Friday, September 19, 2008

Mud madness

Returned to “Estero del Tomate”.
A most adventurous undertaking because the tracks in many places are deep and changed into long mud pools.
After the two tropical storms that have battered Baja California with heavy rains during the last weeks.

One could see that no car has been passing on these roads during the last two weeks.
They have become simply too bad.

The technique to negotiate them is to switch on the four-wheel drive system and enter the muddy part of the road at the highest speed possible.
Not too fast though to avoid losing control of direction to pirouette and possibly tumble over.

Another important trick is to stay as close to the side of the road as possible.
There it is less deep and probably more dried so that the wheels find more traction.

Some parts of the road had changed into mud for long stretches.
The Fuso Szulc bravely entering it would lose more and more speed while the wheels were spinning wildly and the mud would fly five feet high all around.
Those are moments that destiny is decided by luck only.
That the vehicle will not get stuck because the stretch had the perfect distance and deepness.
One thing clearly realized was that the Fuso Szulc has a very capable 4x4 system and is light and volatile enough to deal with these impossible circumstances.

Mud is the worst enemy when offroading.
Loose sand can be a problem as well.
But if one gets stuck in loose sand, there are methods to get out somehow.
Not in mud though.
To get stuck in mud is reaching the end of the road.

This was found out by Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.
They both invaded with their armies Russia and initially all went well.
Napoleon Bonaparte even managed to reach and occupy Moscow.
Adolf Hitler reached the outskirts of the Russian capital.

But they lost the wars because their armies got stuck in the Russian mud.
Supplies, arms and ammunition could not be transported to the far advanced troops once the snow had melted.
The land turned into one big muddy pool separating the Siegfrieds from the Fatherland forever.

The German Army had plenty of 4x4 trucks and half-tracks.


Mud is a match impossible to beat.
But then, at the time, there were no Mitsubishis Fuso FG 4x4.






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