Dale Earnhardt Jr. Adventures
By Ben Braden
With winter in full swing here in the Rockies and the scheduling book for Burandt’s Backcountry Adventures looking as thick as a Stephen King novel, Slednecks own Chris Burandt found time to schedule in a fairly high profile client…
Last week Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his family made a trip to Aspen and called upon the best backcountry rider in the world to show them what exactly a backcountry adventure was all about. The crew included Dale Jr., his mother Brenda Gee, his step father Willy, his brother Kerry, his two sister's Kelley and Taylor, along with many other in-laws, cousins, and friends.
We started the morning by meeting the crew at their hotel in. Dale Jr. fit right in with his full Colorado mountain man beard! We spent a few minutes meeting everyone and then realized that this was going to be the largest crew of people that we've ever taken out on a ride. We had 27 people with us that day! With four Suburbans full of people, and five pickup trucks with sleds in tow, we headed up the mountain.
Knowing Dale Jr's ability to handle horsepower, Chris decided to put him on a Burandt Backcountry Edition RTR 800 turbo. Instantly Jr's face was nothing but smile's when he saw what we had set up for him. His reply was a simple, but comical “look at that, it's got my name and number on it”, in his North Carolinian accent.
When we made our first stop to do a head count everyone was stoked! We made our way to the summit and found an open meadow with fresh powder waiting to be tracked up. Within seconds we had at least half of them stuck. However, within another 30 to 45 minutes of practice, everyone had learned enough to rival some of the Rockies native backcountry riders. We knew the Earnhardt's would be fast learners!
With every stop that we took to gather up people we would get a comedic commentary of what had just taken place by someone in the Earnhardt family. Kelley Earnhardt had a great story about ripping through the trees and loosing the cameraman off of the back of her sled and never even slowing down or looking back. Forget the cameraman, he was not important at that moment. Another good one was Jr. explaining how the sled picked the ski's five feet off the ground when he stabbed the throttle. By the end of the day each and every one of them was completely stoked on how the day went.
All in all we can add one more group of satisfied customer's to the list of clients of the Burandt’s Backcountry Adventure's. There are still a few open spots to book your trip….. Check the web site for available dates: Burandtsbackcountryadventure.com