Official '09 SS Ga. Rally Info thread

It is time once again to begin planning for the Steel Soldiers Ga. Rally!

The 2009 event is the 3rd annual SS Ga. Rally (4th if you count the 2006 cookout at my house).

If you are considering coming to the rally, check out what we did at previous rallies:

2007: The offical GA SS Rally Multimedia and BS thread.......

2008: 2008 GA Rally Multimedia Thread

Please read this entire thread-it is long and covers a lot of ground. All your info for dates, locations, lodging, food and itinerary/events are below. Any changes and updates will be added as posts and edited in the original post.

The 2009 Steel Soldiers Georgia Rally will be on October 22, 23, 24 and 25. This is a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday event. Event will be held rain or shine. I have expanded the event to a 4-day affair because the # of participants involved who showed up on Thursday and ended up heading home on Sunday morning. I will be on location on Thursday, October 22 to ensure our area is set up, so anyone who wishes to come down early is more than welcome, but beware; you may be drafted to do some work.

The Rally will be held at Durhamtown Plantation Offroad Park in Union Point, Georgia. This is an offroad park that has been around for awhile, catering to the motocross and ATV market, but the owner recently took out an additional 2,500 acres of uncut forest specifically for Jeep trails. They have cut some Jeep trails through the forest and are adding more. The trails are pretty easy, no rock crawling or axle/u-joint death trails. Some of the trails are tight for a Deuce or a 5 ton, but finding a spotter should not be difficult and most if not all trails have easier walk-arounds that allow you to bypass difficult challenges. Since the Jeep trails are new, there are not a lot of people there. During last year's rally, we were pretty much by ourselves out in the woods.

We will have an area set aside for us in a field, by ourselves. This is where we will have our base of operations- the display-only vehicles will be here, at night and when not trail riding this is where we will have the vehicles parked, our GP medium tents, campfire, etc. We will have at least one GP medium, perhaps more. If there is rain, there may be insufficient space in the GP mediums, so you may wish to bring some kind of inexpensive tent/cover/shade, etc. This is where we will be cooking out our meals. I would suggest bringing a picnic table and chairs for yourself, as we will not have them provided for us.

In the past 3 rallys we have had (2006, 2007, 2008 ), I tried to have a schedule of events, but with such a large and diverse group, the schedules never really worked, so this year I am doing away with any kind of organized schedule. The basic organization of a day will probably look something like breakfast, a mid morning trailride, lunch, afternoon trail rides, dinner and then the general BS session around the campfire. There may or may not be late night trail rides, depends upon the interest. As always, the rally is an easy going event. If you don't want to go trailriding (or take your truck), you don't have to. You can hang at the camp, do whatever you please.

At this time, Ga. Rally participants will be responsible for feeding themselves. I had tried to secure enough sponsorship to pay for CliffW's outstanding cooking like what they had at the Florida Rally, but with the declining economic conditions and explosive rise in fuel prices, our sponsors had a hard time covering the costs. This is no slam on our sponsors; they have been great and are trying to do everything they can to help us pull this off. This situation may change, but if it does, I will update this thread. At this time, I am going to pursue other aspects of improving the Ga. Rally, as the prospects for sufficient sponsorship look bleak. Durhamtown does have a small mom & pop restaurant on the premises and Durhamtown is only a short way from the city of Lexington and a little further away from Athens, Ga., which has every kind of dining and shopping imaginable.

Rally participants have several options for lodging. Durhamtown offers primitive cabins, cabins, primitive camping, RV sites and RV rentals. As long as you paid a primitive camping fee, you would be allowed to sleep in your truck/trailer if desired. Please see their website for additional information regarding lodging. And please reserve your spot NOW, as the owner tells me the spots will fill up quickly. Waiting until the last minute will highly increase the chances that you end up in a tent.


Ok, a recap of the major points.

Leadership:

I (Clinto) am the head chief of the Ga. Rally but there will be assistants this year who will assist in making sure everyone gets around smoothly and the putting out of fires. 2007 was quite a challenge for one person and I would not have succeeded without the assistance of my friend Dave, my Dad and girlfriend, Catlett, Westech, Gimpyrobb and Poppop (among many others). Last year, the assistance that was provided by the extremely capable member such as Doghead, Catlett, Kenny and many others made the event a far smoother event than 2007. As we will be in the same place this year, I expect an even smoother event.

There is a firing range at Durhamtown and we had planned on visiting it last year, but never got around to it. Bring your weapons if you want and if enough people want to, we can make a trip of it one morning.

Date & Location:

October 22, 23, 24 and 25, 2009 at Durhamtown Plantation Offroad Park. Here is their website:

Welcome

Their website has all of the information needed for directions, lodging, prices, etc. If you have a question about lodging, access to the trails or related costs, you should refer to their website and if necessary, send them an email or call. They have been very helpful to me so far, but keep in mind when you call, you may get a counter employee who has no idea that we are coming. To them, they are not putting on an event; it's simply a group of friends who are showing up for a weekend of fun. So if you call and say you are part of the "Steel Soldiers Georgia Rally" or the "Military vehicle rally", they may have no clue what you are talking about. So if you have a question and you call/email Durhamtown, I would simply say "I will be there on the dates of X, Y & Z, what will this cost?", etc. Also, it would be a good idea to call them and get directions. This place is out in the boonies and some people had problems with maps created online w/Mapquest, googlemaps, etc.

Lodging:

Lodging is the responsibility of Ga. Rally participants. Please see Durhamtown website for lodging options.

Food & Drink:

At this time, food and drink are the responsibility of Ga. Rally participants. Please prepare accordingly.

Costs:

Costs will vary widely, depending upon where you stay and how many vehicles you wish to take on the trails. Please see Durhamtown website for additional information.

Schedule:

As described earlier, we are doing away with the formal schedule this year and will operate on an ad-hoc basis. We'll see how it works this year.

Weather in Union Point, Ga., for the last 5 years on this weekend:

2008 temps: 46/61
2007 temps: 59/77
2006 temps: 32/59
2005 temps: 48/65
2004 temps: 56/67

Please prepare accordingly. We are doing the rally a month later than we did in 2007 to account for the fact that we will not be in the mountains like 2007 and this year's heat wave. Always better to throw on a coat than to die of heat related injuries.

Please see the 2008 event thread as linked above to see pictures of the trails and facilities (also see Durhamtown's website).

I look forward to seeing all of you! Get your preventative maintenance done, get those MV's fueled up and head out!

Later on, there will be separate threads for the convoy/travel ops and parts needs. I will link them here once they are put up.

10-September-2009: Here is the thread for parts wanted/parts being brought for sale:

2009 GA Rally-trader on line

6-October-2009: Here is the thread for food services:

Food service for Ga Rally

9-October-2009: Here is the thread for Florida folks getting together come up for the rally:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/convers...-ga-rally.html

9-October-2009: Here is the thread asking when people are going to show up:

When do plan on showing up?

9-October-2009: Here is the thread asking where you are staying for the rally:

Where are you staying for the 09 GA Rally

9-October-2009: Here is the thread asking about directions:

Georgia really