The Rooster
October 2018
THE ROOSTER A monthly update from the Inland Empire Offroad Association
What’s New
Sand Sports Super Show
We don’t have any dune trips to report on yet, but the sand season is just around the corner.
Dumont Trip We have decided to postpone the Dumont trip by one week to October 12 to 14th since we discovered that we need to replace the engine in John Cole’s car. What we thought was transmission noise at Glamis turned out to be a rod knock.
7th Annual Mona Bacon Memorial Spook Poker Run and Hot Dog Weenie Roast Mike Bacon has planned another weekend of fun at Anza for October 20th, so mark your calendars now.
The sand season unofficially began for many of us a few weeks ago with the Sand Sports Super Show at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. This year I barely made it to the event, flying in from a week in Orlando at 10 PM on Saturday. Since we were still on east coast time, Marshall woke up about 5:45 ready to start his Sunday, so we headed out to the show. We met up with John Cole, Dean Carver, Barry Baker, and his friend Ann at the Denny’s in Corona and headed
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The Rooster
October 2018 to the show. We arrived before 8:00, but found the gates didn’t open until 9. Oh well, we were among the first in line.
Upcoming Events • October 12-14: Weekend at Dumont • October 20: Mona Bacon Memorial Spook Poker Run and Hot Dog Weenie Roast at the Salton City Golf Course • November 9-12: Veterans Day at Glamis, Wash 6 • November 12-26: Thanksgiving at Glamis, continued from Veterans Day.
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The show itself was very similar to years past, and filled the area and all the buildings at the OC Fairgrounds quite nicely. As has been the trend over the last many years there were a whole bunch of side by sides there, but there were also some very nice high end sandrails as well. The massive booths with cars hanging from the ceiling that we saw during the housing boom haven’t returned, but there were a lot of vendors and people looking for toys. We saw quite a few brand new side by sides with sold signs on them, so some people definitely were spending money. Rugged Radios had a large booth between the two big buildings, and they brought out their latest project car, a RZR that was made to look like a 1932 Ford Roadster. It was my first chance to see this car in person after seeing pictures online, and I was impressed. Rugged has raised the bar with their already impressive promotional vehicles, and this one has a whole new cool factor. The “fake” plastic V8 in the front gets lots of attention, and many onlookers didn’t realize that it was actually a RZR, with the RZR drivetrain in the back. We weren’t just looking at the Rugged booth, as we met Pete Hagen there since he was looking to get a radio for his sandrail. We talked with Greg, the
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owner of Rugged, and he made sure that the new radio would work with Pete’s existing intercom. Hopefully we’ll be able to hear more from Pete in the dunes this season. (And he’ll finally be able to hear us…)
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October 2018
There were other extreme examples of attention getting cars, but one that stands out for man of us was a Funco car that had a real Poodle dyed pink to match. It was honestly a real dog…
Another trend I noticed for the first time this year was a lot of single seat UTVs. I guess you can’t call them side by sides, but it seems this is one area where manufacturers are focusing on the performance market by putting the same 1000cc, sometimes turbocharged engine in a lighter single seat package. They do look like they would be a kick in the butt to drive.
There were plenty of different things to look at, from new RVs to tools and parts. Ez-Up even had a helicopter there, which might just be the ultimate dune toy. We all had fun looking around, and since it was our first time going to the show on Sunday in many years we were impressed with the relative lack of crowds and availability of deals I didn’t see any drawback to going on Sunday, so this might be our plan for future shows. It helped get us all in the mood to dune, and that’s a big part of the fun. Let’s go duning! - P.J.
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October 2018
A Hot Time In Ol’ Elsinore! By Mike Bacon As many of you heard we had a little fire going on in the hills above Lake Elsinore a while back. It wasn’t too much of an issue unless you lived at the base of those hills in Elsinore, which I do! Actually, when the fire started, and for the first day or so it really didn’t affect us at all as the wind was blowing all the smoke and ash towards Corona and Riverside. Wednesday afternoon though the wind shifted direction and started blowing right at us! We got the brunt of smoke and ash, plus the fire started moving towards us at a rapid pace! My friend Pat, who lives up on the hill above me, was evacuated and she came down to my house with her three dogs. The fire fighters were in place to protect the homes, but had to depend on the air force to slow down the flames. It was the best air show I have ever seen!
By that evening the fire was burning for all it was worth! Just before dark the fire fighters called in every plane in the inventory, including a 747 from Sacramento, and drew a line of Phoscheck around all the houses they could to protect them. It was then up to the fire fighters on the ground to protect the houses! A few helicopters worked it for a while in the dark, but they could only do so much.
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October 2018
When we woke up Thursday morning the fire was still burning hot and heavy and the planes and helicopters were working furiously. We had to leave to go to San Diego for AJ’s wedding, but I had set up a security camera in my back yard to watch the fire. As I sat at the wedding I watched the camera on my phone and saw flames coming closer and closer. We heard my area was evacuated about two hours after we left for San Diego, which meant Pat had been evacuated twice in two days!
We arrived back home Friday morning and found despite the traďŹƒc barriers we could get to the house. It turned out none of my neighbors actually left and they had quite a show as the fire burned right past our neighborhood less than half a mile away. Once home I watched the helicopters save a couple houses up on the hill by dropping load after load of water right on the houses!
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October 2018
That night the hillside looked like a bunch of fire flies flying all over the hill! Those aren’t fire flies though, or street lights! By Saturday the fire was mostly out in our neighborhood. It left the hillsides burnt and barren and I really hope we don’t get any big downpours this winter so we don’t get mudslides!
A big shout out and thank you to all the fire fighters and support crews for their performance on this fire. Even though over 22,000 acres were burnt, no houses were lost! 6
The Rooster
October 2018
Another trip to The World By Paul Kastle We spent ten days at Walt Disney World in Florida in early September, and while this wasn’t a dune trip it was a bit of a club get together as we had P.J., Melissa, Allie and Marshall, along with Jim and Nancy Kastle and Brandy Tidball and Jon Fuerte. While we love the dunes, this group of off roaders had a great time at our happiest place on earth. We got to stay at Wilderness Lodge, which is my favorite hotel, and probably my favorite building anywhere. You can see why, it is absolutely gorgeous! It has a neat secluded feel, despite being just a few minutes from the busiest theme park in the world. For those of you who will be subjected to hearing us talk about the trip all year, here’s a few pictures to put with our stores.
This month we’d like to thank Mike Bacon for writing an article. We’d also like to hear what you all have been up to this summer, and how you’re getting ready for dune season. If you have pictures, text, comments, jokes, or anything that you want to share, please send it to me at pkastle@msn.com. We will publish what content we have and a calendar of upcoming events in every month’s newsletter. -Paul, Melissa, Allie, and Marshall. 7