BDSO

Thursday night at around 10:00pm I get a call from Ryan, our
videographer here at sledshot.com, to see if I was still into going to
Pemberton for the Big Dawg Shootout.

I am literally lying in bed and thought to myself… What the
hell!

Wake up in the AM, get packed up, pick up Ry, and we are on
our way. Since we hadn’t made any
arrangements we decided our quote for the weekend was “Wing it”.

Neither of us had been to the Big Dawg Shootout before, or
even a Big Iron Shootout for that matter so we were going in with very wide
eyes.

On the way we encountered some interesting little sub
adventures, as it seems we always do. First thing was a short highway wait while they cleared the scene of
flipped semi truck. Not sure what
happened, but looked nasty. The
drive went pretty smooth until we reached Lillooet, otherwise known as “Mile
Zero”. This is where the adventure
always begins. If you have ever
done this shortcut before you know what I’m talking about. Lillooet is a nice little community
tucked away on the Fraser River. It is literally the edge of the Coastal Mountain Range and the ‘no
turning back’ stage of our drive. To make a long story short, it had just been snowing in town, which means the
pass is going to be nasty. Fortunately luck was on our side, after almost smacking a deer and
getting held up again on the highway for a helicopter extrication of some sort,
we were on our way through the pass with only a few kilometers of snow covered
roads.

We arrive in Pemberton and hook up with some old friends for
a few beverages at the Wildwood, and had a relatively early night knowing that
parking was going to be an issue in the morning and getting up early was a top
priority.

We were loaded up, gassed up and ready to go by 8:00 am and
on our way west to the Rutherford, one of the many glaciated valleys streaming
from the Pemberton Icecap and the only way in to the event zone.

It wasn’t far up the Rutherford forest service road before
we ran into snow, and about 100+ trucks that managed to get there before
us.

There was a big of controversy at this point because the
usual trail fee was bumped from a normal $15 to $25 for a trail that was
noticeably not groomed and LONG overdue.
Once at the Rutherford creek there was signage to head up the Appa Glacier to
the main staging area for the BDSO (Big Dawg Shootout). We must have gotten a little too
excited in the morning because we were there a few hours too early. We decided to rip around for a while to
stay warm, as it was a little windy (felt like 100km winds). Learning quick that lower elevation
was the ticket, we headed down and ‘chilled’ for an hour or so. Luckily, a couple of guys who got there
early like us were amped up! They
we given’er climbing in the wind scoured slops and then one of them aired a
roller by accident, landed in the front seat fell over his bars, rode the hood
for what seemed like forever, then his sled ate him…or at least looked like
it. He got sucked under his sled,
it then ran him over, flipped a few times, and parts were flying. Now we knew we were in the right
spot. This triggered a few other
amped up people to try a few pulls at the hill and then they must have gotten
cold too because the enthusiasm wore off quickly. We decided to go a little lower to the foot of the glacier
and wait for the event to start.

This is where we witnessed BDSO in all its glory. Literally a hundred plus riders rode
past us as we sat at the toe of the glacier heading towards the up hill drag
area. We saw everything from stock
XPs to late 80’s phazers, to 2009 doos, poos, yams, and kitties not to mention
the craziest machines I have ever scene.

Propane injected Yamahas and Dragons, turbos, superchargers,
nitrous, combinations, etc. and of course tons of custom tunnels. You name it, it was up there. The funniest thing about it all is you
got almost use to it. It was
almost to the point that seeing a stock sled was uncommon. Oh, and of course being near Whistler
there were a few ‘jib’ sleds ripping around like MXZ doo’s all pimped out for
filming.

Slednecks was there representing with cool new graphic kits
on their XPs. These things looked
tight. If you are looking to make
your sled different from your buddies, have a look at sledwrap.com,
bdimaging.com, and there are many more out there.
As for the actual event it was what I expected… NUTS.

The drags were super cool to watch. Not flipping over backwards at the
start seemed difficult for this crazy high horse power sleds to achieve. They would wheelie for at least the
first hundred feet, if not the entire slope. As the event went on, and the slower sleds were weeded out
Brad Story’s machines were left, along with a few Impulse Nitro’s and a super
custom mod. Brad’s IQ propane mod
was killing it, but the Impulse Nitro took the title. This sled was unreal. It literally looked stock. If I saw it parked in the mountains I wouldn’t have looked at it
twice. But trust me when I say
CRAZY. Impulse does a great job
not only using stock fittings, but you are able to keep your stock plastics on
keeping the machine looking clean, and user friendly. I was completely impressed.