DuneFest 2012

Being in the sand and not being able to ride was killing me. I knew it was only a matter of time before the sand would be junk, because of all the traffic, after all it was DuneFest and there was talk of an attendance record.

It was day 2 (Thursday) and I hadn’t even unloaded the Brute yet. The early morning rides have always been one of the highlights of my times at DuneFest, held in Winchester Bay, Oregon, and this morning the anticipation was killing me. We were scheduled to ride with Jon and Jason from UTV Guide (www.utvguide.net) for a photo shoot.

The sky was blue and the sun was out (a real treat in the morning) as the group started to come together, at a chipper 7:30 am, we talked some and got some instructions on where to meet, at the top of Banshee Hill. I was ready, I had had plenty of coffee and a less than healthy over sized fresh brownie for breakfast.

I decided I would meet them at the top by taking the direct route, straight up through the trees to the top. As I rolled up to the bottom and grabbed a thumb-full of throttle, the BruteForce screamed to life and accelerated hard through the bottom section and up into the trees, as I started to clear the the trees and enter the upper bowl the s

and began to feel loose and I could feel it robbing power, and dragging down the top speed.

Meeting the group at the top, Jon gave me some instruction on how close to get to him and where he would be. Off I headed to the bottom to make another blast up as I was rolling up the top bowl I could see where they were and found a perfect spot to do a little showboating, and pulled the front end with a slight braaaap of the thumb. “Too far away” he reported, “I have the close up lens on”. Down the hill I went ( I wasn’t comfortable hooking it around in the loose midsection). I stopped at the bottom to make a slight adjustment to the DigiTune, and headed back up, pulling another wheelie right at the top but still not “real Close”.

We did some shredding in the upper “bowl” while Jon took pictures, and at one point I thought for sure I got too close and got his legs… Turns out he is pretty quick, and STILL got the shot !

As we wrapped our part of the shoot and Jon switched to the new Arctic Cat Wildcat, Kelly and I rolled off and down the backside of Banshee. We headed south east to the least traveled area of the Winchester Bay dunes. The further south and east we got the smoother and less traveled the sand was and we were able to open up our machines and let them breathe the thick coastal air.

We cruised up some big dunes and did some side-hilling and high marking and than rolled into the “trails” along the south out of bounds border (which has been moved north a lot in the last few years). The trails were great, no traffic to worry about and some fun, fast really bermed up corners with humps and jumps in between the sections that run through the grass. We were having a blast but it was time to get back to my other commitments, so we ran to the roller flats all the way to the west and laid pipe on the pin until the first rise. Easing up to the first big rise and cresting the top I was reminded how big DuneFest is as displayed by the row of haulers, toy haulers, RV’s and campers right out in the dunes. Across the flat again to the next rise, up and over and more of the same, it was surreal and amazing the sheer volume of people that were camped out in the sand.

I could tell we were getting close to being back by the traffic starting to show , slowing down and cruising the last several hundred yards into the Manufacturer row area , our Wednesday riding was over.

Friday morning the fog was almost on the deck, but we were riding. Heading the most direct route towards the south east corner again, the fog was so bad on top of the dunes I had to slow down. The sand was very damp and was already getting pretty tore up , it was rough with sections of really gnarrly. There was no shortage of traction in the wetter sand, but due to the wind blowing pretty hard some of the bigger dunes had spots about 2/3 to 3/4 the way up with bands of loose puffy sand that would either slow you down or FORCE you to take notice when running the bowl, by falling away under you (Surprise !). The tops of a lot of the dunes had areas the wind had blown small to medium jagged edge troughs, and between the fog and following a well suspended (Elka Stage4) RZR, I got some unexpected turbulence a few times.
As we started to run out of time, we headed back, crossing through some mid dune trails and over some great, smaller razorbacks that are just enough to get a little air (the Brute is NOT big air friendly), and made things fun and more active than just pinning the throttle and running up the flats/rollers. We finally did hit them and wide open throttle brought some surprises as to how wet the area really was, as it was dragging the top speed down almost 10MPH, although running into a healthy headwind didn’t help either.

I caught sight of the group heading my direction on the flats and crossed over to meet them, yes they were coming to look for me (sorry guys), we met up and headed off to a smoother area of medium to small dunes where we all stopped to take in the view. It wasn’t long and Jon had his camera out and the guys were shredding around and looking for a spot to get some air. One of the first ones to air it out was Kelly (who picked up the nickname AirKelly, That was quickly shortened to “The A-K”, after a photoshoot earlier in the week).