BklynH2 crashes Rover Rally in Virginia

[BKLYNH2]

Hey all last weekend I got to attend the mid atlantic rover rallye near Charlottsville Virginia. There were over 400 off road vehicles there. All rovers except for me. I got invited to come by a frien who writes and photographs for Land Rover World Magazine. After getting a little flack from some of the rover crowd for crashing there party the H2 and I earned their respect and friendship. I made alot of great friends and learned alot about driving in mud.

[BKLYNH2]

Hey all last weekend I got to attend the mid atlantic rover rallye near Charlottsville Virginia. There were over 400 off road vehicles there. All rovers except for me. I got invited to come by a frien who writes and photographs for Land Rover World Magazine. After getting a little flack from some of the rover crowd for crashing there party the H2 and I earned their respect and friendship. I made alot of great friends and learned alot about driving in mud.

[BKLYNH2]

Halfway in.

[BKLYNH2]

Shoulda hit it faster.

[BKLYNH2]

Had to resort to the winch. I need mega mud tires. http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

[BKLYNH2]

Here's my friend Jeff in the series 2 rover. He just pulled the series 1 rover out of the river.

[KenP]

Great pics. Looks like you had a great time in the Commonwealth.
Glad you went for the deep stuff. http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Black Lingenfelter Lux

[Zing]

Oh man what great photos, that's some serious mud.

When I first saw the thread headline I only read "Bklyn H2 crashes" and got nervous! http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

[BKLYNH2]

The trails were cut for land rovers not hummers

[Buckeye Hummer]

It looks like your up to your butt in mudd. This first pic is f'n wild. I'm not sure how deep that was but the way it was shot makes it look like it was completely undrivable. I vote for pic of the month.

Glad you got out, looks like the chain on the tree stayed there for many more.

[BKLYNH2]

Well it's getting late so I continue this tomorrow but I'll leave you with some pics of the more interesting rovers I saW.

[BKLYNH2]

THIS is actually a rover millitary vehicle.

[BKLYNH2]

This is as big a defender as you can get.

[BKLYNH2]

How about this for deluxe acommodations.

[BKLYNH2]

More H2 pics tomorrow. Hope we finally have a pic of the month comming because I don't know how more serious I can get,

[BKLYNH2]

Thanks for the vote Buckeye. I was the only one in my group that even tried the mud bath. It was almost exactly H2 sized if it were only larger I might have gotten a better run and got out of it without the winch.

[DURAMAX TIM]

Bklynh2, i got a set of General MT 35X12.5R-16.5 on white spoke rims for $540 but found out 2 days before our HH that the 16.5" steel wheels won't clear our brakes.
So as a last chance I grabbed some Mickey Thompson classic II and they fit w/ plenty of room.
So now I have $850 in my extra set of mud tires and rims (they really look good).
They worked great, on one of the mudding hill climbs we went right up in the H1 ruts after stopping at the bottom to roost some mud onto the roof http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif.
On stock AT most took 2-4 tries and running start and stayed out of the ruts to make it up.
There were 3 of us that had MT and 17 w/ AT in our group.
At the rest points we had lots of ??? about the tires since we didn't have any trouble in any of the mud holes.
I think the next time most will be on them. http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[This message was edited by DURAMAX TIM on 10-13-03 at 03:55 AM.]

[DURAMAX TIM]

BEFORE

[DURAMAX TIM]

Here's a pic of 36/12.5-16.5 Super Swamper TSL, they really look good on the H2.
These were bias ply and guys say they don't do good on packed snow so I didn't keep them.
Had plenty of room tho.

[BKLYNH2]

Tim-
A lot of the rovers that did well in the mud had a similar tread to yours. I drive this thing too much on the road to get anything more than the BF goodrich MTs, and can't expense a whole second set of wheels right now.

[BKLYNH2]

Here I am pulling up to our campsite. It took 12 1/2 hours to get here from NYC, mostly because of traffic getting out of the city. We got to the site at 4http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_redface.gifoam and boy was I exhausted. I thought I would just set up my tent and go to sleep. Wrong. http://www.elcova.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif Just to get to where our campsite was, I had to offrad two miles in the dark and cross a river. Talk about a tough commute

[BKLYNH2]

This red stuff is the nastiest mud I have ever seen.

[BKLYNH2]

This is me going up a really long, steep and windy hill climb.

[BKLYNH2]

Most of the rovers couldn't make it up this hill, so it was my big victory of the day to get up without the winch.

[BKLYNH2]

Near the top it got very tricky.

[This message was edited by BKLYNH2 on 10-13-03 at 07:11 AM.]

[BKLYNH2]

almost over the top.

[cyberaxe]

Great Pictures
My son goes to school up there,
(FUMA)
about 10 miles from whrere you were.
He's a LR nut, and knows many of the guys that were there.

His LR photos:
his 97 Disco (http://www.discoweb.org/murraypadgett/index.htm)http://www.discoweb.org/murraypadgett/index.htm

I used to have to take my Chevy 2500 to "rescue" him, now it should be easier with the new H2!!!

[Buckeye Hummer]

I'm glad you didn't take Steve along. He tends to start trouble by going up hills backwards. I don't think the GM engineers ever did that test.

[DRTYFN]

BklynH2,
Great pics!! Looks like you had a great time.
It doesn't look like you aired your tires down. Did you? It would've helped in the mud. Let's your tire flex a little to shed the mud.

[DiscoDancingRover]

Glad you enjoyed MAR. I wish I could have gone. That 130 and 101 are sooo nice!!!!! Cyberaxe-your son has a real nice disco!

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"

[BKLYNH2]

Drtyfn
Funny you should mention that, because how much to air down was a big question for me. I started off a 30psi. I then was at the very location at the top of this page(page 2) I started to lose traction going over that hump and the weight of the H2 made it start to slide down and sideways(gravity. I then tried to take the pass around to the right of it which was also very muddy and I slide sideways into the woods. My friend said my tires weren't unloading the mud and that I should let some more air out. At that moment I could only do the drivers side because the passanger side was right up to the brush. I went down to 20psi which definately gave the tires some flex. As I tried to get out of my predicament I got some better traction but I also started to get pulled left. On the left after that hump is a big trench a little wider than the H2 and about 30" deep at the low point. Well I wound up sliding into the trench sideways. It was really hairy I thought for a second I might roll. As the H2 slid in, it hit the far wall of the trench and the rear tire got knocked off the rim. After a lot of winching I got to flat ground and changed the tire. I was afraid that I had the air too low at 20psi and that was why I lost the tire. So then I made all the tires a unifor 24psi and did much better. Couldn't get out of that mud hole but I don't think less air would have made that much of a difference. Because of the H2's weight I think anything less may be flirting with disaster.

[DURAMAX TIM]

BklynH2, the tires and wheels I got cost about what u'll pay for just the BFG MT.
One guy in our group had them, in person they look about the same tread pattern as my Generals.
BFG MT are around $200 each.
I paid $110 each for tires and wheels and got a little break on the set ($850).
I also had them put the extra short brass valve stems in when they mounted them, the whole thing is less than 3/4" long, so rocks or sticks wouldn't tear them up so easy.
The tireshop wanted $650 for the TSL on white spoke steel wheels, they had about 50 miles on them.