by Anura Guruge
on July 9, 2023
Click images to ENLARGE.
This is my buddy (& neighbor) Anthony’s latest 4×4 ‘toy’. He is the son I don’t have!
He just got back from 4-days at a mud-racing event at the ‘Lebanon‘, Maine, ‘4×4 Proving Grounds‘. I heard him get back. I went to see what the truck looked like.
He was trying to get it up the ramps but the parking brake wasn’t working — at first. So, I offered to chock up the back wheels. Good plan — we both thought. We started with a large rock — the biggest that I could comfortably heft.
Well …. That didn’t go exactly as planned. Gravity can be so persistent. It worked for a minute or so, THEN it started rolling over the rock. Anthony, a REAL COOL DUDE, was not fazed in the slightest. As we follow the truck SLOWLY rolling into one of his other trucks (the red one) he keeps shouting at me: “Don’t stress, don’t stress … that truck is garbage!” Yup, it rolled into the red trunk with a very solid & satisfying THUNK. Anthony just looks at it & says maybe just the lights.
Well we lucked out. The lights didn’t break. Some minor damage to the grill, but you can’t even tell. Check the photo.
He then found a big chunk of wood — that he had cut earlier this year.
He also managed to FIX the Parking Brake. He is one heck of a mechanic. Handiest guy to have across the road!
So, he drove it up again. Brake held. I put the block of wood underneath. You can see it in the bottom picture. I found another smaller block of wood & chocked up the other back tire too. It held.
We were happy.
My daughter, who watched much of it from her window, commented when I came in: “boys will be boys“. I reminded her that this could have been her brother — my son. He used to quite the hell-raiser. But, he, UNLIKE HIS DAD, has grown up!
