The Snowball Rally, February 8th-9th 2003.
-So after lunch we went out to play around the property on our own again. And by now I was getting pretty confident, I was making it through even the heavier and deeper stuff pretty well, even my tiny 205/75R15 WinterTracs were doing well in the powder.
-Then I saw this nice set of drifts along the edge of the property, beside the fence/trees. I found one that didn't look to deep and turned for it with my lil' Niva pegged at 6800rpms in 2nd gear, low range, with diff locked. Up to now I had taken on snow that was fairly deep and the Niva had enough power to accelerate through it in 2nd gear low, but in 3rd gear low, it would slow down, and 1st low was just too slow to get any momentum.
-I hit the drift hard. I started out well, but I didn't quite have the line I wanted. and slowly my wheels dropped away from the car and started to spin in the open. Power wasn't the problem here, the problem was that my Niva was sitting on it's belly.
Pictures:
1.Not quite enough momentum...
2.You can see the line where my rear diff was hitting the snow.
3.My tire here is almost gone. Both tires on the deeper side are the ones that started to spin.
4.Up to it's eyeballs!
5.You can see that another 2 feet and I'd have been on the drift's down-slope and I would have been safe.
-So we had to trundle on back to the forest where the big boys were playing, er, winching. We got Gavin and his Fiva to try and come un-stuck me.
-I wanted to pull my Niva out the front, well just because, and I don't really have any hard points on the back the way I do on the front.
-Gavin actually got his Fiva stuck trying to pull me out, so he had to get his brother, Mark, to come un-stuck him, then we dug out the front of the Niva and tried again, success!
Pictures:
1.The big guys were winching in the forest.
2.Finally out.
3.Look, it's a Rabbit... um yeah, ok Sophie, sure, you pushed the Niva out...
4.This is AFTER we cleaned most of the snow out from under the Niva to get it unstuck. No parts left behind though.
Pictures:
1.A big stuck. I passed there earlier with my lil' Niva how come he couldn't make it? OK so I passed before the snow was all churned up...
2.Tough guys eh, big tires n' stuff! Hehe I'll have to buy some 44" tires now to out-big them... NOT
3.Sophie nice and warm in the Niva, Edd's Niva in the background.
4.Later that evening we made our way to the neghbour's feild and had some fun over there, with some many stuck's. I had to pull Bill's Niva out again. He still gets an A for effort. He was actually running some nice Nokia's, but they just didn't give him the flotation needed for this type of snow.
5.The rest of the crew. Rugrat in tail.
Pictures:
1.Gee, we must be pretty close to the border, let's go for it. But it shouldn't be snowing in Mexico. OK, maybe Mexico, NY.
2.Northern NY hospitality.
3.In Canada, the snow stays ON the roads. More fun that way.
4.Welcome to sunny Canada folks.
5.The sun was setting behind us, but there was purple ahead of us. This was going east on the 401.
