Tri-County ATV 2003 Season opener sets record attendance for Pennsylvania club

If you seek a more relaxed family experience, I would suggest arriving mid morning. Letting the faster riders go first and grooming the trail to a smoother consistently. Then taking off with your family around 11:00 am, this will provide a lower amount of riders behind you, letting your family set your own pace.

Witnessing a family of riders on my second lap, having the trail to themselves. While covering that same amount of distance later in the day. Did not seem to affect the amount of time it took to get around the course by the end of the day. They still completed the ride and had plenty of time to get on the road home before dinner.

For more information about Tri-County ATV club see their website.

The 2003 Season opener for Pennsylvania's "Tri-County ATV", Club’s first poker run of the year surpassed expectations of projected attendance for the event, a record crowd of 850 plus!

Arriving the night before, this editor got a glimpse of the preparations taking place for the next days events. Food was pouring into the new kitchen area, while club members were marking out trails and aligning the parking lot for the next day’s interlude to follow.

After taking a look around at all the activity, I met up with “Club president” Doug Mckinley, for an evening guided tour of the trail layout. It consisted of about 22 miles of mostly a new course across the entire club property. The course began if the infamous start through the trail tunnel located right next to the new clubhouse. This made for a very orderly start in single file.

It lead out across an open field, over the mountaintop then down into the woods for some tight forest adventures. The course was part of a brand new layout, the fourth course laid over three existing “trail systems” already carved in from previous years.

It was a very tight course as far as trees were concerned, being that I have a +6 suspension, made for some hairy jaunts between the trees. The course was of average difficulty making the ride appealing to all skill levels.


						Being there as much rain that had fallen in the spring the trail was just damp and kept dust to a minimum most of the day. Trail conditions of the days ride was mostly tight woods with three isolated mud holes to play in. Moreover, deep mud holes they were. A crowd developed around each of the mud challenges to witness the attempts of brave soles and their prepared machines. Not many made it through the designed entrapments, but many tried and drowned.


	Once I made my first lap in the morning to take pictures, and being done with the mud hole spectating, it was back to the clubhouse for some grub. The kitchen was going at full tilt at noon trying to keep up with the demand of patrons gobbling down burgers and dogs. The lines at the morning registration tables had switched to the consecution counter. (Both line issues to be fixed by next run). After taking stock of our machines and refueling, it was time to take a second round lap. Most of the days participants had started hours ago and the trail was wide open, and burned in by all the traffic. Making for an outstanding and very tractable trail for high speed.


					The adventure was much better the second time around as the trail had been groomed by 850+ machines ahead of us. Putting groves in, and smoothing out some rough spots. I made great time around the system and soon left my co-editor in the dust of distance behind me, only to be cut off and dusted by his sneaky use of shortcut trails to attain the lead at the end of the ride. Weather for the day was 75-degree spring sunshine, which made for a great ridding experience. Attendants started showing up around 8:00 am, with a constant stream arriving up until midday

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