While his brother had gotten a new set of wheels to explore the backyard, Ryder had outgrown his Gator that had served him so well since he was two. I had been looking for just the right deal for some real horsepower for Ryder for a long time and it finally came from a tip from my boss at ABYC who saw one at an auction near his home in south county. Kris and I discussed what we thought was a decent high bid and submitted it. We were quite nervous in the closing moments of the online auction as some other interested people ran the bid up to within a couple dollars of our max high bid… but we won it in the end.
After getting it home and devising a strategy to keep it from Ryder’s eyes it need some attention. I stripped it down to the bare chassis and cleaned everything and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. Next I gave the 2 HP engine an oil change, fuel flush and cleaned the carburetor. Lastly, I thought some fresh tires should top it off so I ordered some rubber from Amazon.
After a few sneaky weekends of tinkering with it, the time had finally arrived for the unveiling on Christmas day. Ryder thought that he was done with his Christmas and he was outside to watch Ethan in his new ride, but the day was just getting started when he pulled the cover from his machine… he simply couldn’t contain himself.
He spent the day doing laps on the road, but this thing was made for the dirt. So for the next few days he and I were out in the back of the property carving trails and performing some cleanup to maximize space. It was amazing what some time behind the wheel did for him as his lap times dropped as his confidence grew. He was even heeding my advice on how to take corners faster and was counter steering through drifts naturally. I sense that there are lots of hours to come blazing new courses throughout the property on this thing and the biggest hurdle I have is holding back on the urge to get a grown up version for myself to partake in the fun.