Little Sahara Report March 11th

[DaleJrFan]

Man was that a crappy weekend!! We left my house at 5am and got there at 7 and ready to ride when I discovered that my brother-in-laws quad had a flat on the front, no big deal, aired it up but low in behold, had a bad bead on the rim, still no sweat, quick trip to Jims and back in business. Got back to the dunes and ready to go but another little set back, all of our riding gear was locked up in one big box and the key was nowhere to be found. Well the key ring with all the keys for the locks(which included the tool box) was left at my house back in Piedmont, so its not like we can get in the toolbox to get tools to break the lock for our riding gear(my bro-in-law learned a good lesson here about keeping up with keys). Once again minor set back, the people next to us were the best, loaned up a pair of big wrenches and in a couple of seconds, no locks to be found on our gear. Time to rip it up, head out and get a hour of riding when we discover that the drag strip was getting busy. After a couple of runs, we sit there and watch some really nice banshee's and one hot pink 450 stroker tear it up. Make our rounds to the LS powersport stores when luckily(well not really lucky,but...)the chain pops off by bro's quad at the store where they fix stuff, once again we were having to resort to begging and borrowing tools to put the chain on since our tools were at the truck in the north campground, Donnie loaned us the tools to put the chain back on and we decided to head back and get a coke and take a break. Well on the way back the chain got really, really loose again and started popping really, really loud, upon further investigation, the carrier bearings had come out of both sides on the axle and that caused the chain to go crazy, and we were right in the middle of the big dunes to top it off. He milked her back to the truck and parked the quad that seemed to just not want to be rode at the dunes that weekend. I felt sorry for him cause he is very good at keeping his quad in tip top shape, so he was taking it pretty hard that he was having this string of bad luck, but it gets worse. After a quick snack, we head back out with my trusty steed and him now on his dirt bike when we want to get a little froggy and want to start getting some air time. Start out on a smaller dune working our way up a nice lip with a perfect landing which we jumped several times when for some reason my clutch cable broke, damn, my brother-in-laws bad luck was spreading. Sprint to the guy there right by the gate in the little trailer who sells whips and fire wood and wow, he had a new cable for my bike, 15 minutes later and we are heading back out, just a little hic-up in my day, so far. Went back through the gate and was riding hard through the whoops when I started to smell a strong scent of exaust, I just thought it was my bro's dirtbke in front of me but I was wrong, I will get to that in a minute. We make our way back to the lip we were just jumping when my bro gets some nice air but lands, gets wobbly and lays the bike over. He just hit that jump 7 or 8 times and had no problems, so just a freak thing, not with his luck, he blew out a fork seal and dumped all the fluid down the shock, now the dirt bike is dead in the water plus he when he layed it over, he hurt his shoulder pretty good. Well it wasn't even noon and we were having a pretty crappy Saturday, what next. Well I will tell you what next, we decided to pack it up and go home since he was down both his rides and I had already replaced a clutch cable, but no way was we leaving with out one more thing to go wrong, the exaust smell I was talking about earlier, well it got real bad on return trip so I started to investigate when sure enough, it was my bike! For some reason, both exaust studs on the right port had vibrated out and were completely missing. The flange was still in place for some reason so I looked closer thinking they were there invisible or I was crazy but nope, they were gone and the stick I found to poke around with loosened the flange and now the head pipe had just enough of a gap between the exaust port and the pipe that it sucked alot of air between Buttercup(where I broke down and the truck). I changed the oil on Thursday and didn't notice the obvious,but I learned a valuable lesson on preventive maintenance,double check everything. We loaded up and tore out of there like we were running from the law or something.

What a trip, 3 broke rides, 2 severly burised egos, and 1 long trip home. I saw OKTRX and RedRiders trailers and was wanting to ride with both of yall but there was now way I was spreading our bad luck to someone else. The weather was great and I hope everyone else had a good time.

Steve

[DaleJrFan]

Oh yeah, after the day we had(see above), we went to eat at the mexican cafe at the train depot in town,(that food is irresitable no matter how bad of a day you have), when the waitress told us that there was a guy killed on the dunes Friday night. She said he was on a big utility with his 2 sons following him when he went over a big dune too fast and it flipped on to him. Does anyone else know anything else? When I hear some thing like that , it makes all my problems go away knowing the loss his sons had to wittness.

[Bradracer18]

Hey what's up. I was down there this weekend, friday and saturday. We were parked right south of the main entrance, on the west side there. We had a red truck, and big white enclosed trailer. We had quite a few ute quads.....some KTM dirtbikes, and some Predators. Anyways, did you happen to borrow a file from us?? Just wondering if that was you, when you said you messed up the axle carrier(a guy told us that exact same thing).


Pretty busy weekend though.......I was on a grey pred....lots of paddles, suspension,etc.



The guy was from Iowa(northern)......and I guess the quad landed on him, and I think broke his neck......real bad deal, hope his family is ok, and wish them the best.

[throwinsparx]

any fast 4 strokes this last weekend

[Titanium]

I heard there was a girl on a Tricked out YFZ 450 beatin everybody 2 weekends ago. my friend wrecked and broke his hand down there that weekend too cus he came over a dune and landed in a fence. anybody see him. he was on a 400ex with an HMF exhaust on it.

[tar]

what was the sand like

[Bradracer18]

Friday the sand was very weird.....never seen it like that before. I had just rained the night before. The top layer of sand was hard, but below was very soft and powdery. Didn't take long, and all of the sand became powder. The dunes were very razor like......made for good jumping....but probably good wrecks for some too.



I didn't see any fast 4 strokes, a few fast banshees though. One shee with a wheelie bar though he was real fast, and was winning. Then, a smaller shee(not stretched) came out, and put him to shame......it was funny! I dragged some, and I could beat some yfz's and other preds. There were a few yfz's that I couldn't touch too.

[DaleJrFan]

Yeah, I was impressed with some of the Banshees. I met a guy from Elk City,OK that a Honda 520 stroker that was hot pink. His wife dragged it a couple of times and smoked everything but the really tricked out banshees, then he got on it and smoked some good bikes.

[kssandduner]

The guy on the pink bike is the one that had the bad wreck on saturday. Here is a video clip I found of the wreck on the planet sand site. The wreck is at the end of the clip. http://kutsujumedia.com/mediapost/data/559/flats_crash_03_11_06.wmv
I don't recall seeing the pink bike. Do you know where they were camped at?

Joe

[OKTRX450R]

DaleJr...WOW! That was really Murphy's Law for you...thanks for not spreading the bad luck! At least you got the bad trip for the year over with and nothing but good times to look forward to now!

We saw the pink bike, seemed pretty fast compared to the other 4 strokes...until the cart wheels it did. We did not see what caused the wreck on the drag strip, just saw the cart wheels. The guy riding it was on the ground for a long time and then was taken in on the back of another ATV. I hope he is OK...bike did not look so good.

[kazpr]

Ya I was there the past weekend also. Actually luckily for me it was one of my best trips there.

I was with the guy with the drag banshee with wheelie bar. That is the first time he rode it in 3 years. He is having some serious clutch issues. The bike is Dynoed @ just around 165hp runs on methanol and is turbo.

The pink 450r looked fast!

Hopefully your next trip will be better and be safe and god bless the family of the other guy :(

[davidds]

Hey I was just wondering what the temperature was like there. Me and my friends were planning on driving up from cedar around that time but a couple weeks ago at dumont I had about the same amount of luck as you guys and wrecked my 4 wheeler and seperated my shoulder. So now im in pretty good condition but we just got like 1.5ft of snow a couple days ago. so just wondering what the weather was like there.

[DaleJrFan]

I pulled up to the drag strip and the girl on the pink 450 parked next to us and we talked to them for awhile. She went out there and out run some banshees but her husband told us she was scared of it. Then he jumped on it and cause of those balloon tires it was kinda bouncy, guess I left before the wreck.

My bad luck hopefully is all gone but what goes around comes around. I have had so many great trips to the dunes with no problems I cant complain, but everytrip is different.

You can go to Waynoka.com and click the weather link and it is accurate and up to date.

[icecold_shee]

dale, im headed up next wknd, prob on thurs for the banshee hq ride, let me know if your gonna be there

[GoOn3]

wow! what a video.
what did that guy hit? it's like he just 'popped' up and flipped over forward. I can't understand how someone does that????? anybody actually see it?

[DaleJrFan]

When I was talking to him and his wife, she said that the balloon tires were real rough and I was watching him bounce pretty good while dragging, he probably just got to bouncing and flipped it.

Icecold, I wish I could make it but I wont be heading back till at least May. Got alot of stuff going on at work so I am going to stick to the OKC area for a little while.