A few months ago, Denise, Joel,Amy,and myself took a road trip to go visit some friends up at St. Anthony’s dunes in Idaho.
We were blessed with a sorta “arrive and drive” experience. I was told I was going to drive the car in the picture above. Truth is, I’ve been offered wheel time in a handful of cool off-road toys, and I typically decline because I know that all sorts of weird things (read damage) can happen to cars like this in even the most experienced hands, and I simply can’t afford to fix a toy of this caliber. I was all set to decline this ride-until the owner fired the car up. It sounds amazing!I just couldn’t resist, and my hard on from the sound of the 1000 horsepower supercharged LSX overrode any good sense that I might have had, so Denise and I climbed in, strapped in, and I melted into the mechanical bliss that is a well set up long travel off road car.
I was already jacked on adrenaline and anticipation by the time I got strapped in. After one last sweep of the gauges and confirmation that we were clear to roll, I stepped on the clutch and reached a shaky hand to the shifter and pulled the sequential gearbox into 1st.
I blipped the throttle to get a feel for the pedal and engine response-and was immediately overwhelmed by the crisp angry roar of a motor that told me-no, INSISTED it was not only ready, but eager to be unleashed.
A couple of now even shakier legs on the pedals and I managed to get the car rolling into my spot in line for the dune ride.
A few minutes into a tame ride and we had to stop to investigate a small issue with one of the cars in the group.
The owner of the car I was driving tells me” Quit fucking around. You need to drive that car like you hate it. “😄😄🤷♂️
Perhaps a little back story is in order at this point.
The owner of the car is a guy named Phil Hatch. He has been a customer and a friend of mine now for well over 20 years. In that time, I have worked on a number of his sand cars and off-road cars- everything from fabrication to wiring. I know that he spends a lot of time with these cars and is very proficient at getting them dialed in and set up. and he uses them! He’ll typically put several thousand miles a year on one of his sand cars. So with that knowledge in mind, I felt pretty confident that we weren’t gonna encounter any weird failures with the Car as he’d already put a season on it And really has it dialed in.
Also one other perhaps important point to this story-I’ve really never gotten to go Duning!
My entire sand experience consists of a couple of trips in very old clapped out 500 cc single cylinder Polaris Rangers one trip in a 70s bronco with a Rancho lift kit and that’s about it.
Phil knows this. So to be handed the reins to a machine like this is a pretty big deal and really requires a lot of trust. I’m grateful that he had that trust in me.
After a half hour or so, I felt like I was getting a feel for what the Car and my abilities could do together. We started running faster and faster. What followed was a pretty long day of Duning and probably more fun than I’ve had in many, many years!
I wish we had better videos. And I wish the audio in the above clip did justice to the absolutely violently beautiful sound this engine makes. The sound is addictive. It’s so loud the headsets don’t work properly and you basically have to turn the intercom off. People in the lead car 3 cars ahead of it know when you hit the skinny pedal because THEY can hear it even through their headsets. It’s an absolute animal. Yet really easy to drive. Throttle response and engine performance is linear, solid and predictable. The car itself handles pretty much everything you can throw at it and doesn’t even blink. Whoops turns acceleration deceleration everything on the car just freaking works perfectly.
Oddly enough, I had the shakes the entire time. I was having so much fun, and the adrenaline was running so hard all day. I just never stopped. Apparently I also laughed the entire day and I did not even realize it. You can hear me laughing at the beginning of the video clip above. I was told that’s all I did all day and I believe it-I was on cloud nine!
I also got to meet up with somebody that I had often interacted with in the old glamisdunes.com days, but had never met in person-Cortni aka QueenGlamis. So that was fun.
Her and her husband have an amazing new Alumicraft.
They followed me most of the day, and were shocked to find out I’d never really run the dunes before!😄😄
To be fair, I may be a sand virgin, but I do have a LOT of seat time in all manner of performance off road vehicles, so I’m not quite as green as it sounds.
There is a lake in the middle of the sand dunes! How cool is that?!
Turns out it was potato harvest season right at the edge of the dunes and we all got to go pick fresh potatoes right from a neighboring potato farm! Denise, Amy, and myself went on a mission to find the weirdest shaped potatoes that we could find. Lol!😄😄
Finally, it was time to return to camp. Just outside of camp, I had to give that car and that engine one last little rip just so I could hear that glorious thunder coming from that LSX one last time.
It was with a little sadness that I turned the ignition off to that car for the last time.
Return to camp and no longer having to be responsible for somebody else’s car meant it was cocktail time! We all proceeded to relax, unwind, and share stories of the day over drinks. It was a great day and a great evening!
