I am by no means an "expert" or anything like that. Just thought about some things I have seen and or done that were not the brightest. So I thought I would share my opinions and welcome any additions or corrections. I still love to learn new things too.... I am just hoping to help out that "Newbie" or experienced person that is too proud to ask.

Out in the dunes........

If you are the "leader" of the ride, make sure you know the skill level of the other people on the ride and their vehicle's abilities. Adjust your lines/speed accordingly.

If you are a "follower" stay in line. Never pass anyone with out them having prior knowledge of it. They might need to make a quick turn and they can't cause you are there. I know, whats the fun in that? Some of you have your own "ways" that you dune, this is just mine.

So your shooting a Bowl in your vehicle and another vehicle has decided to run the Bowl in the other direction. First, signal with your hand which way you are going to go. I recommend that you turn down to the bottom of the Bowl. NEVER turn up the hill! Once you have cleared the approaching vehicle(s) put yourself in a position to watch them and see where their next move is going to take them. So you can adjust your line accordingly.

It's time for a break. So where do you stop? Always stop on the top of a dune where you can see in all directions. And position yourself so you can be seen from all on coming traffic. If it's at night, leave a whip light on. This also applies for a break down/accident. If it is you, and you are in a dangerous position, put a vehicle in a position as described above. If it is an accident, it is always great to have GPS coordinates handy if there is a serious injury. It will make it much easier for you or some one in your group to tell the Paramedics. If you are stopping at the bottom of a hill at one of the valleys or "flats" make sure you are not in an area that other vehicles are running. If some has found that "perfect line" and you have just parked in it, they are going to be bummed. So just check things out before you shut it off and get out.

Your approaching a dune/"razor back" you can not see the other side of. NEVER go straight over a "razor back". If you can not see whats on the other side, approach it sideways so you can see what or who is on the other side. Just because you are being safe does no mean that others are. Always choose your line so that you have an "out". You can always run around that line again and transition in to that other bowl. This will also save you from the "I'm stuck sand shower". You will not have to be stopping at the top of a hill cause you didn't know it dropped off 50+ feet. If you are stuck, please have some one get out a camera or video camera so we can see you get showered before you try to "power" your way out. By the way, it usually does not work to "power it out". If you are stuck, save yourself from being the campfire story that night and have some of your group help dig/push you out.


At the hill......

If you are just parking, pick a spot that is safe, and not being used as a jump or a place where vehicles are using it to get a run up the hill.

If you are running the hill up or down, take care as to know where and what is going on. There is always that person that is jumping with out a spotter. And you don't want to be part of his accident waiting to happen. As you are going up the hill, check your left side as you are going up and before you turn if you are not going all the way up. I prefer to turn left for a few reasons. You have much more visibility to your left if you are in a rail. If I have two passengers in my four seater I always put them behind the passenger seat and by doing this, if I have to make a quick turn of the steering wheel during my left hand turn around, I have that extra weight on the right hand side of my car to help keep the car stable from the quick weight transfer.

Jumping at the hill can be fun and safe. As long as you know what to do and it is not too busy. ALWAYS USE A SPOTTER! Always make sure your landing area is big enough that if something goes wrong, you have room to correct or worse case, crash. You have made the choice to put yourself in possible danger. Those people just chilling out have not... So, don't just take yourself in to account, but others also.


At the drags......

Chillin' out. Put yourself in safe(if there is one) area. I always put a rail or pick up between my family and the approaching vehicles. If need be, my car is my barrier. Make sure you have enough room to be able to run for cover. Always make sure there is twice as much room as you need to pull out to leave if you are leaving out on the "drag strip". Some of the long travels are approaching speeds of 100+ mph.
Running the drags. Just remember that there is nothing between your vehicle and the audience. You don't want to hurt some one or end up in court by
by damaging some other persons property. I always turn my lights on when I am going down the drags. It might just be enough to catch that other persons eye and keep them from making a turn into my direction.


Jumping..... (sand rail)

Different cars jump differently. So this is just my take on what I do and don't do. First things first. Use a spotter, I know I have said this many times, thats how important it is! Second, the first approach to the jump, take it very easy. "Roll" it the first time. Always set vehicle up so that you are going to hit the lip of the jump straight. Jump progressively bigger each time till your still comfortable. As you approach the face of the jump and you see that you are lined up correctly, make sure you stay on the gas. You do not want to lift at the top. You want to give it enough gas as to keep the nose of the car up. Now, don't over do it. You don't want to be in a wheelie before you hit the lip. My friend did this a few weeks ago and it was not pretty... Once in the air, get out of the throttle. Your tranny will thank you. You will have to play with how much throttle your car like to fly level. And ALL jumps are different, so take it easy. Remember, short steep jumps will always cause the back end to buck up into the air and for your car to nose dive! When I say short, it depends on your speed. The faster you are going, the bigger the face needs to be. You don't want the rear suspension to be in rebound when you are coming off the top. When in the air, keep the steering wheel straight. Duh... When you land, chill out. If you get out of shape, don't be too aggressive with the steering wheel. The throttle is your friend in this situation. Give it a stab to straighten yourself back out. If you are jumping down a hill, you need to get back in the throttle when you land. It will help keep the car under control. You don't want the rear end of the car to try and get around on you. Also remember the car will act much differently if you have passengers. Take that into account. I do not jump big with more than one passenger. It does not take much of a jump to excite the rear seat passengers anyways....



Doing a Wheelie......

I won't go into much detail at all about this....I'm not a fan. Do Not wheelie around camps. Don't side wheelie the big hill when others are around running the hill. Don't be doing a wheelie as you come off the top of a hill, WES! When doing a wheelie down a hill, make sure you stay in the throttle when the front wheels come down. The quick weight transfer when the front wheels come down will cause you to get out of control very quick, so when you want the front end to come down, get out of the throttle very, very little. Then when the front tires hit, get back to the throttle quick and then let off slowly. Believe me, that weight transfer can catch you off guard and gets out of hand before you can correct it. NEVER make steering corrections while the wheels are off the ground. Keep the wheel straight, if does you now good to turn anyways. Yeah, DUH.... But I have seen it done and it always turns out bad.


Always do regular check of all parts of your rails. Heims, make sure the jam nuts are tight. Frame, free from any cracks etc.. Tires, proper PSI and no slices or gouges. Lug nuts, tight and torqued properly. It is your job as the car owner to make sure everyone is restrained properly. If they can move, tighten them up more. People always say, "yea, there tight and I know how to put them on". It is your job to make sure! I recommend helmets and wrist restraints. If you have young kids, besides their belts being tight, make sure there is not to much room between the top of their shoulders and where the belts come through the seat. Always install five point belts. The kids can slip below the lap belts very easily.

Hopefully I am not out of place by writing this. I just don't want to see any of my fellow dunners get hurt. Have fun be safe, add, correct or what ever to this post.

Stop by and share a beer or a good story/joke anytime. I carry a lot of spare parts and am always willing to help out a good person. Just don't tell my wife how much everything REALLY costs.....


Dean

Burnt Orange and Black Amplified Performance Long Travel

Make sure your lady goes pee before you leave camp..

Great info!! Im sure a newbie would appreciate it...

Good info

you could also add that if for some reason you do end up coming head on with someone BOTH drivers should to turn to the right, as in cars and airplanes to avoid and accident.

Good info!


And....DON"T LEAVE YOUR EFF'N TRASH IN THE DUNES

great post

Also, if you are in a group duning in a line, you are responsible for the guy directly behind you. If he/she drops off, the guy in the lead mosty certainly wont know there is a problem so STOP!!!!

Went for a night ride from olds to gecko. We got half way back to camp when I stopped and asked the car behind me.. "Wheres Chris"?. His reply was "I dont know, he hasnt been behind us since we left the hill"!!!!!!!


GGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!!

We found him right by olds....stuck in a witches eye that he couldnt get himself out of.

Excelent info.

Can someone explain to me what a witch's eye is ? Im assuming its the lip of a nasty sharp dune but not sure

What I refer to as a "witch's eye" is where a razor back at the top of a dune shoots sharply down and the sharply back up very quickly. Usually pretty small. 3' to 4'. But can be big. When these are hit with your car at the wrong angle, no amount of power or suspension is going to help you out.

Always bring TOILET PAPER ON A RIDE.

Someone always needs to crap !

Great post and I will reread it many times between now and the time I finally take delivery of my first car. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to post it.

Bah...some of my best fastest rides have been on those emergency runs back to camp because no one had any TP with them. I'm not giving that up!

I would describe a witches eye to be a funnel looking dip right in the middle of nowhere in the dunes not by camps or flat land... they always seems to blend right into the sand and you don't know it till your in it!

which is why it is important to not transition going 5th gear pinned...

"transition"- the point where one dune/bowl ends, so you go up and over the crest to catch the next dune...

i us doller bills if there is no TP so if u see 3 dollers in the sand leave them alone

Its where this Rhino is at...

Good post MoFo.

dam that sucks

I second the motion to pick up your trash. If there's one thing people can learn, it's that it is not acceptable to trash the dunes.

unless im wrong a witches eye because of the way the wind moves the sand and will make a hole in the ground and if looked upon from above will be in the shape of an eye. but usually its on a roller or slow up and down and u cant see it untill u are in it.

Here's a tip that used to be the norm in the dunes 20 years ago, but I rarely, if ever, see anymore. When duning in small groups and you come upon another vehicle or group of vehicles the leader would hold up his fingers in the same amount as the vehicles behind him. So in a group of five, the leader would hold up four fingers, so the other group would know that there are four other vehicles following the same line. The second person in line holds up three fingers, the next person two, and so on. And the other leader of the other group would do the same so that you also know how big his group is.

Of course, these days, there are so many people duning in groups bigger than our amount of fingers, that this won't work that often. But still, if you are in a group of six or less, it can work to let other groups know how many people are behind the leader.

very good info there!!

although when the group is mixed up with buggys quads and rhinos u still need to stop.

i guess the answer should be yes stop even if the person infront of u says to keep going.

go back and find out what happend to who ever was behind u

Excellent post!


I'd also like to add, it helps a lot if you have radios to communicate, at the least the leader and the last car should have radios so if anyone drops out, the leader can be notified to turn the group and circle back a ways.

That's a great tip we use that all the time when we go on a ride to crown king,But some people look at you when you hold up two finger

Until we get the quads in our group wired, thats the way we do it...


Great posts everyone!

Awesome post !!

One more note,stay out of the kiddie dunes in the washes, everyone knows how fast and nice your car looks except that 8yr old on his quad who just had a brain fart and didnt look both ways before cutting in front of you.

Its always best when duning with new people to your group, to make sure you are all on the same page. If I am pointing at something, it mean don't go there, its gonna suck. It can be interpreted into go there, cuz where I am right now, sucks! Ie witches eye, tree root...etc. So its best to sit with you group and make sure they all understand what it the signals mean.

A couple post above can also be interpreted differently.

The whole bowl thing, if someone is coming at you, do they think you are pointing at where you are going, or where you want them to go?

Same thing with the holding a hand up with how many peeps in your group. When holding up 5 fingers, does it mean they are 5 total, or 5 behind you? I know what it means, but I have run across some groups who dont get the concept. A guy held up 4 and I thought, ok there were 4 behind him....I went on looking for that last guy, and he never showed. It was 4 in his group he was telling me.

Another time, I got to the top of a small hill, that looked like a sweet jump before i got there, but on the other side was a little witches eye. I held up one hand to tell others behind me it was no good, and slow down, and one guy thought it meant- go for it, your going to sky this thing....well, he ate s***. whoops-

So make sure everyone in your group knows what you are telling them with the hand signals.

I do have to tell about my second time out there- My wife and I were on a ride, both on 200x's. She couldn't make it up a hill, so she went back around and got speed, I was at the top waiving to her "come on come on, you can do it" and she launched straight off the top of a razorback 3rd gear pinned.... no joke, she was a good 15 feet in the air for about 60 feet, and I thought 3 wheeler...body bag. SOMEHOW she held on, took one good bounce and kept right on going. i dont know how, but to this day, my wife has still gone bigger than I ever have.

My wife's divorce lawyer went bigger than I ever have too. He avoided the witche's eye but managed to fall into the bowl and had to be towed out, that was a big bowl.

Should never go in to that witches eye .... do not go straight over the top of dunes or transitions... you must crest them at an angle so that you can see what is on the other side prior to commiting.

I understood that each person was to signal (fingers) how many riders were behind them (i.e. the second to the last person would hold 1 finger up, and the last person wouldn't signal). I also read that if there were more than 5 people, you should signal 5 fingers until 5th to last (which would signal that there are only 4 riders left behind).

This would be really helpful, because then other passing groups/people could help police your group (if there was a missing or downed rider).

great info for all, losers tossing cans out of the trucks on the way in or out of glamis SHOULD BE SHOT!!!!!

Great post, some good stuff. I'll add this one.

When following, don't follow too close, but don't follow to far behind.

Following too close will thrash your car and pit your powder coat, chrome and headlights, plus increase risk of collision in the event of the car in front of you hitting a witches eye, compounding the mishap. Following too close is also asking to be blasted by the car in front of you. Cars in front of you may get concerned about you running into them, so common practice is for the driver to take the opportunity of you following too close to dump sand in your lap/face with a slight rev/clutch-dump at the next lip, a subtle hint to "back off". Then at the next stop they will deny any intentional actions to spray sand. Acting classes pay off in these circumstances.

Following too far behind and you won't be able to take advantage of the knowledge you can gain from the watching car in front of you. Watch the car's whip antenna in front of you, you will learn how to interpret what's over the next lip by watching how the whip reacts to the terrian the car has gone over. This works like an instruction book, telling you what to do or what to expect expect if you take the same route. Following the right distance also helps you choose alternative routes that are smoother, easier or safer, based on what you see the misfortune the car in front of you going through.

Typically a good distance is 60 to 85', depending on the speed of the dune clip.