Post by pistonschick on Jan 29, 2009 10:05:54 GMT -8
Dear Pistons Wild Club Members and Honored Guests:
I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your dedication to all of the many volunteer projects that were such a huge part of our lives in 2008. We hosted 30 official club activities and although we thoroughly enjoyed most of them – 25 were volunteer work events and only 5 were strictly “fun” events. That kind of schedule takes a tremendous amount of focus and determination and is representative of the selfless motivation that binds us all together as friends and family. Not to mention, somehow managing to squeeze in the marriages of two couples in the club – Congratulations, Lance & Margaret and Rick & Kira – we wish you all a lifetime of happiness – remember love and motorsports will keep you together…
In addition, thanks to the stellar efforts of Dave Huttula and Kira Dominiak, we now have our website, forum and calendar up and running. Be certain to take the time to visit these sites as often as you can and help to populate the forum and calendar with any information that you might have to share. These sites will only be a good as we make them – please go to www.pistonswild.com every chance you have to help lighten the load for Kira and Dave…
Special thanks go out to Bill Manbeck for his unwavering duties as our PNW4WDA Region 3 Washington Land Matters representative in 2008 and continuing to support our efforts in 2009. Hands down, Bill suffers more abuse than you can possibly imagine defending our intentions to the Pacific Northwest 4-Wheel Drive Association “elders”.
I also want to make sure to send out a big THANK YOU to the ‘Moms’ (Judy & Reda) for filling in whenever and wherever necessary – we could not have pulled off those events without your help. Also a big thank you to Farel, aka, “Mikey” for scouting out the goat trails that no one else would dare to wander. And to my Dad, Terry – although you don’t share my crazy love of motorsports, your home-made jerky was with us on almost every trip and we were all very well nourished while working out on the trails – we thank you.
Even though it could go without saying, I would like everyone to acknowledge Darel for taking the heat as trail boss for almost all of our events in 2008. Sometimes we can be an unruly group and he always makes certain that we all get home safely at the end of every day.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank the ever present staff members from the Department of Natural Resources. None of this would have been possible without your cooperation and support. Thank you for giving us a chance and especially for the opportunity to share with you, our love of this sport. On a more personal note – thank you for putting up with my persistent (yet purposeful) barrage of e-mails.
As far as accomplishments go – the list would be long and probably pretentious – so, instead, I just want to share some interesting information that has recently come to my attention. This is in regards to all of the efforts put forth by club members in 2008 to educate the local 4-wheel drive community about following the rules of the forest. Following are three links to a forum topic that was started just last Saturday (1/24/09) about a Blue Jeep Cherokee stuck in the mud up in Jones Creek powerlines. This story quickly spread to 3 forums (that I know of):
Note: Browsers beware – some of these forums have no restrictions on language or content.
www.pirate4x4.com
www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=753999
www.nw-wheelers.com
www.nw-wheelers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35239
www.timbercrawler.com
timbercrawler.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=38935
The exciting part about this story is the following:
As of late Wednesday evening, these threads have been viewed a total of 5,760 times in just 5 days. In addition, there have been well over 250 replies to these topics. The really good news is that the majority (I would estimate about 90%) of the replies are attempts to educate and reprimand this young man about the error of his ways, going 4-wheeling in the Yacolt Burn - in a "known" illegal area, alone, unprepared. Also, even though two internet wheelers went up to take a look at this stuck vehicle to see if they could help – not one single person, so far, has been willing to “break the law” to rescue him.
This is just one of the many small victories that are a direct result of many months of your hard work and persistence as we work towards opening new 4x4 trails in the Yacolt Burn. Your dedication to this project has been phenomenal and I am so proud to belong to this club - keep up the great work. I’m optimistically predicting that 2009 is going to be a great year for 4-Wheeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . in the Yacolt Burn.
Respectfully at your service,
Crystal Crowder
Piston’s Wild Motorsports
Club President (2007–2009)
I just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your dedication to all of the many volunteer projects that were such a huge part of our lives in 2008. We hosted 30 official club activities and although we thoroughly enjoyed most of them – 25 were volunteer work events and only 5 were strictly “fun” events. That kind of schedule takes a tremendous amount of focus and determination and is representative of the selfless motivation that binds us all together as friends and family. Not to mention, somehow managing to squeeze in the marriages of two couples in the club – Congratulations, Lance & Margaret and Rick & Kira – we wish you all a lifetime of happiness – remember love and motorsports will keep you together…
In addition, thanks to the stellar efforts of Dave Huttula and Kira Dominiak, we now have our website, forum and calendar up and running. Be certain to take the time to visit these sites as often as you can and help to populate the forum and calendar with any information that you might have to share. These sites will only be a good as we make them – please go to www.pistonswild.com every chance you have to help lighten the load for Kira and Dave…
Special thanks go out to Bill Manbeck for his unwavering duties as our PNW4WDA Region 3 Washington Land Matters representative in 2008 and continuing to support our efforts in 2009. Hands down, Bill suffers more abuse than you can possibly imagine defending our intentions to the Pacific Northwest 4-Wheel Drive Association “elders”.
I also want to make sure to send out a big THANK YOU to the ‘Moms’ (Judy & Reda) for filling in whenever and wherever necessary – we could not have pulled off those events without your help. Also a big thank you to Farel, aka, “Mikey” for scouting out the goat trails that no one else would dare to wander. And to my Dad, Terry – although you don’t share my crazy love of motorsports, your home-made jerky was with us on almost every trip and we were all very well nourished while working out on the trails – we thank you.
Even though it could go without saying, I would like everyone to acknowledge Darel for taking the heat as trail boss for almost all of our events in 2008. Sometimes we can be an unruly group and he always makes certain that we all get home safely at the end of every day.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank the ever present staff members from the Department of Natural Resources. None of this would have been possible without your cooperation and support. Thank you for giving us a chance and especially for the opportunity to share with you, our love of this sport. On a more personal note – thank you for putting up with my persistent (yet purposeful) barrage of e-mails.
As far as accomplishments go – the list would be long and probably pretentious – so, instead, I just want to share some interesting information that has recently come to my attention. This is in regards to all of the efforts put forth by club members in 2008 to educate the local 4-wheel drive community about following the rules of the forest. Following are three links to a forum topic that was started just last Saturday (1/24/09) about a Blue Jeep Cherokee stuck in the mud up in Jones Creek powerlines. This story quickly spread to 3 forums (that I know of):
Note: Browsers beware – some of these forums have no restrictions on language or content.
www.pirate4x4.com
www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=753999
www.nw-wheelers.com
www.nw-wheelers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35239
www.timbercrawler.com
timbercrawler.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=38935
The exciting part about this story is the following:
As of late Wednesday evening, these threads have been viewed a total of 5,760 times in just 5 days. In addition, there have been well over 250 replies to these topics. The really good news is that the majority (I would estimate about 90%) of the replies are attempts to educate and reprimand this young man about the error of his ways, going 4-wheeling in the Yacolt Burn - in a "known" illegal area, alone, unprepared. Also, even though two internet wheelers went up to take a look at this stuck vehicle to see if they could help – not one single person, so far, has been willing to “break the law” to rescue him.
This is just one of the many small victories that are a direct result of many months of your hard work and persistence as we work towards opening new 4x4 trails in the Yacolt Burn. Your dedication to this project has been phenomenal and I am so proud to belong to this club - keep up the great work. I’m optimistically predicting that 2009 is going to be a great year for 4-Wheeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . in the Yacolt Burn.
Respectfully at your service,
Crystal Crowder
Piston’s Wild Motorsports
Club President (2007–2009)