i started off the year making a deal with my spnosor that would put me up in the top 10 percent of rockcrawlers with big sponsorhip deals.

per trail-gear. the buggy got some new guts. brand new motor, propane kit, tanks, drivelines, some cool fab work. etc...

check out this page of my buildup thread to see the clear propane tanks. they are pretty cool.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569491

well this years first competition was exhibition. its called Put Up or Shut Up. its an annual event where werock makes extremely hard courses in congress AZ. its a place where leaf spring, no cutting brakes, and small hp motors should not go. so naturally, i was there, lol. i beat the crap out of my rig. here are some pics

http://www.onthemarqphotos.smugmug.com/ ... 9300#P-3-9

then in feb. i went to vegas for the first points competition. i ran my rig on the 1 lbs propane coleman bottles. everyone got a kick out of it, lol. but we had an unfortunate accident with a banner which put us so far behind, i couldnt come back from the deficit. so we got 4th.

here are some pics of that.

http://www.onthemarqphotos.smugmug.com/ ... #137326295

and at this vegas event, something crazy happend to me. it was the most elaborate prank ever pulled on me.

heres a vid on you tube
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=crawlintj

here's a pic of my demise

heres a good video that has the ending of the run

http://www.trail-gear.com/videos/tgtv20.wmv

here's the thread on pirate about it.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=558465

okay, now that i am recovering from that. i headed to TDS in ocotillo wells

image

and then San Felipe, Mexico for a week.

i camped on the beach for 7 days and did basically nothing. here are some awesome pics of the trip

http://www.tinbenders.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2486

http://www.tinbenders.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2504

last week i went to Globe, AZ and competed in the second event of the year where i finishe second. it was extremely close!

this year has been a starting over year. i had to get a new spotter because my last one started drivng himself. so its a building year, but i am happy with our results.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/gallery/werock_globe07/adx

right now, i just tore down my buggy and am installing new springs and shock plus other maintance. i am participateing in a race next friday that was invitation only. crawl mag will be there to cover it. its an endurance desert race mixed in with hard core rock crawling trails. only the top drivers in the nation are coming. so i feel real privaledged to be apar of the race.

WVHogRider · Post by **WVHogRider** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 4:23 am

I just love the "Coming Out" banner joke.

Actually, Very nice work Hobie!!

F9K9 · Post by **F9K9** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 5:40 am

Awesome, Hobie! Thanks for sharing with us

a2b · Post by **a2b** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:47 pm

i'll have to get some of my paniment valley photos. i was there a few weeks ago and we went inside the cave that still had the tracks and air hoses and ladders all inside of it. we found the silver in the rock they were mining. it was really cool

Jigg · Post by **Jigg** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:06 am

Wow dude, congrats on all your progress. I remember a few years ago when you were pumped to be one of the first to buy the chassis.

I'm amazed... great work man!

a2b · Post by **a2b** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:46 pm

Jigg wrote:Wow dude, congrats on all your progress. I remember a few years ago when you were pumped to be one of the first to buy the chassis.

I'm amazed... great work man!

pretty crazy hugh. alot has happend since then. alot.

quickbiker · Post by **quickbiker** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:18 pm

You having too much fun. Where do I sign up?

a2b · Post by **a2b** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 11:09 pm

quickbiker wrote:You having too much fun. Where do I sign up?

too much fun is also alot of work. i have been working round the clock to get my buggy ready for a endurance race friday. tommorrow, is the last prep day and i have sooo much to do, i wont get much sleep.

a2b · Post by **a2b** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 5:52 pm

well i finished the race under my own power which is sucess. try to pick up the next crawl magazine and you will see me in it for the race coverage. and what a fantastic start. shotgun start of 12 rigs accross the lake bed. anyways,

here's my story:

so me and mustard dog are laid back and we know we aint going to hang with the v-8 rock racers. so we let everyone start and then when the dust settled we went.

well, i could see the other ftoys in front of me, but they were slipping away, the geiger slipped away. my ftoy couldnt keep up with a sammy!

so we stopped and put the 1st case in low and tried that. still didnt work. i just didnt have any power. so here we are in the race going about 30 mph.

by the time we drop into the highway, the entire fleet is gone. so here's the problem. our plan was to just follow john james since he had the map, preran the course and he had the GPS and ham radio. we had nothing. dog has never been to outerlimits and i have only been once.

after makeing our own roads and finally finding the road to outerlimits. we had to stop because our tools were coming out, again. we couldnt even see the dust of the other rigs by now. so now i am completely guessing where we should go.

we pick a canyon and head for it. after crawling up it for about 10 minutes, i make the excutive descicsion that this isnt outerlimits. then we spend the next 10 coming back down and climbing up over a hill and we got way lucky. at the top, we could see scott ellinger at rob and alex at the start of the outerlimits next to the sign in book.

so we drop into the wash turn and go back to the start.. sign in, and then take off up the trail a good 30 mintues behind everyone. on the first obsitcle, i went to lock the rear and the arb line blew.

we were done and contemplated going home. then rob gave us a little heater hose and we shoved the arb line in it and it held pressure enough to lock the rear when we needed it to (but the compressor would run the whole time we had the rear on).

so rejuvinated, off we go. when we get to the first waterfall, we find 3 rigs and boy are we happy. geiger cant get up either way, jt taylor got denied and pulled off to let others go by, and we watched scott ellinger flale around on the right line diggin holes with his 40" maxxis for about 15 mintues.
i took the chance to air down some more and check things over. finally scott made it, and i jumped in before the others. i crawled the right line and didnt spin a tire. scott pulled over with a cut tire. i asked if he needed help and he said no, not unless you have plugs and CO2. well of coures i had this and i cant lie. so i stopped for about 20 minutes to help him. we put 6 plugs in got him going again. also, geiger winched on to us and pulled him self up over the waterfall. so off we go, with 2 rigs behind us that would be out of the race unless we were there.

we get to the top and we find some other rigs that were broke and we find a crowd and we are hammering down trying to catch john. only 1 problem. me and dog have never been to the top of outerlimits, nor do we have radios or GPS. we have no idea how to get to the end of aftershock.

so we fumble around until i found that car that i know is there and we got sooo lucky and found it. so we shoot down aftershock and then JR had setup rocks to know when to turn. had he not done this, i would have never finished the race.

so we haul to sunbonnet, jeremy catches us at the top of sunbonnet. but i take off and leave him in my dust, lol. i finish sun bonnet and dog and i are now really lost and we are hauling thru this wash hoping to find some clue that will lead us the next trail. and there john and brett are in the wash. we actually caught up with them.

they were a good 40 minutes ahead of us. so off we go, tied as a gentlement's agreement to be a team not leave each other behind. well we get to the sand hill and we have trouble getting up with our terrible wimpy motor.

we flatten the tires and crawled up the backside of sledge. then from there, me brett and john wheeled sledge and up jack where jeremy caught back up with us with LS1 and geiger caught up to us as well. now we have 5 rigs hauling ass. we all did jack in under 15 minutes and down jack north in about another 15 after john james winched jeremy off a huge rock.now here we all go up wrecking ball and what do we find. a pair of full size rigs at the entry gate!!!!!

of course dog starts yelling explicitves at them. and they pull over and they look startlted as 5 buggies in hi gear coming flying by them like a line of cars at talledega

my favorite part was brett who started up a convo with one of the guys as he climbed over his tire to get around him, lol. he asked what kind of truck he had, lol. anyways, at this point i rolled my rig right past them but then drove it back up on 4 wheels and put on a little show for the guys behind us. then we all headed up wrecking ball.
we were doing good but brett had a little trouble so we stopped to wait for him. so geiger went around us and john james and jeremy kept going. so brett catches up and we slowly get to the water fall. now scott ellinger has caught us.
things are now going alot more slowly in a group than when we were solo. well brett broke his front driveshaft and we were there to honor our agreement to help each other out. so we spend 2 hours pulling brett out to the top of claw.

by this time, we have given up 3 postions. and down claw we go, by now, the rock racer JT caught up to us and passed us. another position lost. then we heard metal crashing on the rocks. i look down and see 2 leaf springs on the ground, ah!

we brake both of the front centerpins on the front leafs. the actual perches were bent as well. so we limped home and still finished in about 6.5 hours i think. had i not helped anyone out, i would have finished 4th, lol. but thats okay, i couldnt just leave them there

F9K9 · Post by **F9K9** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:49 pm

That is so great just to participate in. Wish I had been in the forum when it was all starting. I do appreciate the write ups and know you will keep running better each time.

LonestarZ · Post by **LonestarZ** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:05 pm

great story... need to break that up into some paragraphs.