Sand Fest 2000

Over 14,000 acres of dunes. Oregon Coast. Perfect weather. Wild action. Where are we? Sand Fest 2000 of course! Discovery Point Campground in Winchester Bay, Oregon was the place to be on August 11, 12 and 13 and ATV Connection.com was there to cover the largest organized sand dune event in America.


The trip started early in the morning in San Diego, CA. After arriving in Portland, Oregon we met fellow duner Aerik, and headed south to Winchester Bay. Arriving at dusk to meet Jay, Ron and Terry. After unloading and setting up camp, we geared up for our first ride! Discovery Point is a paved campground and it' s not the best thing for paddle tires so you need to go very slow--but once you hit the access trail. It's hammer time!

The dunes stretch 50 miles along the coast with many "sand fingers" that sprout off inland. Some of these sand fingers go inland for a mile or so and in each sand finger are dozens of narrow trails and steep hill climbs to play on. The main dunes consist of rolling sand dunes with minimal drop-offs, very similar to  Glamis. What makes the Oregon dunes interesting is that there are trees! The ever-shifting sand is slowly overrunning the Oregon forest.


We played in some of the closer sand fingers for awhile and then headed over to another camping area, which is right on the sand. If you are camping here you need a 4x4 truck to get your trailer onto the sand without getting stuck.

Friday morning we walked around the campsite to check out some of the other dune machines. One of them was a "Hondaris". It's a Polaris 400 Sport cylinder on a TRX250R bottom end with a custom FTZ pipe. Other wild machines included a Honda/Suzuki/Kawasaki ATC creation and an ATC250R converted to a two wheeled dune bike with a CR610R stuffed into the frame!

After a quick snack and refueling the quads it was time to hit the dunes for a ride!  We made our way down the coast to the second sand finger and headed inland. We played on some of the trails on the edge of the fingers which are steep and narrow with over hanging tree branches, but it's a blast! Needing a break, we headed to the end of the sand finger which overlooks Clear Lake. It's about 2 miles long and is the water supply for the surrounding area.

We took a short break and headed  back toward the main dunes. We saw an area on the other side of the sand finger that had sand and trees to wind your way through. It was fun weaving around trees while keeping your momentum up to make it to the top--which didn't always happen. We made our way down the coast to the next sand finger, going inland a few miles. After a good fast ride we ended up at the top of "Bald Spot," a very steep hill climb on a trail just wide enough to fit through. It twists and turns through the trees for about 100 yards and a challenging 45 degree turn at the end of the trail. The trees open up into a large open area near the top of the trail. If you've made it out of the narrow trail without stopping dead in your tracks from smacking a tree you're in for the steepest part of the trail.

There were only a few vendors this year due to the rain last year, but it was still a good turn out. We stopped and talked with Dan from Alloy Specialties. Dan makes many custom aluminum parts like throttle covers, side cases and bearing carriers. Dan showed me a tapered bearing carrier and axle lock nut. The carrier is made of aluminum and has a zerk grease fitting for easy lubrication. Next we stopped at Got Sand?'s booth for a sweatshirt and then went next door to Ad Specialties for a Sand Fest tee shirt. We also stopped and talked with Eli from LRD Racing. He showed us their new version of a quiet silencer. It's basically two of their regular silencers connected to each other with an "L" shaped tube. Eli claims that it doesn't take power from the motor and gets the sound down below the state required 93dB or less. Other vendors included Graves Motor Sports and Polaris.

Saturday morning we headed over to the sand drags put on by the ASDA. The drags were set up as time trials on a 100-yard course. There were lots of different machines from mildly built quads to full blown custom made sand drag machines that included: quads, jeeps, sand rails and top fuel type dragsters. Some of the big dragsters had problems with the soft sand with their narrow front tires. The track was groomed after almost every race.

After the sand drags we went for a ride, meeting up with local rider Brian--who knows the dunes very well. We headed south and noticed a lot of people gathering at the top of a small dune. There was some high-flying action going on there! We saw a few quads getting some air and a few bike's pulling some tricks, also saw a Volkswagon Bug and a sand rail catching some air.

Continuing south riding the beach, we now had 7 riders with us. It's always good to find a local to take you on a dune ride. We got to the end of the beach flats and headed inland, tackling rolling dunes and carving short slip face dunes. One dune took us all by surprise, as we crested the dune we noticed that we were airborne and it was about 50 feet to the bottom. That will get the adrenaline going! Continuing on our ride we stopped to watch some of the locals play at "Banshee Gulch", a deep sand crevice with trees scattered throughout. Brian eased his way to the bottom, then popped the clutch and screamed his way around the trees back to the top.

Rick, riding an ATC, went to the bottom, but when he started to head uphill his rear tire hit a tree, lost his momentum and stopped.  Once he got going he made it out with ease. We headed over to "The Wall" for some fun. After a few friendly races we made our way back to camp but made a stop back at "Bald Spot". A few in our group made a couple of runs up the trail. We watched other people attempt to make it to the top then headed back to camp.

Back at camp we stopped by to see Dave Moore from MP Racing. All of Dave's quads are very trick and he give's his quads names like the Reaper, the Mystery Machine and Snake Eye's.  Both the Reaper and Snake Eyes have a stock ported cylinder and are on NOS. They have many custom parts and custom paint, all done by Dave.

Dave also has a couple of ATC's. One is the "Raptor" (No not the new Yamaha), it's an ATC250R and the other, "Pooh" is an ATC350X. Both trikes have stock cylinders and stroke, and both are on alcohol! One of Dave's trickest quads is the "TRX350Xtra," owned by Mike Seets from Discovery Point campground. The 350Xtra is a Honda 250X frame fitted with a 350X motor that has been ported, pistoned, camed and valved. It runs on Methanol and has NOS! This quad stays with big bore TRX250R's before using the NOS and leaves them once he hits the magic button.

We headed out to the motocross race on Sunday.  The track was built in the sand and was decently sized with double jumps, tight turns and uphill sections. Some riders seemed to have trouble on the sand track. We saw plenty of crashes, most were not bad except for one guy cased it on the double jump and injured his back. Hope to see you riding again soon Marek. Thanks to the rangers and ambulance for their quick response.

Overall, Sand Fest was a blast--we'll definitely be back next year! Special thanks go to all the promoters of Sand Fest for putting on a great weekend. If you're looking for a great dune area without the summer heat, Discovery Point is the place to go. They have regular camping spots with full hook ups and also rent cabins. What makes Discovery Point the place to be is that it's right on the dunes! We would also like to thank Aerik for the use of his Weekend Warrior and his TRX270R and of course Jaybo for setting up the camping arrangements and the chocolate muffins!