your anemometer is broken…we were camping in the forest and had 35mph sustained and gusts over 60mph. the lake bed had to be a lot worse and no way that there was 8000 people there, 5k tops
It was fucking lame…sorry for being brutal, but it's really turned into a "bike" event and caters to the people dropping sick cash for classes to watch Camel trophy guy's rig a 8 to 1 pull with 1000' feet of rope or some numbnutz with a full exo-caged Four-runner roll it over and struggle to right it. Oh, sure, you can go drive new LR on a cool muddy course, or watch "vendors" (Garrett you are 100% correct about this) try and teach recovery, all the wrong way after dropping said sick cash.
We had a group of 10 or 12 "yota" guy's camping near us and we had a ball listening to them rip it to shreds (not because of the fucking wind). One guy spent 3 hours arguing to get his money back because he had to tell the "instructor" where to lash a strap on his truck and have absolutely no clue about vehicle recovery.
It's seems to have turned into a "special" event were unless you wear 3k worth of bike clothes and drive a Earthroamer it really is a waste of time…
Most of the vendors had the same crap that can be bolted onto everything under the sun except LR's…the same shit that's been displayed for the last 4 years with really nothing new. The best is listening to the cheap bastards trying to negotiate a lower price and beg for a "show" discount. One dude at the Sierra booth "thought" he got a "smoking deal" on a set of lockers. Turns out that if you went to the website, the price was less, including shipping (yes, there was cell coverage) and had more fun watching him go back and try and get his money back…