Rough and Ready Off-Road Recovery

By George L. Nitti

It’s been an off-road credo to never leave anyone behind. So says off-roading enthusiast and off-road recovery specialist Eric Huttner of Wisconsin's BSF Recovery.

Eric is a member of a popular off-roading club called the Minnesota Go-4 Wheelers, where he participates in an annual Memorial Day off-roading event at a sprawling nine-mile park in Wisconsin.

Called the Total Off-Road Rally, the 53-year-old, four-day event brings together approximately a thousand rigs and between 1500 to 3000 4-wheel enthusiasts who drive on a course that’s filled with obstacles. The tough terrain includes sand and rock hills; mud and clay; trees and rocks where competitions, monster trucks, trail riding, off-road racing, and comraderie converge.

Inevitably a truck or two goes down. Eric said, “When there is a break down, traffic can back up for hours. So a couple of years ago, some club members decided to build off-road recovery trucks to get those broken rigs out of there so we could keep traffic moving.”

To clear the trails of broken rigs, Eric uses a 1988 Chevrolet 1-ton K30, 4 by 4. On the back, he’s got an old Nomar wrecker box with an 8-inch suspension lift, 37-inch surplus holmby tires, dual wheels in the back, lockers in the rear and front, and hydraulics that include the boom, winch and assist steering.

At the event, Eric was summoned to recover a 1-ton Dodge Dakota with a Dodge Ram frame that was stuck on a rock. Eric said, “He bounced a little too hard, busting the distributor cap. He couldn’t run anymore and it needed to be picked up with a wrecker.”

Once Eric carefully navigated his way to the casualty, he attached the Dodge’s front end to the wrecker’s sling and boom. There he winched it up over a big rock. But getting there and rigging the truck is only half the battle, especially along tricky terrain that requires careful navigation. This recovery was done under wet conditions, the wrecker sliding in the mud before it could find what Eric calls the “the sweet spot.”

He said, “In the off-road world, the sweet spot is where you get some traction.”

Slowly moving it off the road, he had to turn along a hill, and got into a little trouble, as he was on the verge of rolling over. Eric said, “The front end was really light in the air.”

But quitting is not an option, despite the conditions or difficulties, including his own wrecker troubles, like working with a leaky brake line, as in this case, or a flat tire.

“We don’t give up. We don’t leave anyone in the woods.”

Eric’s good Samaritan work you might call paying it forward.

He said, “Always help anyone that needs help because you never know when you’ll need it.”

For more of Eric’s recoveries, visit BSF Recovery on their YouTube Channel.

Show Yours @ TIW

Do you have a recovery to share with TIW readers? Send some pics and info to our Field Editor George L. Nitti at georgenitti@gmail.com; your story may even be selected for print in American Towman magazine!