But that's not to say the first trail was only about carnage. OK, yes it was. Next on the list was Mike Copeland, who got popped in the face by his S-10's airbag and was later forced to limp off the trail when his upper control arms bent from too much droop. And then there was Tom Boyd who in typical Boyd fashion attacked the trail with his right foot. Of course the trail retaliated with a one-two combo of a tree into his fender and a rock taking out his wheel. But body damage wasn't limited just to trail obstacles. Dave Knight, co-driving with Scott Frary of Detroit Locker, managed to slip and fall onto the bedside of our Super Duty while just watching the other rigs, and dented the body pretty good without sending his own body to the emergency room. The list didn't stop there.
Part of the cause for all the carnage was multiple spotter syndrome, where drivers took directions from multiple people at each obstacle and were unable to decipher the right lines. This can be a common trail hazard on a trip like this, when everyone is just psyched to be out on the trail on the first day. We thought we had everything under control until our Avalanche twisted the rear springs, spit out the rear 1410 driveshaft, caught fire, and had to be driven down to Crawford's Camp on the front axle. Ah...we were off to a perfect start!
Day Two: MonteagleDay One blurred into Day Two at midnight for the 4-Wheel & Off-Road staff, as Jerrod Jones and David Kennedy, late for their own event, raced the last 1,100 miles to Murphy under cover of darkness, while Fred Williams pulled an all-night wrench under the Avalanche at Crawford's Camp, fixing the rear springs and driveshaft.
Reports of other casualties trickled in from Bryan Richman's Dodge Ram, whose Boggers were getting sliced at the beads by his new bead-lock wheels, and our Super Duty was off to Spicer Four Wheel Drive in Rockspring, Georgia, to replace a busted lift block in hopes of meeting up with us at the trail head in Monteagle. The Trailready Liberty of Chris Corbett and Jerry Sandeno was in the worst shape, due to a dislocated three-link rear suspension, and was going to have to skip the next run so that rod ends and brake lines could be shipped into town to get the Liberty back on the road.
By 3 p.m. the group rolled into Monteagle, Tennessee, where we grabbed some gas-station buffet and bought up every piece of firewood we could find for the campout that night. Here we met our trail leader, Dan Moses, from Off and On Customs, who guided us to Stagecoach, a private off-road park for a winding downhill descent through the Tennessee hillside that led to our campsite for the night. The trail was a series of loose-dirt switchbacks that, more than one driver commented, "would be hell to drive up if we were leaving the same way." The thick forest growth made maneuvering a little tight for the fullsize trucks, but all in all was a pretty easy run till the trail leveled out and turned into a dry rock-strewn riverbed. It was in the rocks that Tom Haus managed to fracture a front leaf spring on his YJ, thus forming an effective roadblock that held the second half of the group on the trail until after the moon came up. Not to be outdone, the other Tom (Boyd) tore apart a rod end on his Bronco buggy's rear suspension and destroyed the shock shaft on one of his coilovers in the process. Pw and the frontrunners were already setting up camp and cooking dinner, while Jeff Nasi, Jim Ryan, Jones, and Williams (Kennedy fell asleep) helped Boyd pull his Bronco back into shape. Off in the distance we could hear the Dodge boys from Mississippi working on rearranging their '99 sheetmetal with trail damage on an optional uphill line that led into camp. The weather that night couldn't have been better and those who weren't too tired stayed up speculating about the week to come.