Stampede '99
July 23 - 25, 1999
(Trip Reports by Dean Hathaway and Doug Schulz)
(Pictures with Orange Borders by David Moerman)
by Deano:
As this was written, we had just returned home after the best Stampede yet. Many thanks to Mike Brown, April Brown, Steve Harwood & Greg Peacock for putting this great event together.
'Poor' Steve Harwood even had a brand new AOD (with low-gearset and everything) in his truck but didn't get to show it off in action much because he was working so hard in the main camp.
He said it was no big deal as he had a bit of an oil pan leak with it anyway, but we all know The Cinders. Given some free time he would have tried one challenge and then another, and then pushed it to the limit and had a blast doing it. I understand he did lead some kind of ritual pre-sunrise excursion involving high octane fruit juice, but I never get up that early.
The Cinders Off Road Recreation Area is a few miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona and is like stepping back into the volcanic age.The great mounds and dished out bowls of volcanic cinders come in two flavors, red and black. Each has a different traction characteristic and they are encountered in various stages of wet, dry and being mixed together. In some places near higher peaks, ordinary rock and dirt are exposed as well.
We went up on friday afternoon, and no sooner pulled in than people were swarming my Bronco wanting to see my new Howell EFI setup, which had been written up in the club newsletter.
This was a fun experience and one I'm not used to, with so many high-tech, high-dollar Broncos around. The Howell continues to prove itself in every way. My engine has never died since I bolted the thing on and its ability to produce controllable power under the worst of bouncing, tipping, and floundering conditions is fantastic (at least to a guy who's had only carbed early Bronco's for reference).
Being there the first day for a change, we got to go on our first "Night Run". This was a trip up and down various harshly rippled cinder mountains with only as much light as we could see through a haze of cinder dust kicked up by the other rigs. Conditions took their toll as some unaccustomed drivers spun out or dug in and shut down everyone behind them so they dug in also. After the carnage, about half a dozen turned back and some found another, less chewed up route, to join us at the top. We continued in this fashion through many more ascents and descents, making it back to camp without further losses (I think).
Saturday morning was set aside for the annual hillclimb competition. Naturally everyone wants lots of practice at this event, even if they aren't entered. So, Broncos are charging hills all over the place and at all hours, from the time they arrive at camp until they leave.
To do the average cinder hill blast you charge across a bunch of ruts bouncing violently up and down then hit the incline and need a smooth application of all the power you can get to build momentum before the steepening grade and the various ruts and holes bog you down. In previous Stampede trips I have never made it beyond the second round of the hillclimb competition, but this time I made it to the fourth round. In the later rounds there is no charge across anything, you start already facing up the hill and must find some way to build enough momentum in the first few feet to support a full application of power without digging down to the frame right at the line.
The men's hillclimb was narrowly won by Jim Creel, yes the "Wild Horses" Jim Creel, who was a surprise guest after driving his prize donations over to Arizona in his famed "Nightmare" Bronco.
Jim didn't fancy his chances, being new to the cinder hills and having a rig built primarily for rock crawling. But, the big Mud Terrain tires, combined with Explorer 5.0 SEFI power and sufficient attitude did the trick.
With Proto Fab's Keith Jones along as a passenger Jim was able to inch past the marks left by the amazing "Rumble Bee" and our own Winston Brown.
Last year's 351W-equipped-champ (out of Nevada I think) was also there, but didn't do as well on the red hill used for the finals this year, although he still smoked everyone on the black stuff in the early rounds (where the final was held last time).
The ladies hillclimb was won by Cindy Gosz driving "Rumble Bee" again this year.
On the subject of "Rumble Bee": sometime on friday the owner, Gary Gosz made good on his vow to climb out of the huge cinder bowl where I had video taped his failed attempts last year. I was not present, but understand there is video tape of this nitrous-fueled event. This hill is awesome and to my knowledge no other early Bronco has ever climbed it.
I was present and rolling tape on saturday afternoon when he made a couple of tries, with one coming maddeningly close to success before he kicked it around in a sliding 180 across the face of the bowl to come blasting back down again.
Most find that it is harrowing enough to approach the foot of it and then try to get back out the 'easy' way!
This time I had hitched a ride with Tom Gismondi on a day trip that wound all around the area.
Greg Miller from Klune won the slow-drags. He celebrated by letting his unoccupied Bronco idle across the middle of the main camp area and up onto a large stump while he chatted with onlookers. He joked that he's working on remote steering controls so he can spot for himself from among the spectators on all his trail runs.
His "Klune-V" Extreme Underdrive system looks very interesting. It adds half of a toyota transfer case to a Dana 20, giving you your existing high and low ranges, plus two lower ranges as well. It requires new drive shafts and a new transmission output shaft besides the transfer case and crossmember that are included in the product.
Other vendors who brought donations in person were Suzanne Duff of James Duff Enterprises, Randy Harral from Driven Auto Parts, and Lonnie Bright from Tom's Bronco Parts.
The "Cow Pattie" award for worst breakage, went to a guy named Sam who broke an axle. I narrowly missed this 'honor' myself as I lost reverse in my C4 on sunday morning, after the award was already given. I discovered I had no reverse when I was dug into a black cinder bowl near the top. SinceI couldn't back down, I tried to work my way forward and was soon down to the frame and had to be winched out.
The "Blindfold Obstacle Course" was rained out halfway through as it began to pour like crazy.
I got some video of Doug Schulz, ACB Prez. making a near perfect pass as the first contestant, but his extremely slow time did not stand up for long. Shortly after that I ran out of tape.
There had just been too much great stuff to point my camcorder at during the three day Bronco Extravaganza!
- Dean Hathaway
by Doug:
What a weekend! The Stampede had to be the hottest thing that has happened at the Cinders since the volcanoes erupted 1300 years ago... We had (I think) about 70 Broncos and about 200 people up in the cinders for the 1999 AZ Classic Bronco Stampede. I think forecasts of rain kept a few home, but the rain that did come was just enough to keep the dust at bay and our normally warm mountain weather delightfully cool.
One of the Bronco Pinata's takes a damaging whack and candy begins to trickle out. Can anything be more fun than turning blindfolded kids loose with a baseball bat?
Mason Coggin, our club's resident cowboy poet, rolled in with his bone stock '77 in time to entertain the crowd during supper.
The saturday evening gathering for a big catered meal and drawings for door prizes and raffle prizes was fantastic, as always. The top prizes this year included an ARB locker and bumpers from Proto Fab and Duffs, but many great prizes were awarded, big and small.
As usual festivities continued around the bonfire late into the night with drinks and stories unending.
Several notables showed up- Jim Creel of Wild Horses drove his Bronco in from California and then won the hill climb contest with it. His Bronco had the new 35 spline Warn full-floater axles on it- trick! A great guy who says he'll be here for sure next year, too.
Suzanne Duff rode along with us on the trail rides (she flew in and had a rental car...) and was surprised to see pines and cool weather in AZ in the summer. I talked to her at length- she's a real sweetheart and brought a lot of goodies to raffle or hand out.
The Klune V Bronco was up there and spent more time driving itself over obstacles driverless, since he kept hopping out and let it go over stuff in slo-mo unattended. Incredible. Mike Wiley and Keith Jones of Protofab brought some of their beautiful bumpers for the raffle. Keith had the famous "Project Proto Fab" bronco out on the trail for the first time in a long time. Randy Harral of Driven Auto Parts raffled off a slew of gift certificates for his "candy store" of "driven" Bronco parts.
Our best show was the yellow and black Rumble-Bee with its 300 hp 302 + 250 hp Nitrous setup.
It went down into a volcanoe bowl of loose cinder gravel so deep you couldn't tell if it was a half cab or a convertible, then climbed up the other side (probably a third of a mile long climb) and hit the nitrous about half way up and went over the top. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. And that was with street legal tires- not paddles!
It's reputed to have blown off a Viper on the strip by running 12's. Wouldn't that burn you after dropping 50+ grand on your new Viper!
One family came in from Oklahoma and had 3 broncos- a half cab, a convertible, and a hard top- all in show condition- on a huge 3 axle flatbed and dropped by on their way to Moab. Unfortunately, they didn't want to adopt me... I don't think I've ever seen so many completely beautiful, high dollar trucks in one place. Made mine look so pitiful with it's cut out rockers and faded paint...
A lot of us were surprised that the immaculate, show quality, half cab was actually charging the cinder hills along with the rest.
About half of the registered people were from out of state, so there was a lot of new faces and trucks to see. We took the group shot from atop the closest volcano bowl next to camp on Saturday- there were 61 Early Broncos in view (some folks were snoozing or at the store or something, so we couldn't get them all out) What a great picture!
My heartfelt thanks to Mike and April Brown, Steve Harwood, and Greg Peacock for putting on the best organized Stampede ever.
- Doug Schulz
President, Arizona Classic Bronco, Inc.
Supplemental After-The-Stampede Report
by Deano
Immediately after the Stampede my family and I went on a Bronco-less vacation trip to attend a family reunion in Washington State. The out of state vendors who came in person to our event in Flagstaff inspired me to route our return trip home through Sequim, Washington (James Duff Enterprises), Medford, Oregon (Tom's Bronco Parts), and Stockton, California (Wild Horses) so we could visit their shops. I also needed to pick up a few things I would need to put my Bronco back in order after blowing reverse gear out of it the final day of the Stampede.
First stop was James Duff, where I picked up a set of polyeurathane transfer case mount bushings, a really cool Tom Cheney designed Bronco T-Shirt I've never seen before, and a copy of the book "Boss, The Bill Stroppe Story." The trip to Sequim was almost a vacation in itself, as we drove up the forested country roads along the coastline. I was born and raised in Washington state, yet did not know we had such a place. When we got to Sequim itself it was obvious that a lot of other people had found it too. One of the worst traffic jams we experienced the entire 4000 mile trip was getting through the main drag of Sequim. It was well worth it though as we got to see the famed Stroppe "Balloon Chaser" which is ensconced in James Duff's lobby.
For a lot of info and pictures on this rig checkout the article on the TruckWorld web site. The rest of the showroom is largely a museum of Bronco racing history. The only dissappointment here was that Suzanne Duff was away when we stopped by so we didn't get to visit with her. We took a side trip from there to Port Angeles where we almost took the ferry to Canada, but didn't.
The next Bronco stop was Tom's Bronco Parts in Oregon. We met Tom himself and spoke to Lonnie, who said he definately wants to bring a Bronco to the Stampede next year. I picked up another bushing I'd forgotten to buy in Sequim (the one that keeps the drivetrain from shifting against the crossmember) and my wife got one of the very attractive Tom's Bronco Parts T-shirts. Their shop has a great collection of parts and accessories that you can peruse on racks right in the lobby, so I naturally saw lots of stuff I wanted to take home but didn't have room for in the van.
Another cool thing they had was an autographed photo of Alan Jackson's Bronco, "Ol Yeller" thanking them for the work they've put into it. I see the country music star really does use it off-road too, as evidenced by a report on the Early Bronco Mailing List from Coby Hughey on a trip they were both on recently.
Tom's crew always has a lot of nice Broncos on hand that they've rebuilt for sale.
Last, but not least, on the Bronco shop tour was Wild Horses in California. They have just moved into a building that didn't even have their name on it yet, so I didn't take any pictures. I did talk with Jim Creel a bit and pick up some tire deflators. Jim was still jacked up about the Stampede and says he's bringing his whole family along next year!
So, between the Stampede and the Bronco shop tour this was definately the most Broncos and Bronco people we've ever experienced in one summer. Counting the Stampede and the Broncos sighted during the tour the total count was about 100. Now if I can figure out how to work Son Of Beach into this plan next year......
-Deano
