By Jon Maib
It's amazing how many new people there are to the world of off-roading these days. It seems that with the Jeep JKU being such a hit with the public, there are more and more people that want to learn how to use their new Jeep for what it was originally designed for; Off-road. The team over at Crawlher realized this need and teamed up with a local off-road shop, Screaming Lizard Customs to hold a "Wheelin' 101 Class".

Selecting a local off-road park, Northwest OHV Park in Bridgeport, TX, they setup shop and prepared for what would become an event with over a 100 different Jeeps from stock to modified. As Jeeps began to show up, so did the rain, making the trails and staging area a muddy mess. This didn't put a damper on the event, merely gave the instructors a better chance to truly teach some off-road skills.

The class began with some of the basic information on safety and moved onto some of the do's and don'ts of off-roading. After the brief overview of the fundamentals of off-road, it was asked if there were any 1st time off-roaders in order to individually work with them and get them and their Jeep ready for the trail. Despite the rain and the mud, the Crawlher and Screaming Lizard teams were crawling under Jeeps and getting muddy before the fun even began to ensure the inexperienced knew how to disconnect sway bars, properly air down dependent on tire size and even how to put the vehicle in 4 wheel drive. This team really went out of their way to ensure people were ready to go off-road for the first time.

When I heard the first trail would include every rig that was there, I was hesitant that this would work out. Have you ever seen over a 100 rigs try and go down the same trail at once? The trail that had been chosen for this 101 class had a mixture of mud, water holes, and a couple small hill climbs with bypasses for the stock vehicles. It was actually the perfect trail to take the beginners on and the instructors did an amazing job getting over a 100 vehicles through.

It did take a couple of hours to get all the vehicles through the same trail, but they did it without any issues and it was still fun. After the trail, the group met up at the bottom of a rock quarry to play in the mud and just goof around. At that time, many of the more experienced off-roaders split off to play on the trails of the park until it was time for the raffle.

It was a great class and there were a lot of great people there to help out those that were unsure of the whole off-roading experience. Even with some of the variables such as the rain and sheer number of vehicles that came out, Crawlher and Screaming Lizard did a fantastic job. If you are looking for a 101 class and will be in Texas, Crawlher will be scheduling a 102 class in December. Head over to their Facebook page for more info!