Dunefest 2005

[Raptorchick]

Winchester Bay is a small town located on the scenic Oregon Coast, just a few miles south of Reedsport. The area offers a variety of activities to keep tourists busy, such as fishing, horseback riding, and beach combing, but the real reason people flock to this small town, if for the dunes. Winchester is where you will find some of the tallest sand dunes on the west coast and plays host to the annual Dunefest celebration.

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This year’s Dunefest was put on by Alba Action Sports and Fullbore Innovations and was held from July 27th – Aug. 1st. This was our first time at Dunefest and we weren’t sure what to expect, but we were looking forward to it. We pulled into Winchester early Tuesday afternoon. One of the first sights you see coming into Winchester, is Salmon Harbor.

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Looking across the harbor, we could see that the RV parks were already starting to fill up.

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After getting our camping permits and event passes, everyone in our group was anxious to get out and ride, so we quickly set up camp and hit the dunes. The weather wasn’t too bad…Well, maybe it was a little windy. Here you can see the sand drifting off of one of the bigger dunes.

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The views from some of the taller dunes are incredible.

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One of the most frequented parts of the dunes at Winchester, is Banshee Hill.

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I’m told that Banshee Hill isn’t as steep as it used to be a few years ago, but it seems that there is always a large number of riders gathered at the base, waiting for their turn at the hillclimb.

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While at Banshee Hill, one of the rescue vehicles came cruising by. It’s definitely the coolest rescue vehicle I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, it was put to good use over the course of the week.
Winchester is notorious for razorbacks and with all the wind and drifting sand, it made it all the more difficult to see if you were coming up on one. These razorbacks claimed a number of unsuspecting victims over the week, including myself. I was luckier than most and walked away with nothing more than a bruised ego.

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After our ride, we decided to head over to vender row and check out some of the vendors that had arrived early. Looney Tuned Exhaust (LTE Racing) made the trek up from Redwood Valley, CA.

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There were lots of other vendors, including LRD Performance, Elka Suspension, Trail Tech, and Warn Industries. One of the most eye catching displays was at the Cascade Innovations booth. They had two of the nicest Banshees I have ever seen. Photos do not do these quads justice…

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This is an up close view of the custom paint job on the gas tank...

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This is the other Cascade Innovations quad...

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Here's the front view...

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Here's an upclose view of the hood...

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Here's another eye catcher that also competed later on at the drag races.

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After checking out the vendors, we went back to riding.
This is Chris, one of the guys in our group, showing off his wheelie skills for the camera.

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Unfortunately, he still needs to work on those wheelies.

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Later that afternoon, the fog and clouds started to roll in.

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The fog hung around all night. The next morning it was cold and gray. We were hoping it would clear up a bit, but by late morning, things still weren’t looking so good.

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We’ve been to Winchester several times before, and the weather has always been rather uncooperative. Since there were no events scheduled for Wednesday, we decided to load up the quads and go a little further south to Coos Bay for the day, in hopes that the weather would be nicer.
We headed down to Horsfalls staging area, at the southern most end of the dunes, just outside of Coos Bay. This is the bridge you have to cross going into the town of Coos Bay. As you can see, the weather was much better.

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If you like to jump, Horsfalls is one of the best places for finding jumps.
This is Dan and Travis hitting a small jump.

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After spending the day at Coos Bay, we headed back to Winchester hoping the weather would clear up. No such luck. Thursday morning was cold, cloudy and wet. We were supposed to be hooking up with X-Factor Video later that day to do some filming over the weekend during Dunefest. We were really hoping that the weather would not interfere. This is what it looked like all day Thursday…

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Friday morning the fog finally began to lift.

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Friday morning the guys were equipped with helmet cams.

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After the cameras were attached, they were turned loose to get some first person footage of Dunefest.

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More and more people started to show up Friday. Not only were there lots of quads, but there were lots of buggies and sand rails as well.

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This was the scene just outside of our camp site.

[Dan_Guetter]

Originally posted by raptorchick
Friday morning the guys were equipped with helmet cams.


LOL...Jerry's all moto'd out.....

[Raptorchick]

Later that day we went back to vendor row to check out more booths.
There were a lot more vendors of all types there, including mini choppers.

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The "Got Sand?" booth had lots of t-shirts and other kinds of clothing to choose from.

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XXX Racing provided some pretty quad "accessories".

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Soon it was time to head over to the Alba stage for the Bomb Squad freestyle show. When we got there, Ryan Bemis and Sheldon Riggs were checking out their landing area before they hit the ramp.

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This is the Bomb Squad waiting to warm up for the show.

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The next few shots are of the the Bomb Squad in action...

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This is one of my favorite shots from the show.

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One of my favorite tricks is the holyman.

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The Bomb Squad put on three shows throughout the weekend.