Day 3 from Jeep Beach: Sun, Shows, and Broken Shafts

Today was a HUGE day at Jeep Beach 2014!

The morning started off with the beautiful Florida sun peeking through the blinds. The smell of sunscreen and stale beer rang throughout our condo, signalling yet another day of Jeep Beach.

Florida mornings are just freaking awesome.

We headed to the Daytona International Speedway to hang out and meet vendors, and to take my friend Phil’s 1989 restored YJ out on the infamous obstacle course that was set up in the massive Daytona infield.

First things first, we hit the obstacle course with Phil’s YJ. Unfortunately his transfer case did not engage into 4WD properly and when he bumped some logs, he ended up snapping the front driveshaft yoke. So, we hobbled his rig off the course and ordered the parts from the show. Tomorrow morning, I will attempt a fix right on the Daytona infield.

Approaching the first section of the obstacle course.

The rest of the afternoon was spent meeting and greeting the various companies that my Jeep is made of (or that I plan to order from).

A JK tackles a challenging section of the course. Not too shabby for Florida standards.

I had a great chat with Chris from SpiderWebShade and learned a bit about his fascinating company. They started in 2006 as an upholstery shop and made a few mesh screens for friends’ Jeeps. They started making 50 units per month, and now are at 5,000+. It is a VERY cool product and I look forward to giving it a full review on this site soon.

I also spent some time with Mike from Factor 55. His company makes some amazing winch/recovery points and I will also get on a review of their new FlatLink shackle thimble. I am really looking forward to testing it out in Moab next month and will also provide a full review.

At the end of the day, I met people from ACE Engineering, Rebel Off Road, Rock Krawler (have you ever held their control arms!?), Poison Spider, Rugged Ridge, Carolina Metal Masters, Bruiser Conversions, and many many more.

We watched this poor girl try and try to make it up in her Jeep. She finally nailed it!

We retired to the condo to rehydrate, relax, and check out all the goodies we bought today, as well as formulate a plan to get Phil’s rig back on the trail tomorrow.

Tonight is also the VIP Tiky Party! Hope to post more on that later, beers providing 🙂