Dealer-sponsored outing - Summit Point, WV

[sbmike]

I didn't really buy my H2 to go off-roading but when the dealership invited me this past weekend to go to Summit Point, WV to try out the H2's off-road capabilities I said "what the heck?". We met at the dealership in Greenbelt, MD and 15 or 16 of us including the Hummer manager and the dealership owner headed out to Summit Point. It was kinda neat seeing all those H2s and H1s traveling down the road at one time. We got a lot of stares and just as many waves, particuarly from kids in cars that passed us.

Summit point is famous for its road-racing circuit but they've obviously branched out into other things. There were folks out on the track doing laps while we were there and we could watch them from the pavillion where we all gathered before heading out on the trails.

We got instructions on the two trails, brief instructions on how to maneuver through the trails (and how to put your trans into low-lock for those [like me] who had never touched those buttons on the dash!) we had available to us and all of us that did not have two-way radios in our trucks were loaned radios by the dealership. I was expecting a rather mild ride but the trails were very tight and pretty rugged, at least from this amateur's perspective. When you slide through mud and miss trees by an inch or less, that's cutting it closer than I had expected. I got through both courses unscathed except for bottoming out a couple of times. A later check showed that the hits were taken on the skid plate so nothing else was damaged that I could see. Interestingly, the dealership had warned everyone attending to remove their side steps before doing either trail. In fact, the dealership offered to remove and reinstall the side rails at no cost to the owner. Three people chose not to and today all are looking for side step replacemets. I took mine off myself which took all of 15 minutes. Two had damage only on the left side, but one crunched both sides. They should have listened...

After going through the trails, there was a very nice catered lunch and we were free to go back through the trails again if we wanted to. They also gave out free baseball caps and a nice travel bag to each participant. Except for gas money, there was no cost to us for the outing. As a final nice touch, the dealership hired a guy with a pressure washer to wash down our trucks before we headed home. All in all a very nice outing. I'm not sure that off-roading is for me but the occasional outing like this one is definitely in my future.