Going To Haspin Acres To Ride This Sunday- Anyone Want To Meet There?

[fyi]

One of my guys here at the shop and myself are planning to go Haspin Acres in Laurel, Indiana http://www.haspinacres.com/home.html tomorrow (Sunday- Nov. 26th.) for a day of riding while the weather is still nice. If our travel plans go smoothly, we should be there between 10:00am-10:30am and we plan to ride our 4-wheelers (Honda Rincon & Foreman) most of the day.

I've never been there and it should be fun! It would be cool to meet a few new riding buddies while we're there, so if anyone wants to meet up with us, please drop me an email or reply to this thread and we'll get with you via telephone while we're on our way.

Hope everyone had enough turkey and we hope to see some of you there! :)


-john

[fyi]

Well I just got back from Haspin Acres and I had a ball! I ended up going by myself, because the other guy plans had changed. No matter though, as I had not been there before and I wanted to try and scope it out a bit myself first on my new 2007 Honda Rincon 680 4x4. Haspin is hard-core!!!!

A few things I learned while I was there:

1. Get a damn winch!! I was only riding for about 5 minutes when I unknowingly drove into one of those huge mud-pit sink holes that swallowed my machine up whole! The very second I drove into that bottomless mess, the machine sunk to it's axles and I was solidly stuck... Thankfully, 2 hot chicks came over on their Grizzly's and yanked my sorry ass out and I'll think twice before I do that again!

2. Get bigger/wider front tires & rims!! I need more traction and a wider front stance to better manuever through the ruts and rocky trails..

3. Get better axle shaft protectors and a full skid plate!! The rocks around that place are *HUGE* and if a stick or rock were to crack a crankcase or rip out a coolant hose, I'm screwed..

4. Get stiffer shock springs!! I'm tired of this overly soft "soccer-mom" suspension and the nose diving this thing has under hard braking. Plus, I think I bottomed the front end out more than a few times on the motorcross track. I'll have none of that non-sense!

5. I need more power!! I repeat, I need more power!!! One can *NEVER* have enough power you know...


Overall, it was a really fun day and I learned a lot about the machine and where it could be improved. It handles the trails with real precision and aside from some of the quirks I spoke of above, I really love it! In fact, I put it into 2WD and was able to keep up with a guy lap-for-lap on the motorcross track while he was riding his Honda 400ex! I was tired as hell after 2 laps from slinging that 600 lb. machine around for 2 laps, but it was still fun. I will say I've never jumped a 600 lb. ATV before and she flies and lands quite nicely! I think I even surprised that 400ex guy...:naughty:

Ohh, yea- I sprayed a ton of baby oil all over the chassis, fenders, wheels and under carriage before I went and the mud just melted off when I brought her home to wash it up after I got back. As anyone knows who's been to Haspin, that mud there is killer and will set like concrete if not washed off right away.. Baby oil works like a charm, is cheap and makes your machine smell baby fresh! :lol:

Once I get my mods done, I'll be back! :naughty:


-john

[fyi]

I used to use kerosene to repel mud on my other ATV's in the past, but I got tired of the stinky smell, therefore baby oil took it's place. The nice thing about baby oil is that it easily, completely washes off with the mud when you pressure-wash the machine, so you don't have to worry about having a slimy machine that collects dirt after your done due to residual oil hanging around. Just put it into a plastic spray bottle that has a "mist" setting and go to town. Even after I got home and the mud dried somewhat, it still literally slid right off the plastic and under-carraige when I sprayed it clean. It's an old mud-boggers' trick..:naughty:

Kerosene would never totally wash off unfortunately and that's one of the reasons why I quite using it..

-john

[fyi]

If anyone is interested~
We might be going back down to Haspin Acres sooner than I thought. I told my friends, wife and family about how neat the place was and how much fun I had and now they want to go too...like this coming Sunday! As long as the weather permits and it's not raining, we're at a 90% chance so far that we'll be there. It's supposed to be cold, (39*) but bright and sunny, with only small amounts of rain a couple of times this week. This will probably be the last time we get down there before next year, so we're anxious!

If you'd like to go, we can meet up at Haspin- just PM or email me and we'll make arrangements. :-)

-john