Feature
 
How to Avoid Getting Stuck in Your Truck
October 10, 2003

Bill Burke's 4-Wheeling America school teaches people how to drive off the pavement safely and effectively
Ever worry about getting your pickup stuck on the way to your favorite back-country campsite or fishing hole? Or wondered how the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management guys know how to drive and survive over rugged, sometimes desolate terrain far from the nearest paved road? A great many of them have studied basic and advanced back-country off-road driving at 4-Wheeling America with Bill Burke (www.bb4wa.com). And Burke is a strong proponent of BFGoodrich® tires.

Burke, a U.S. team member (one of two) in the fabled Camel Trophy event in Tanzania, has been teaching back-country survival driving as well as recreational driving for over 20 years, drawing ordinary people who want to improve their experiences with hunting, camping or fishing treks, as well as government workers whose jobs and lives depend on their skill at off-road driving.

Bill's school is based in Fruita, Colorado, but he takes it all around the country, to give training in other areas. The basics of his off-road curriculum are what he calls the Three P's -- Patience, Planning and Practice.

Patience, he says, involves driving slowly enough. "You want to be able to accurately gauge the terrain you're driving. When you come to a tricky-looking section, DON'T drive straight into it -- especially not with a running start."

"Stop the truck, get out and look at what's ahead of you," Bill says. "Notice the biggest obstacles -- rocks, logs, sand, mud or water. Then you need to find out how far down the mud or wet sand goes." That calls for one of the items on Bill's equipment list: "You want a staff, like a tent-pole, that you can poke down through the surface of the ground to see how far down the mud or water goes. Then you compare that with the lowest point of your ground clearance. That leads to Planning, the second P.

"Planning is deciding how you're going to negotiate the obstacle. For mud, you may want to deflate your tires to around 16 pounds. In snow, you keep the pressure at least as high as 25 pounds." Surprisingly, Bill says that for the sipes in the tires to clog up with mud or snow is good. "Snow in the sipes adheres to the snow you're trying to drive over, and give you traction when you're trying to get unstuck," Bill says.

The third P is for Practice, which involves trying out the equipment and tactics at home -- somewhere safe and easy to get out of. To seriously enjoy back-country driving and off-road excursions, Burke recommends these accessories for your pickup:
  1. A lift jack that operates with a turn crank. This can be used upright, to raise the front or back end of your truck over or out of an obstacle. It can be used horizontally as a winch, to crank the truck forward or backward out of an obstacle.
  2. A short piece of chain, some D shackles and a winch extension rope.
  3. A 2-inch by 30-ft. recovery strap, which Bill also calls a Tree Strap.
  4. Portable anchors, which are pounded into the ground to anchor the chain or the extension rope.
  5. A self-recovery winch.
  6. A heavy pair of leather-palm winch gloves.
  7. A good set of tires that are designed for the type of terrain you are traveling.
As far as tires, Bill has been a BFGoodrich® tires man for at least 20 years. He equips his street pickup and his two school Land Rovers with BFGoodrich tires and recommends them to all his students. Here's why:

"In 20 years driving on BFGs, I've had two trail flats," Bill says. "They're just really good tires. And the range and variety of the tires is great, particularly the different tread types for snow and ice. I find the All-Terrain T/AKO does really well on snow and ice. But the Mud-Terrain T/AKM does so well all-around I use it as my year-round tire. The Mud-Terrain tires last a long time, they have very strong construction and they're not noisy. I've never had a tire fall apart, even driving at sustained low pressure for lots of miles." *

A last-but-not-least theme of Bill's back-country driving curriculum is one he calls Environmental Ethics, and it means taking care of the environment as you drive through it.

"What you really need to do is treat the outdoors where you drive like your own home -- you take care not to damage it or clutter it."

For more Bill Burke driving tips, Bill has produced a critically acclaimed video called "Unstuck!" available at www.4x4now.com/bbus.htm.

* Operating a pneumatic tire at other than the inflation pressure recommended by the vehicle manufacturer can result in tire damage and potential tire failure.



Photos courtesy Bill Burke's 4-Wheeling America
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