The phone at the office of 4X4REVIEW.COM rings, and on the other end is Rob Stapleton, driver of the
EKCO Racing, 4X4REVIEW.COM sponsored competition rockcrawler. "Xtreme 4X4 TV is shooting their season finale in Tellico next week, want to go?" Rob asked. Without knowing any details, the answer is a an unqualified affirmative: "I'll be there!"
"We'll be joined by Jessi and Ian's two project Jeeps from the show and a collection of eight more competition tube buggies, purpose-built Jeeps and vintage Broncos." Rob continued "Bring your camping supplies because we'll be roughing it." With that said, I immediately start working on my list of stuff to bring.
The overall plan was simple: meet up with fellow off-roaders and the intrepid duo of Xtreme 4X4 TV, Ian Johnson and Jessi Combs, and wheel the hell out of our rigs on the toughest set of trails in the South East- namely the infamous Tellico trail- while filming the wrap-up and testing of the Project AJ Jeep.
Day 1
Truck loaded, camera at the ready, bags of snacks to gorge on, coolers filled to the brim with drinks and libations… tent, sleeping bag, cooking apparatuses and laptop all packed up. Full tank of gas, sunglasses on, and I'm ready for my 1,000 mile journey. No time to stop for site seeing, I'm on a mission.
Well, for an hour, that is. A wrong turn takes me two hours off course. Apparently, I remembered everything except a map, and my Spidey-sense seems to have failed me. I find myself southbound on I-75 again, IPod dialed in, stereo turned way up, radar detector detecting and BAM! Flat tire. I unload everything in the truck, swap out the tires, reload everything in truck, and am back at it again. Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky… they are all a blur, except for the occasional refueling and bio-break. I enter Tennessee, and night falls. I feel like I'm playing the "Whack-A-Mole" game at Chucky-Cheese, except it's with the darting wildlife on the byways.
I hit Tennessee's highway 64/74 east and enter the mountains and switchback roads. I turn the music up louder, shift gears feverishly, and run the slaloms like a Formula 1 car… all the while dodging the kamikaze wildlife. At 11:30 p.m., I finally arrive at Crawford's Camp. Wired like a teenage skateboard punk on Mountain Dew and Twinkies, we setup camp in record time, with just a few hours left to grab some shut-eye.