11/11/2025
We started the event towards the back (it was a little disappointing because we knew a few of the guys up front, and I wanted to see if our new jeep build and my driving abilities would be able to keep up), But we had our work cut out for us and had to set our own pace if we wanted to make good time. The biggening of lap one wasn’t too crazy just some gravel roads. We got a little bunched up because of some traffic, but not long into it things started to get serious. We dropped in to a creek bottom where we could really make up time. We learned quickly that a lot of these creeks and trails have multiple lines and plenty of room for passing. We made a few passes and a few people left us go around as needed. We ran into some rally traffic on the trail because another rig had broken a pitman arm and needed to work their way to the side of the trail. Things freed up after that for a while. We were continuing to push hard. While it was still very early on in this rally and lots can change, we were on pace to complete the course in 16-18 hours. We got on some really rough and rocky trails and our king shocks just ate everything. We had just gotten to the farthest point of lap one, shortly after some really rocky trails, and that’s when we started to have problems. We pulled off and my co-driver checked it out and looked at me and said we got a problem… We had managed to tear our axle tube free of the housing and bend our truss. We took a few big hits on the trails, but I’m not sure exactly which one did it. It was only 2 hours into the event and we were long from ready to be done yet. So, we called our “chase truck” (which is set up for mobile welding because we are a weld shop) and had them coming ASAP. Mean while we tore things apart and came up with a plan to repair it. 2 hours later we were back in it. We changed our goals from being in the top 3 to finishing. We were hopping that finishing would be enough of a feat in of its self. Shortly after we took off the gopro we were live streaming this died. (We will continue to improve on that set up). We figured we wouldn’t see anyone as we were sure we were dead last and we had slowed our pace down a lot, but we did find someone who was stuck and was having winch problems. So, we helped them and then continued on our way. Toward the end of lap one we started having some really bad power steering issues. Sometimes it wasn’t working at all. But we continued on. We also had our exhaust fall apart. This was a recurring theme. We “fixed” our exhaust 4 times along the trail throughout the event. Later, we found Rich stuck and in a pickle while trying to get to someone else, so we helped him get out before we finished. Our hero lap didn’t go as planned either. Our throttle cable came disconnected at the peddle which really slowed us down. The biggening of lap 2 wasn’t too eventful for us. A Lot of really great trails! It started to get interesting about half way through. We were deciding if we would continue with our plan A fuel stop or need to stop sooner. We decided to go with plan A. This left us really low. I picked a bad line through a mud hole where we almost put the jeep on its side. This made all our fuel run to one side of our tank and I didn’t even have time to back out of it. Likely the blue ram was making its way down the hill behind us and was nice enough to pull us out and back on level ground. We carefully continued on till we got fuel. Then there were the mud holes at the end of lap 2. They sucked…. Once again, I picked the wrong mud hole, and sunk the jeep right down to the belly pan. To add to it, we developed some electrical gremlins that was interfering with our winching capabilities. But apparently, we had made our way past the blue ram, because again they came to our rescue. After completing lap 2 we continued on as we had heard that more and more were dropping out, and more and more we wanted to finish. Lap 3 was pretty light compared to the first 2. Unless I just can’t remember it cause I was on hour 20 of sitting in a jeep and was sleep deprived. Although, once again we needed to fix our exhaust. And when we tried to start it back up it wouldn’t start. Not sure why. Probably the same electrical gremlins we were battling most of the rally. We had no signal, the star link wouldn’t even connect. About 30 minutes went by before I tried again and it reluctantly turned over. We had come so far and were so close we weren’t stopping now. So we hammered down as the sun came up. We were about 3 minutes till the finish line where I made one last dumb driver mistake (I’ll blame it on being in the jeep for 23 hours at this point). I hit a branch hanging out in the road that put a nasty crack in the windshield. So, after 23 hours and 15 minutes we managed to complete the Haunted Hollers 2 despite all our problems. Thanks to all that helped us get through!
