Driving off-road is about so many things to so many people.
Here are some comments from fellow Jeepers from around the world.
A person that realizes that people are what wheeling is all about, and
that it matters not what kind of rig you bring to the party as long as you can get it over
the trail with a little help from your friends.
A person that enjoys a camp fire and the people around it more than the
trail.
A person that even though his rig may have mega bucks in it, he still
patiently waits and guides the newer Jeepers along the way.
A person that spends an immense amount of time in the garage pampering the
jeep with his friends.
A person that will stop and help out any off-roader regardless of the make
of his rig when he is broken on or off the trail.
A person that can take the ragging his buddies give him/her if they
stumble because even though they may not have done a good job of wheeling that day, they
know that all who are ragging on them will be
right there to help them better their rig when they return home.
In other words, A good wheeler is a person that respects the sport and all who he
meets even if they sometimes do not deserve it. Knowing that they may possibly learn
from their experience from meeting you.
It ain't the Jeep! It's the man/woman that owns the Jeep and it's not a vehicle but
a way of life that encompasses many different facets, besides just owning a 4 wheel drive.
Anybody without these qualities is usually wheeling by themselves.
Bud Boren - May 11,2000
Touch a nerve? No, not really, just that sometimes I think a little
levity
might be in order around here. I understand as much as anyone that the
destination is often in the journey. That getting there is more than half
the fun. But it is also worth pointing out, I think, that extreme
rock-crawling--your peculiar interest--is a very small subculture in the
world of off-roading generally.
Take, for example, the Hammers. They are a series of relatively
non-descript flash flood channel gullies in the middle of nowhere.
There are literally millions of similar gullies out there. The Hammers
happen to be in an open OHV area and near Victorville so they have been
developed by the Victor Valley Four Wheelers who have also promoted them and
consequently they have been featured in the four wheel drive press. Fine.
But why this intense focus on them and the piles of money spent in an
effort to go to Johnson Valley and bang old jeeps up these dirt piles? I
have thought about it a little and my guess is that it is because they (and
others like them) serve as some sort of baseline for comparison.
They are testpieces for those who feel that it is important to be able to
climb up over the biggest rocks. I suppose that is fine too, if that's what
makes you happy.
My only point is that big rocks are not the be all and end all that some
seem to think that they are. With deference to some of the old timers
around here who have, admittedly, been out and about alot longer than
I have, I think I have driven enough off road miles to know a little bit about it.
And it seems to me that a jeep embodies, to an even greater
degree, that freedom which cars represented to us as sixteen year olds.
Mobility, a way to go places, see things, choose our own paths.
A jeep is even more about this freedom because it will take you to
those places far beyond the end of the paved roads. To me a jeep is the
antidote to the beaten paths trod by beaten men. The reality of modern day living
has shown that the freedom of mobility alone, that which a car offers you, isn't all that
its cracked up to be. Congested cities, choked
freeways, smog, road rage, driveby shootings, on and on, the promise that seemed so
certain to us as teenagers with a first car just didn't materialize.
Ah, but with a jeep you can leave that all behind. You can go places
where you cannot hear the noise, where shutting down the engine, getting out and closing
the door, leaves you alone with the wind and the distant howl of coyotes. The
magnificent mountains turning pink and purple and black with the setting sun, the
desperate color of the wildflowers in the bleak, arid, endless desert landscape.
Awakening at dawn to the last stars fading, a hundred miles of rough road before
lunch, a cold beer or two out of the cooler to wash away the dust. In the evening
tequila drunk from tin cups around a campfire on an empty Mexican beach--with just a few
friends to talk to and the shooting stars up above bringing the day full circle.
This is what jeeps are for.
Perhaps you think I read too much into the endless post-adolescent pissing
contests concerning what axle is strongest, what tires are the best. I only
note this because sometimes I fear that these equipment debates miss
the point. If you want to go rock-crawling fine--build a rockcrawler. I
think that having a jeep you have to trailer, one that doesn't have tall
enough gears to drive on the road, one that is all bent up and dented and
really can only be used for extreme rockcrawling also misses the point.
Don't get so carried away with trying to one up the next guy that you lose
sight of the original appeal of your jeep and the freedom it offered you. If you
really must be smug do it to the over-groomed couple in the Mercedes sitting next to you
at the light after a day in the desert has left you dusty and sunburned and smiling.
Incidentally, I still maintain that the Dana 44 is a fine axle.
Blair - April 24, 2001
When I was about 10 years old my mom gave me a toy YJ with plastic tires,
two months later, together with my big brother, I *modified* my first Jeep.
We cut of the entire *undercarriage* - glued on a new *frame* and put homemade *springs*
and rubber tires (amputated from another toy) on. That toy really rocked in the
sandbox. It now stands on top of my bookshelf in the office:) after getting a new
paint-job after I found it again in a box about a year ago.-> My first *car* was a
YJ:), the second a TJ:), and the next one will certainly be a shortwheelbase again:) ->
I just knew that *now I remember why I work and am still broke without even minding it*
feeling
riding top down.
Psychiatrists aren't cheaper and IMO less effective.
MAT MIKA - May 17,2000
My three year old, Nathan, that is VERY into Jeeps. Besides correctly
naming every car and truck on the road, even a Unimog, he can point out a flat fender,
CJ-7, CJ-5, Scrambler, TJ and YJ. He has a subscription to an off-road magazine, and
chooses to watch the Rockcrawling Championship video,
which he got for his birthday, instead of Barney. He has his own red TJ that he drives
around. He kept trying to make it up our very steep driveway, which we thought was
impossible with the battery powered TJ, but....he found the right angle and made it! He
keeps telling me he needs lockers on his
Jeep. I tell him...."Someday Son....someday".
You have to raise them right!
MARKUS LEWTSCHUK - May 16,2000
