Page 46 - Panama City Living Magazine

ADRENALINE
What earned Tim his Godfather title, are the miles, the hills, and the rocks he’s climbed and his willingness to help others get into the sport. A Mosley High School graduate, he has worked as a mechanic in Panama City for 31 years. He says in the heavy- duty, off-road world you either need to have a little bit of money or a little bit of mechanical talent. “And I have that little bit of mechanical talent,” he says laughingly.
Tim started with a dirtbike, then added a four-wheeler, then a four-wheel drive truck. He remembers reading about an event in Utah, a Jeep safari that could be described as the Super Bowl for off-roaders. Intrigued, he made his first trip west in the mid-90s to participate. He says the event is what hooked him. Since then, he has made 15 trips back to Utah.
The adrenaline rush for Tim starts when he is packing up to go out for a trip. The entire trip is a rush of excitement, with every obstacle and every hill as a challenge. He says on some hills out west you can get to the top where you don’t know if, on your way back, you will be driving back or tipping and rolling down the hill.
Drivers come to the rescue of a Jeep driver who is stuck in one of the water holes at The Swamp. The off-road community prides itself on drivers helping each other when vehicles break down or get stuck.
The off-roading trend finally spread to remote areas in Tennessee and Alabama and his drives became a little shorter. That was in about 2007, Tim remembers. The Swamp opened in 2015, celebrating its fifth birthday in March.
Now driving his third home-built rig, he recalls that 20 years ago he bought his first vehicle for $2,200 and every year after that he would invest another $1,500. One year he would add power steering, the next year he got power brakes, and the next year after that, he added bigger tires. “It’s just been a progression over 20-plus years,” he says. When his first rig finally wore out, he took it apart, saved all the good parts, and started over.
“When you have a home-built buggy that just doesn’t look fancy, people might say, ‘He’s never getting up that hill, and then all of a sudden you do,” Tim says.
He is quick to point out that the best thing about this sport, or hobby, is that it doesn’t really matter if someone spends $2,200 on a vehicle or $100,000—everybody is out there playing, cheering each other on.
46 • March—April 2020 • www.PanamaCityLiving.com