Page 40 - Panama City Living Magazine

ADRENALINE
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE FENDER
The obstacle was right in front of her and despite trying several times, Caroline Keown was not able to get past it. But she was not ready to back down with her off-road rig. She took another good look at the triple set of old truck tires that were layered to create a mountain, packed in with red Florida clay. For 15 minutes she tried to go left, tried to go right, but her monster of an off-road vehicle was hung up.
The determination was written on her face. Keeping her tires spinning, and not paying much attention to the screaming roar of her engine, she decided to punch it, scaling the tire mountain and going airborne before coming down with a loud thud that shook the ground as a couple dozen onlookers, most with cell phones filming the jump, cheered her on.
“I love that adrenaline rush,” she says moments after the run, with triumph written clearly on her face. It’s the calm but exuberant moment after exercising all the force and power of her off-road rig and coming out in one piece at the other end. Laughing, she admits, “I knew coming out of it I was going to land hard.” With the adrenaline rush, she says she didn’t feel a thing. “But when I go back and look at those videos I go, ‘Oh my God, I should be hurting.’”
40 • March—April 2020 • www.PanamaCityLiving.com