I stopped by an open house event at Land Rover Mission Viejo a couple weekends ago and saw some pretty cool Rovers-both new and old. Most were tricked out for week-long adventures and trail riding but a couple were all-out desert race rigs that have competed in the Baja 1000 and other long distance races. I saw a few familiar faces I recognized from different trail rides over the years and also made a few new connections, so those of you hoping to see some more Rovers in the magazine can likely look forward to some trail coverage in the coming months.
There were also a number of speakers who took the podium throughout the day to address the crowd about the Land Rover brand and its dedication to customers, the degree of customer loyalty, and also a number of environmental and land closure topics. One of the speakers I had a chance to talk with for a while was Dale Johnson, who is the Off Highway Vehicle Volunteer Program Coordinator for the San Bernardino National Forest Association. Dale is a great guy who is really dedicated to the sport of 4-wheeling and spends almost every weekend doing whatever he can to educate the public about responsible OHV use. Dale and his crew of volunteers focus on peer-on-peer education by approaching fellow enthusiasts on trails and events to help them better understand what they need to do to ensure that their favorite areas aren’t shutdown to OHV use. Dale also leads a number of Adopt-A-Trail and Sponsor-A-Trail events as well as organizes clean up and trail work days. For information about volunteering check out www.sbnfa.org.
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