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4-Wheel & Off-Road welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must include an address or a telephone number so the sender can be verified. Once verified, your name may be withheld at your request. Letters published in this magazine reflect othe opinions of the writers, and we reserve the right to edit letters for clarity, brevity, or other purposes. Due to the large volume of mail we receive, we regret that we cannot reply to unpublished letters or return photos. Digital photos must measure no less than 1600 x 1200 pixels (or two megapixels) and be saved as a TIFF, an EPS, or a maximum-quality JPEG file.
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Cheap Little Boxes
Reader: I enjoy your magazine and look forward every month to the next exciting and informative issue. I am especially looking forward to your articles on the "Cheap Little Boxes" (July '07), as I am the owner of a '94 GMC S-15 Jimmy, 4x4, two-door, 4.3 "W" CPI engine, and auto trans. My little rig has been very enjoyable for all 148,000 miles and is still running strong. I just wanted to point out the box style was '83-'94 not '93. The trucks changed in '94 but the Blazer/Jimmy changed in '95. Again keep up the great job.
David Wolter
Missoula, MT
Editor: Thanks for the insight, David. It is a bit tricky when looking at split years that GM pulled! Our next series will be to examine the Bronco II/Ranger series, so stay tuned for Ford info too!
30 Years Of Being Wrong
Reader: I have been thoroughly enjoying Drew Hardin's series of articles looking back on the magazine's 30-year history. Seeing the names of the past editors and staffers has been a trip down memory lane for me. I remember reading Tom Bezzi's guest editorial, the first look at the Scorpion, and who could forget the American Gladiators? However, I ran across one error in the June '07 issue's timeline. It cites January or February of '00 as the first time that the magazine covered a rockcrawling competition. Not true. The first coverage of a rockcrawling competition appears in the Apr. '99 issue in an article titled "Only a Matter of Time." This article also happens to cover the first rockcrawling competition ever held, which was in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and not Farmington. I know because I was there and the story carries my byline.
That story will always be one of my favorites because it was the start of something really big, and you could sense it even while the event was happening. Leafing through the article also reveals many of the names still in rockcrawling today, including the Campbells, the Curries, Sam Patton, and Randy Ellis. Though the Goodyear series eventually morphed into the dominant rockcrawling sanctioning body, it was not the originator.
Most of today's scoring methods, including the use of gates, points deductions for things like stopping and reversing course, and cumulative scoring over two days, were started at this event. Promoter Bob Hazel was responsible for the scoring system and putting on the first competition. He later started the ProRock series. With competitive rockcrawling/racing such a huge part of the off-road world today, I felt it was important to set the record straight as the Farmington event is often incorrectly cited as the first rockcrawling competition.
Thanks again for the great series of articles and I am proud to have been a small part of the magazine's history.
Trenton McGee
Former staffer and all around nice guy
Editor: Drew Hardin Replies:
Trent, I sincerely apologize for the oversight. My mistake, pure and simple. And you're absolutely right, we should correct the mistake. Consider it done. (Ed.-Not only that, I wrote about it while editor of Jp magazine in "King of the Rocks," May '99). This was also the trip where former 4WOR editor David Freiburger and I drove a stock M715 from L.A. to Las Cruces and back, just one of many hairy D.E.D. tours. Check out the July '99 issue for the "M715 Road Test."
Point Taken
Best Beaters
Reader: My compliments to Tech Editor Fred Williams on the "Best Beaters" article (July '07). Many people overlook the low-buck stuff in favor of the big names, round headlights, or just more common vehicles. I do think that he missed an obvious one, especially considering he has a Samurai. Did you guys consider the Geo Tracker/Suzuki Sidekick family? They are available cheap everywhere, have peppy little fuel-injected four-cylinders that also sip gas, body-on-frame construction, and coil springs all around. The front IFS actually has decent travel when new, the drivetrain is overbuilt for the size of the vehicle, and are really a hidden gem. Oh yeah, they're a bit bigger than a Sami so you have more interior room for comfort but still much smaller than other similar vehicles. Mine sits on 31s and has some stuff I wouldn't have done to it, but I bought it this way for a still ridiculously low price. I have a friend who has three of them and probably doesn't have a grand into all of them and will soon combine those three into a small-tire, good-mileage, get-him-to-work-and-back-in-all-conditions daily driver and a 4-inch lifted, 31-inch-tired off-road toy. They're cheap and available with a decent and expanding aftermarket for them. Thanks for a great magazine guys.
Andrew Mathias
via 4wor.com
Editor: We didn't include the Sami or its brethren mainly because they are so well known that the prices on the whole have shot up more than the other vehicles we listed. You are correct in what you note, but we're trying to ignore the Sami market so we can finally afford our own three!