No Deserved Glory For Drew
Reader: I sat down to read your article "racing through the Years, 30 years 1977-2007," (Nov. '07), hoping to read about some milestones in off-road racing history. I discovered that your target date starts off in 1977, yet the articles does not mention 1977, but starts in March 1978 with Evans' '72 F-150. Did Drew Hardin forget that the article was about 30 years of racing, and not 29 years? Did Hardin not find anything worthy to write about from the races in 1977? What about the ih scout? I have noticed that petersen's tends to ignore the international scout, as if it's not worthy to have a place in the same pages as the rest of the off-road trucks. But the history of the scouts speaks for itself and proves that it is a truck that does deserve to have honors in petersen's mag
In my opinion neglecting to mention that Jerry Boone of parker, Arizona, finished first at Baja 1000 in 1977, making the run in 19 hours and 58 minutes (2 hours ahead of a Jeep CJ-7), is a gross overlook by the boys at petersen's. Also, Boone ran faster than the Class iv modi- fied 4x4s. The history is there, Mr. Hardin, you only had to do a little legwork. You never mentioned that sherman Balch won the world off-road championship in 1977 (the renowned s.C.O.r.E event in riverside, California). Also three other finishers along with Balch also drove scouts. Balch also won the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and three grueling events in the fall of 1978 at lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He later went on to win virtually all major off-road races in 1982 offered on the West Coast/Mexico circuit by winning the Baja 250, Baja 500, Baja 1000, Mint 400, and parker (Arizona) 400 driving ssii scouts.
I love to read this mag and i find more information on builds in it that helps me to Design the build of my scout, but the only places i ever see a scout in its pages are in either readers' rides or the Whoops! Sections. People are still building scouts and advancing the technology, but we never see this in petersen's. We only see Jeep, Chevy, Ford, and so on. The accomplishment of the people driving the scouts to wins goes unwritten; that also goes the same for the builds. I am disgusted with Hardin, who can't count to 30 and fails to mention the scouts and their drivers who took top honors with the greatest 4x4 (in my opinion) to have ever rolled off the assembly line.
Kevin Gardner
Reno, NV
Editor: First off, thanks for all of that info. Our readers appreciate it as much as we do. Also, we love scouts so much that the scout was picked as one of our choices in "Best 4x4s of all time" (Feb. '08). Just to be sure, we have even included the photo we used in that story of Brett mccullen wheeling the Woodpecker trail in his highly modified scout. Now, if you read the whole racing story like you said, you'd know that we pulled vintage stuff from the pages of the mag, instead of going back in time and rewriting what wasn't there.
I forwarded Mr. Hardin your letter and he replied: "rick hit the nail on the head. My assignment was to present highlightsof the racing coverage this magazine has done over its 30-year history, not write a racing history with a scout-lover's slant.Compressing that much material into just a few pages meant that we had to make some tough decisions about what to run and what to leave in the archive for another day. As for my mathematical abilities: is it my fault the magazine didn't cover racing until 1978? For crying out loud, that was eight years before i even joined the magazine!"
Point Taken:
More Whiners
Reader: I am really getting tired of reading other peoples' complaints about small petty crap. I have been reading this great magazine since 1997, and i am always impressed with the creative ideas that you all come up with. Now, i understand that not everyone can be pleased, but people-let it go! I was reading in Box (Jan. '08), and the main complaint was that the uajk was contaminated with Dodge parts. Oh the horror! The very idea of taking a part off of a vehicle and putting it on a different rig! What, is this a sacrilege? I thought the main goal of building a truck was to be different and creative. I remember when you could not just buy a kit, or if there was a kit available, it was more than one could pay. A person had to make due with what he could find and afford.
My point is this: if you want to be a "purist" and believe Jeep parts only belong on Jeeps, then believe that. However, if someone else wants to think outside the "red Jeep on 35s" box, then let them. Being different is the name of the game. Building the next better thing and experimenting is why we do what we do.
Ron Barnes
Norfolk, VA
Editor: We're still laughing about the "red Jeep on 35s" concept. You said it better than anyone so far! OK, that's the last word about that, and hey we're all moving on to Some other subject, because we have let it go!