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HOW TO "FOLLOW" - PLEASE READ

Avanteone

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Auburn, WA
This has been an issue in the past, both with this group and others, so I thought I'd offer a brief refresher course on proper technique's for following each other through the woods and keeping together as a group. It's amazing how simple it is and how often it gets screwed up and groups get split up, lost, etc.

1. Keep the rig that is behind you in your rear view mirror. If you don't see him, stop and wait for him to catch up. If everybody does this, the group will not get split up. If I'm a trail leader, and I see the rig behind me, I am assuming we are all together because 2nd in line sees 3rd in line, 3rd in line, sees 4th in line, etc. If the LAST person in line slows down or stops for some reason, the person in front of him will stop, then the person in front of him will wait, etc. This will keep the group together.

2. When you get to a turn, split, "Y" in the road, etc. Wait for the rig behind you to see which direction you go. IF you are following #1 above correctly, this shouldn't be an issue.

3. IF you have to stop or slow down for some reason, get on the CB and notify us AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Don't stop, get out of your rig, kick tires, etc. and THEN radio ahead that you have an issue. We may be a mile or three ahead of you by that point. Again, IF you are following #1 above correctly, this shouldn't be an issue.


Hope this helps and splitting up groups is a non-issue this year.

John
 
Thanks John,
This is ONE of the things that I wanted to remind each "trail leader" about also!!

The opposite should also be a reminder. NOT to follow TOO close. allow the vehicle in front of you to "complete" an obstacle safely before starting the obstacle yourself.

Michael
 
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Good points both of you. Just last weekend I had the person behind me following too closely, as I stuffed my wide-track CJ into tight tree corners and then had to back up to 3-point it through, the genius behind me had to back up. They finally figured it out after 3 or 4 times, but it's aggravating. The last thing you want to worry about when trying not to destroy your junk on the trees is hitting the idiot behind you because they were too impatient to let you get through the obstacle. We ended up with a string of 10 rigs coming back down from the 330 during that sweet hail/rain storm, just had to stop about every 2-300 yards and make sure the person behind was coming up.

Another potential issue is climbs/descents. Let the person in front of you get all the way through a climb or descent before following them. They may have issues and require a winch pull or end up sideways on the trail. If you're hammer-down climbing or sliding down the descent behind them, you could hit them and turn a bad situation into a worse one.
 
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