POWERFEST ’05
The PowerFest Event Returns With A Bang.
Editor: Eric Bewley Photo: S. Bewley, G. Fuller, Derek Jarman, CJ Price
Tillamook State Forest, OR. – It has been two years since the last Powerfest was held in the Pacific North West OHV wonderland known as Tillimook State Forest. This coupled with over two inches of rain and stormy clouds had us concerned that turn out would be low. Nothing could be further from the truth! Even with the rain pouring down, we had fifty Suzuki vehicles registered and several more stragglers that joined in for the fun off and on during the day.
What made this year’s event possible was the work of several dedicated volunteers. Trail leader volunteers, Val Mueller and Jason Hoff led the ‘most difficult’ group to The Crushers trails for some flexy super-slimey rock crawling fun. Davey Arnold and myself led the ‘more difficult’ group consisting of twenty-five plus vehicles on the long and enjoyable Archer’s trail. Greg Fuller led the ‘least difficult’ group on one of TSF’s true trail gems, The Cedar Tree Trail, where trail runners get the opportunity to drive under a huge old cedar tree towards the end of the trail. In addition to helping on the trail, Jason Hoff, Gregg Mikkelson, Sara Bewley, and Robin Fuller, helped make the dinner a success.
Entrants were signed in and lined up into three groups at Brown’s camp at 8:00 AM in the morning. The groups were leaving camp on their way to fun and frolicking by 8:30 AM. Each participant had the opportunity to purchase a stunningly handsome commemorative t-shirt for the event. We were caught off-guard by the number of attendants and ran out of shirts. Luckily, we are using our online forum to help get backordered shirts to those that were there.
Rain, rain, and more rain was the theme of the day. It seemed like every minute was wet this weekend but that did not dampen the spirit of the PowerFest goers. Spirits were high as we set out on the trails.
The ‘more difficult’ group lines up to get onto the Archer’s trail. The group had to dodge Oregon Department of Forestry dump trucks that were working overtime on Saturday to deliver gravel to the trailheads for trail paving / maintenance.
The ‘least difficult’ group’s plan was to run Cedar Tree Trail and then head over to watch the hard core wheeling action on the Crushers by the ‘most difficult’ group. It turned out that most of the hard core wheeling got done early and that group dispersed into the ‘more difficult’ and ‘least difficult’ groups to fill out their day of wheeling.
Meanwhile, the ‘more difficult’ group led by Davey enjoyed the various obstacle of the long and enjoyable Archers trail. To the right you can see a couple of Samurai negotiating the ‘rock garden’ and ‘water fall’ obtacles.
Below are photos of the ‘most difficult’ group tackling the Crusher’s trail. Breakage was kept to a minimum this year probably due to the extremely slick conditions brought on by the heavy rains. Nonetheless, there were only two serious break downs to report one rear driveline and one toyota birfield joint.
After the wheeling was done, ZUKIWORLD hosted a dinner for all attendees. We served over a hundred chilli burgers with salad and fountain soda courtesy of Pepsi of Corvallis. Feed back was good and supportive for having another event next year and with a little bit better weather, we think the one-hundred mark for Suzuki vehicles is quite attainable. Look for PowerFest 2006 to occur in October next year.
Click here to go to the forum discussion for the PowerFest.
