Raw Deal

December 14th, 2002

(Trip Report by Dale Bergersen)

(Photos by Deano, Dale, and Paul Patel)

My own thoughts heading into this weekend were that it was about time I got out and joined a run again, the weather had about two weeks of welcome lower temperatures, and the rain for the week had stopped… just all-around good timing for a run. Apparently, a lot of other people had similar thoughts as the number of vehicles in the Burger King lot showed. I also remembered to brong along the Cow Pattie award as I figured this run might break somebody today. It isn’t officially mine, but has been in the garage for too long - so I was hoping to award it to somebody…

There were a couple of “trailer queens” in attendance, Randy Harall’s big red rock eater (at least that’s what I call it) and “AC” (Larsen?) and his well equipped Red and Silver ’66 Bronco. Tom Alexander flat-towed his blue Bronco in, and his father Dennis came out driving a white Cherokee. The rest of us mortals DROVE our Broncos in including Winston “Brownie” Brown and Mike in Brownie’s EFI chrome-nosed machine; Mr classicbroncos.com, John Hanna and his blue rig; David Moerman and his Orange Bronco; Deano Hathaway and his tan EFI counterpart; Mike Speake in his red-orange ’73; George Hemmings in his maroon and silver Bronco with a white fiberglass  hood;

Chris Gill and passenger Raul also came out in Chris’s white swamper footed Bronco, and two jeeps: Bob Hall’s well built brown CJ; and Shandy driving a muscle-bound yellow flat fender, then me, in my white-n-primer ’75 Bronco. Out at the meeting place Chaz Lightner, and Paul Patel drove up trailering Chaz’s yellow super crawler with the CJ grill that he calls “Thing.” If I got anyone’s name wrong, this isn’t the high school yearbook so - on with the story…

 

And Oh yeah – I almost forgot… We held a 50/50 raffle at the airdown spot off of the Table Mesa Rd. west turnoff and guess who won? $27 dollars richer I had a nice start to the day – WooHooo!

 

 

Raw Deal is a rather short route – just over a mile through a wash bottom with several levels to it; moderate, to hard, to rig-bashing-assured-hard. Each of the steroid play areas were entirely optional as you could skirt them without too much effort. Getting to each of those tough obstacles was through some pretty deep Bronco-swallowing holes still filled with rain runoff, and mild stream and stair climbing.

With my stock C4 and 3.50 ring and pinions, my truck stops at football sized rocks just as if I has stopped it with full brakes. Keeping momentum meant that I had to blip the throttle, which lurched the truck ahead each time with ungraceful force unless the brakes were very carefully applied (mashed).

At first guess, I thought this would be everyone watching two or three super rigs go through the roughest parts, but to my surprise, a good number of trucks were doing the hard stuff. For me, I broke rank about lunchtime and headed back into town along with a few others while the die-hards stayed to play some more.

 

A good close-to-town trip that is as rough as can be found this close to Phoenix.

- Dale