Sinking Creek 4WD Association

I'm in the pep band at Virginia Tech and we were down in Atlanta for the ACC tournament so that proved to be the perfect time to recover the trucks. I got one and I picked up one for Don (HeadWizard). I picked up both trucks on Wednesday and stored them/worked on them until Saturday when the epic journey began. The original plan was to tow Don's truck with mine using a tow bar, but it became immediately obvious that wouldn't work out. I towed his truck 20 miles initially and the steering got crossed up 4 times. Both trucks ran without issue so I decided to have a friend drive the other truck back with me and then we could use the tow bar if we had an issue.

We left Atlanta at around 4pm on Saturday and got home at 8 this morning. The trip took a long time because we stopped to rest several times and stopped for dinner to see a friend in Chattanooga. We were just generally taking our time. We didn't want to put a big strain on the equipment or ourselves. Our caravan was the two deuces and my Civic wagon which some of you remember from the Virginia rally last year. It was definitely a learning experience.

Lesson 1. Driving a deuce on the interstate at night in the pouring rain sucks BIG TIME. I've done a lot of reading on this site, but somehow I missed the part about the deuce cab being not waterproof. We stopped about 60 miles from our final destination and slept at a rest stop because the rain was so hard. I was getting soaked in my truck while my friend was just annoyed in Don's. It is hard to see out a windshield when there is water running down the outside and inside of it. Things got a little better after I started stuffing paper towels in all the little cracks.

Lesson 2. Tell your friend to downshift when he slows down on a hill at the beginning of the trip, not half way through after you assumed he would already know this. We spent a lot of time waiting for him to catch up thinking the truck was just slower.

Lesson 3. Definitely check out your truck (or at least have someone go look at it for you) before you pick it up. My life was made a lot easier because I had SETOYOTA go check out a few things and that really put my mind at ease. It also decreased the amount of things I had to bring with me for the recovery.

Lesson 4. Some of you have no idea how nice it is to not have to drive the truck home directly from the base. I now have an appreciation for this. Definitely bid locally to you or at least have a friend with some facilities that you can use close by to the truck.

Lesson 5. Whistler turbo > non whistler turbo.

Lesson 6. You have to have a cigar in your mouth when you're driving a deuce. Don't ask why. You just do!

All in all it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I'll definitely be more prepared next time. The only issue with either truck is that my brake lights and blinkers wouldn't work when I picked it up. The blinkers started working about half way through the trip so I'm not sure whats up there. I'm sure I'll find out soon as I'll be diving into it in the next few weeks. I was extremely fortunate with my truck because all the Michelin XLs are brand new (even the spare), it looks like the oil was just changed (still clean), and it had a full tank of fuel when I picked it up.