First REAL weekend with Adair Tracks

[plott hound]

WOW!those tracks are real impressive.

[LarryW]

Great videos!(as usual) I love the up front view. I wonder how the camera mounted in the back facing forward would look?

Looks like they are working great. Might get boring waiting for the non tracked machines to catch up though. Maybe you could bring a magazine with you?

[Dan67]

Your daughter rocks, that girl did a great job piloting the Argo. I think she needs one of her own.

I have to agree! Your daughter did a awesome job making the trail wider for her poor ol' dad to follow up behind her.

[Noel Woods]

Your daughter rocks, that girl did a great job piloting the Argo. I think she needs one of her own.

[Rock Doctor]

Rock Doctor

You make this muddy trail look really easy when you're driving through it with the Adair tracks on your 8x8, but you know from experience that this trail is not as easy as it looks with tires. After your friends continue watching you take the hardest lines on the trails while they take the easier ones, you'll soon have some Adair converts.

I would say that 60% of the video I shot is useless to me, the tracks made some of the bad places look SO easy that it would be pointless showing it. Might as well be driving down a paved trail.

R.D. that bridge crossing was some great footage. Yes, the Adair tracks are slippery on wood and flat steel, but otherwise awesome the other 99% of the time.
Who is your buddy with the HDI? That machine would look great w/Adair tracks too.
Looks like you guys had some fun out there.

That's my buddy Carl, he was the only other person out at the lake besides my family. He is very interested in the tracks, and was critiquing them on the way in, lol.

There are possitives and Negatives to everything. Another issue I had with the tracks (and it's NOT the Tracks fault), is the extra width. I could not get the machine between the trees in some places. I never got any good footage of myself forcing it down some trails, but you can believe me when I say "I made it go where it never should have gone". Kinda like forcing a square peg in a round hole. More than once I was just riding on the tire guides on one edge of the tracks and the other side guides were doing their best to force my tires off their beads. I am now up to about 25hrs on the tracks, I have managed to get a good portion of the Strech out of the chains. I know this because I DID finally manage to drive out of a track. Let me tell you, an Argo with Track Tuners and no track is very much like a Pig on ice, NOT GOING ANYWHERE. I did answer the question "How long does it take to put an Adair Track back on, after you rip it off the machine on an ugly trail?"
The Mosquitoes were preparing to carry us all off as I stood there scratching my head, wondering what would be the better idea, 1) Abandon the machine, or 2)Light it on fire then abandon it.
I opted to make an effort to get the track back on. I suspected that I had streched the tracks enough that it shouldn't be TOO hard to pull the ends together by hand. I unbolted the Master Links as Diane built a fire to keep the Skeeters off us. Shazam, tracks back on in about 20-25 minutes, air in the tires and back on the trail (After putting out the fire that my wife convinently built right in the middle of the trail in front of me)

Here is a clip of my Pinball Wizard daughter slipping between the trees like some kind of greased noodle. I like to call her "Nutbar" at times like this

RD

[Noel Woods]

R.D. that bridge crossing was some great footage. Yes, the Adair tracks are slippery on wood and flat steel, but otherwise awesome the other 99% of the time.
Who is your buddy with the HDI? That machine would look great w/Adair tracks too.
Looks like you guys had some fun out there.

[mudbug3]

Rock Doctor

You make this muddy trail look really easy when you're driving through it with the Adair tracks on your 8x8, but you know from experience that this trail is not as easy as it looks with tires. After your friends continue watching you take the hardest lines on the trails while they take the easier ones, you'll soon have some Adair converts.

[azz7772]

The Avenger HDI bows out on this piece of trail, and no shame in doing so. We were both loaded very heavy and there is no bottom to some of these holes. This is one of those places where you think to yourself "If I get stuck in here, nobody is coming to help". In my case, I was thinking " I hope I don't have to get my shoes wet"

RD

I thought that was what you were up to when I saw that pole in your earlier picture workin the camera angles

[Rock Doctor]

So, like I mentioned earlier, Tracks are not always the answer. This little incident took me a little off guard, the vid does no justice to how it really felt. Wet, muddy Tracks are VERY slippery on a wooden Bridge Deck. Especially when the bridge has a mean lean to the downstream side. I could literally have pushed the Argo off the bridge with one hand, had I wanted to. Add to it that I am now almost too wide to cross the bridge, and we have a disaster waiting to happen. On my way back out I spiked in some 2x4's to the downstream side to make a kickplate. I could easily still drive over it, but it will keep me (or anyone) on the bridge for now.

I took all my "winter" hardware off the tracks earlier, and now I am considering putting some Ice Picks back in just to give me a little Bite on the wooden deck, it would probably work. I'm just not sure if it's THE answer I'm looking for.


More to come
RD

[Rock Doctor]

Some Wildlife


Another one


RD

[Rock Doctor]

The Avenger HDI bows out on this piece of trail, and no shame in doing so. We were both loaded very heavy and there is no bottom to some of these holes. This is one of those places where you think to yourself "If I get stuck in here, nobody is coming to help". In my case, I was thinking " I hope I don't have to get my shoes wet"

RD

[Rock Doctor]

This

to this

is a beautiful thing

The kids caught these, I never even got a bite

RD

[Rock Doctor]

Hey Tim, I like the way you think
I couldn't have said it better. I also find that in the trenches, sometimes you have to just stop and let the water wash back around the machine. It's easy to push a wall of water ahead of yourself and make the machine float. Sometimes I have 6-12" more water ahead of me than there is behind me, lol.
More to come

RD

[Rock Doctor]

Skeeters have been out for a while now, but it's still the big dumb ones. More annoying than anything. No Sandfly's yet, lol, but they are on their way.
More pics and vids are on the way, just have to slip away from work for a few minutes to post them.

RD

[Obsessed]

fun video RD...looks like the perfect place to be able to ride an amphib....good example of the skill needed to go through really soft, deep, muddy water crossings....in areas like that it usually seems to work best to go slower than normal and just let the machine "walk" across....sometimes when the mud gets really churned up it even helps to just stop for a minute and let it settle back in around the tracks and then ease forward...you also gave a good example of how a driver should just choose a good line and go for it...better to just let the machine wander a bit if need be and not attempt direction changes until your back on more solid ground...IMO this style of driving is easier on the land, the equipment, and the driver...probably saves a little money in fuel and repairs over the long haul also

take care and thanks for sharing some of your adventures with the rest of us :-)

tim