Four times a year, the Big Dogs Off-Road Park hosts two and three day hard-core four wheeling events. Big Dogs is a 3,000 acre mountainous area in Gore, Virginia and offers 92 trails. These trails range from beginner and stock vehicle, to intermediate, advanced, and extreme trails. This past September, along with their annual Main Jambo Grand Slam East Event, they hosted the 13th Annual Virginia State Rock Crawl Challenge.
Situated in the historic Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, tucked between the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Allegheny Mountains on the west, this region of Virginia is packed with history and events. The Valley is the birth place of Country Music Hall of Famer, Patsy Cline, and it is renowned for its numerous Bluegrass and Folk festivals, as well as spectacular subterranean caverns. It is recognized as a regional wine-producing leader in the Eastern U.S., and for the Civil War buff, there are historic plantations, battlefield reenactments, monuments, and extensive archival resources of the war.
The first day of this three-day Big Dog event was spent trail riding, or rather, rock crawling through less than a mile long rock gardens. On a run called Corum, a wheeler named Edward Salas told me, "Once you start a run like this, you're committed. This is like the ultimate chess game, to succeed, you have to look and plan six moves ahead whereas most people plan two moves." Ed drove his '04 TJ with a 2" Rocky Road lift, 1" body lift and 33" BFG's with great finesse.
On a little off-shoot on the way out of Corum, our group stopped to play on a couple of unnamed obstacles. With a sweet 3.4 Litre V6, 4.88 ARB geared Suzuki climbing on one side and a FJ40 with an Advance Adapters Rock Box with a 3.44 reduction gear and 37" SSR tires climbing on the other side, it was a nice flexing session for this group of diehards, until...Fran Bitzan's FJ40 succumbed to the slickness of the damp, mossy covered boulders and rolled over. Fran quickly climbed out of his rig and joked, "I had to get one [a roll] over with, I'll take that one!" Within two minutes, a quickly assembled group of half a dozen guys rolled the FJ right side up and a quick damage assessment confirmed somewhat minor damages. We proceeded to the next run called Trickle.
Trickle was another long and challenging rock garden which required constant alertness. There was just enough water to keep it super slick; you couldn't let your guard down for a second. Trail guide Matt Corum told me, "The trick to Trickle is no brakes and no clutch, otherwise it beats you up." Because of a constant flow of stream water and a damp canopy, this rocky stream is full of fern-clad rocks, black rotted trees, and the exposed shiny roots of Maples. Trickle transitioned to a steeply descending rock garden called Wahoo, which as the name implies, necessitated the lowest gear available. Wahoo was a holiday, until we got to Sissy where I overheard someone say, "Sissy gives whole new meaning to Big Dogs or Bust!" This trail had a seemingly endless amount of rocks, capturing the essence of Big Dogs.
Day one ended with a pre-dusk Turtle Race where I had the cheek to challenge a friends' '73 FJ40 with my Rubicon. He was smug as we drove to the competitor's field. My Rubicon's 4:1 low-gear could have crawled circles around the FJ as it crept along in a straight line with its excruciatingly slow 207:1 gear ratio. Certainly 4:1 gearing is not the hot set-up for this type of competition. I was the clear loser.
That night was the Mud Pit run. Shortly after nightfall, with generators running full tilt, the mud bogging began amidst the sounds of firecrackers and boisterously loud yells offering advice to the competitors. The noise level of the spectators was only exceeded by the roar of the engines when they slammed into the mud. With a purse of $350, this event was taken seriously and numerous attempts were made by several competitors. The mud caked rig that succeeded in clawing though the muck was unidentifiable, and a spirited discussion ensued trying to determine whether it was an old CJ or a Willy's. It turns out this tough mud runner was in fact a '78 CJ7, 258 6-cylinder on propane, with Dana 44 & Dana 60 axles, and 38 x 15.50 Swampers owned by the jubilant winner, Bryan "Otter" Whaley.
Day two was the Virginia State Rock Crawling Championship. There were four classes: Stock, Modified, Super Modified and All Classes. The competitors have to follow basic rules and points are given out for backing up, stopping, touching gates (cones), use of tools (such as winches), time outs, break downs, and exceeding the allotted time limit. A large accumulation of points is undesirable.
The Stock Class began at the bottom of Extreme Crawlers Trail. This proved to be an ugly run for the single locker stockers, who were confronted with fresh rain on moss-covered rocks. First time competitor, Kyle Coyne accepted the challenge to compete against his stepfather, Burton Simonds. This was Kyle's fifth time offroading and he showed exceptional ability to stay calm, cool, and collected as he completed all three courses. With four and a half minutes remaining, he dared to attempt the bonus run at the end of the Bunny Trail, which was part of the Modified and Super Modified courses. Unlucky for Kyle, the bumper shackles of his TJ became imbedded in a tree four inches from the finish line. It took two winches to extract him from that angle, which ultimately cost him first place...not that it mattered to this young competitor, he still placed second and was stoked that he did it at all! After all was said and done, Kyle's mom told me, "I have about 10 pictures total since I either had my eyes closed or my head buried in Burton's shoulder." It was mom's Jeep that Kyle was driving!
This year's All Classes course was laid out by Big Dogs Trail Boss, Eugene Rose and Crawl Magazine's Editor-in- Chief, Tim Piele. This naturally rough-hewn rock pile course was so tough, some competitors could not even get past an inescapable diff catcher situated right before the starting gate. The recovery vehicle's winch was used once or twice on this unintentional obstacle and ultimately, only one TJ and a few buggies proved capable of overcoming this barrier. Once past the first gate, there was a tight ravine obstacle that wasn't much easier to surpass than the infamous high-centering dif catcher.
A gray Toyota buggy driven by a competitor named Mike kept getting stuck in this rocky ravine between a rock and a large stump. You could feel the heat of his exhaust from the power he exuded the countless times he tried to pull out of this tight spot. Ultimately, when his rig finally went on its side, he made an awesome recovery by turning those big tires and driving right up and out of that tight squeeze. It was a remarkable thing to see.
Next on the schedule of events was the Saturday night door prizes donated by Big Dog sponsors. There were fireworks, a bon-fire, and a local band. There was a lot of enthusiasm in this crowd as they mocked a battle scene with glow sticks, jammed to the music, and applauded the winners of the Rock Crawling competition.
On the third day, many were packing up early and heading home. Our group ran a couple of trails called Cobra and Winch that offered a few slippery challenges. We stopped for lunch and found ourselves pelted by a curious dropping of acorns. It was downright comical that this fearless bunch would high-tail it because of this airborne assault from the trees...we didn't stay long for lunch. A short while later, we called it quits and headed back to camp.
Big Dogs is a good time. The organizer of this annual event is John Hunt and if you need more excitement, he offers a Survival Training course that John told me, "Is not regularly scheduled as not that many people are physically up to it. There are two kinds of Survival Training, one where you want to be found, and the other where you don't want to be found. Successful completion of John Hunt's Survival Training is like life insurance."
For more information, you can check out his website at www.bigdogsoffroad. com.
