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Wait? There is a competition for decorated SXS's? hehehehe I hear there are a few people decorating their rides... Cant wait to see yours! No, the landspeeder is headed to CampRZR with Wes Miller

Thanks Pete! We have way too much fun with these builds!

We started last month and had/have 5 cars to build... But these arent your normal builds... Some quick details.... There is over 750' of LED lights totaling 27,500 LED's. I have used just a hair under 800' of 16g wire.... Steel list coming Come on... who is is building something cool?

Awesome video!!!!

Awesome report and photos! What an awesome weekend!

Pete: Amazing is an understatement

This morning I received a msg here on DDR stating that they had my sons quad and wanted to get together to get it back to me. After a few brief messages we met up in a public area to get the quad. There are a lot of great people out there and this truly is an amazing community. When they came across it, they thought someone got stuck and had to walk out. The bike was just as it was and nothing done to it. So after all the bad news we read day in and day out... there are still some good people still out there I thought my son was going to start hugging the bike when I got home.. Just want to say thank you to everyone that shared my post and helped get my son his quad back! This community is like a big family! Thank you!

I am reaching out to see how close and tight the "Off-road" community really is. This past weekend (saturday 1/28/17) I went with some friends and my youngest son to ride from Cold Creek to Pahrump and back. Knowing full well there was snow on the ground we thought we would see exactly how far we could make it and have a little fun in the snow. About 1/2 way up the hill my son could no longer continue in the deep snow on his quad. I stashed it the best I could in almost 3' of snow in some trees. We continued on, no more than 1.5 miles up the trail when we couldnt make it any further. In the distance we could see a red truck coming up the trail, but it had stopped for a little while in one spot. That spot just so happened to be where my sons quad was stashed. On our way back down we came upon a husband and wife on utility quads stuck in the snow. While chatting with them they mentioned a red ford raptor and a white tacoma picking up a quad down the trail. At that point my heart sank... My son (14 years old) is devastated.. he worked his ass off for over a year to buy that quad and fix it the way he wanted. It took us maybe 10 minutes to get back to where his quad was. From there everything took a very bad turn, even worse. While trying to get down the hill to try and catch up with the red truck I came around a corner with 2 rzr's coming the opposite direction. On a narrow snow covered trail and no place to go... we collided. Thank god everyone was wearing harnesses and no one was hurt. (thank god) I sent two of my friends on to get to the staging area hoping that these people were only taking the bike down off the mountain. I was/am hoping that they thought it was stuck and someone went for help. All three rzr's were wrecked and only one was drive able (after swapping a flat tire) My car and one of the other rzr's had to be towed off the mountain which took roughly 3.5 hours. But no quad or red ford raptor to be found.. So I beg and plead with the off road community is as tight and friendly as everyone I've had the pleasure to meet. I'm offering a reward for the return of my sons quad. If you took it with bad intentions.. I only want it back and will NOT press charges. Again, I only want the quad back no questions asked. Attached are some pics of the quad. and if anyone sees it, can you please contact me. Thank you very much!

Congrats Pete!!!

wtf.. I was typing up a reply and hit submit and it was all gone... And what are you talking about... looks like you had fun too!

It was a short quiet weekend with perfect weather! Sand was still a little wet and it made for tons of traction! Saturday morning was a little chilly, but warmed up fast. The wind picked up early on saturday night but died back down. Just enough to show the wet sand on the faces of the dunes. We left early Sunday while the rest of our group stayed until Monday morning. Sunday turned out to be the best day all weekend.

Ya know Pete... Its funny you posted this. 2016 was a rough year for many people, I for one really cant complain. Its easy to pick out all the bad things that happened, but all in all I would rather look at all the positive. Like you, we have our health, jobs, food on the table, roof over our head and fuel in the toys. We can all complain and b*tch about whats wrong or bad but there are thousands of people that have it MUCH worse! I do my best to "pay it forward" and help those that I can, when I can. Remove the negativity from your life and always look for the good in people. Here is to a positive 2017!!

I think we're in for MLK... It will be a short quick trip for us, but 99% sure we will be there.. Hope its a quiet weekend and the sand dries out some!

AWESOME job on the video! I love the drone shots!!

We just spent an hour and a half with Christie Wilcox from Channel 3. They wanted to interview all of us and get some video of the land speeder from the LVMPD PSA.. It's supposed to air at 11pm tonight on Channel 3 https://twitter.com/ChristyNews3LV

Looks like we were on Good Morning America this morning! 45 seconds in

Ohh and over 100,000 views on ABC Channel 13's facebook page in less than 24 hours!!!!

Thank you everyone! The fun with this build just keeps coming! It truly was an honor to work with Metro and I/we have nothing but great things to say about them... I keep getting photos of peoples TV's with the commercial on it. Humbling to say the least!

The Land Speeder strikes again! This time speeding in a school zone! Look, we're not from this Galaxy... How were we supposed to know? On a side note... Major props to LVMPD!

Thanks Pete! Help is an understatement! Fishlips: The rangers knew we werent there to cause trouble, we never did over 10mph and we were respectful about things... Howard actually thanked them for letting us slide on Saturday

Three years ago started a trend than none of us would have thought, that it would have brought us to where we are today. Not sure how many will remember the “Kia Car and the 4 Hamsters”? And last year was the Flinstone’s. All of those ideas, the center of our motivation, as well as dedication came from the inspiration of Howard’s wife, Trish. She is the one that got this ball rolling and has helped guide us to where we are today. Last year after building something that what we thought was pretty cool and just for fun, ended up changing how we saw Halloween. The Flintstones car was a huge hit and became the motivation behind doing something bigger and better. Except this year it evolved into something much greater than we all imagined. Halloween of last year we already knew what we were going to do this year. After the shear excitement and overwhelming attention the Flintstone’s got last Halloween was humbling to say the least. It was honestly beyond our expectations. As I type this, I can still remember the laughs, smiles, hugs and appreciation from everyone at Comp Hill/Dumont. The next night around the campfire was reliving all the fun we had the night before. Howard, Trish, Laura and myself committed then to do our best to exceed 2015! Disassembly started August 19th with the base of the build being a 2015 XP 1000 4 seater. The car was stripped down of the cage, all rear plastic, doors, rocker panels and anything else that got in the way. (photos of car w/o cage) The overall majority of this build had taken place over 5 weekends and roughly 165 hours. Total time in the build is just shy of 200 hours! That time doesn't even include research time online looking for specialty items, LED lights, costumes or even running around town shopping parts or items needed throughout the build. Not much time was spent "planning" as it was a mad rush to get started on it. We really didn't have any issues that set us back or having to start all over. We knew what we had to do and we did it. The refreshing part was that Howard and I work well together and we feed off each others ideas. We will interrupt each other a million times while elbow deep in god knows what.. yet never get butt hurt when our ideas clash. If anything it makes us second guess our own ideas, and between the two of us we somehow find a better way to skin the proverbial cat. We each have our specialties and yet that still doesn't change how we work with each others ideas. Hell, sometimes sitting on the couch we will come up with an idea that gets turned down by the other and yet still comes back into play the deeper we got into the build. Yes, this was a project that we fell asleep thinking about and woke up to the next morning. (if we slept at all that night thinking of the build) Little things that we never even thought of in the beginning became super important to the build. We wanted to build our own fog machine and came up with LOTS of ideas that just didn't work at all or work like we wanted. A quick trip to a Halloween store and a cheapo fog machine gave us a glimmer of hope. After trying to modify the machine (and making it inoperable) Howard decided no more screwing around.. 300$ later we have a commercial grade DJ 1300 watt fog machine! So, now we have another issue.. How in the hell are we going to power it?!?! A 1500W 12v inverter couldn't even come close to supporting this massive fog machine. Well another trip to Home Depot for a small and quiet 1800w generator! Have you realized yet that we've gone overboard? Nope? Well keep reading! I know I jumped ahead, but it will all make sense in the end.... maybe. We had at least 2 full weekends of just metal fab and sheet metal work. Like I said earlier, we really didn't change a lot during the build and when we did, it was for the best and mostly it was little changes that really set the bar above our original expectations. Remember how I stated that Howard and I work well together?? There were so many little things that we would do that either one of us didn't have a clue how we were going to fab up, but between the two of us.. we weren't stumped for long. We still talk about little things that ended up being pretty big and important to the build that we really didn't know how either of us were going to get that portion finished... This build wasn't anywhere as easy as the Flinstones car! As I type this and look back at the last 2.5 months of work... I still sit in awe that (a) we actually accomplished it and (b) we got it done well ahead of schedule! I still have a hard time believing it came out as good as it did! I don't have a build sheet or even a list of steel yet, (See below for list of steel),, but I can tell you this. Spending this amount of time and money on something to be used for fun cant be explained. I wouldn't have done it with anyone else, and couldn't have done it without the team work of Howard and I, as well as the support and understanding of our wives! And that is something I cant say enough about! Thank you Howard, Trish and Laura!! Ok, on with the build. So this year we decided to build the Land Speeder X-34 from Star Wars IV! Remember me saying that this wasn't going to be an easy build? It hovered off the ground, had smoke, Jet engines and a complete futuristic cockpit! http://www.starwars.com/databank/x-34-landspeeder So in all the research we did, we found MANY different versions of the Land Speeder... I was even able to find original photos of what Lucas Film when they built the first one... They made fiberglass molds, built on a 3 wheel, one off chassis. We didn't have the time to go that crazy.... so we improvised!!! The stock wheel base of the XP1000-4 is roughly 12' long and 5' wide. This thing now sits at 16' 6" long and 12' 6" wide! By the end of September the majority of the car had been built, but there were a ton of little things that still needed attention. Remember that fog machine? That had to get plumbed to 3 jet engines, We also added a c02 tank for the jet propulsion! (don't go there.. we know we went overboard) It's now the beginning of October and time is running out. We have LED lights coming from China, we run out of the LED lighting that we already had and had to order more... from china! There is paint on the car, fog flowing from the jets and c02 shooting from the back... but Sooo much more to do! With the body built the way it was the seats had to be raised 12" just so you could see to the end of the car and for it to look right. Ever move your seat away from the pedals by a foot? So we had to raise the floor in the front as well as extend the gas & brake pedals so we could drive the car safely.. Lets not forget... Luke Skywalker wasn't driving the Land Speeder x-34 with a Polaris steering wheel! Every weekend that we worked on this project, it was the same thing... 5am Howard and I are texting each other with a game plan for the day... Some days started out with a little more humor than others.. Yes, this is an actual conversation between us... Darth: My the force be with you. (yes it was a typo) Chewy: I don't want your force! Darth: FYI Darth Vader can kick Chewbacca's a$$. Just saying. Chewy: I've got a gun and all you have is a fancy light Darth: My fancy light can cut your gun arm OFF. Chewy: I'm not sure you understand how a gun works. Darth: I'm dressed in full black, you'll never see me coming at night. Chewy: You breathe like a dying mule, I can hear you from a mile away! That pretty much ended the conversation as we couldn't stop laughing at each other. Two weeks ago we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.. The Land Speeder was 90% finished. Just little things had to be finished... Mounting the flag, lighting had to be checked at night to make sure everything was right, and just tying up loose ends with electrical, and interior items. Now it's a waiting game... Two weeks before Halloween and were finished! Photo album! http://www.dumontduneriders.com/invision/gallery/category/25-star-wars-landspeeder-rzr/ That's it... I could go into details of every aspect of this build and it still wouldn't scratch the surface of the fun we had.. List of steel used: 29 sticks of 1/2" square tube not including surplus scraps laying around the shop= over 580LF 4 sticks of 1"X2" rectangular steel for the main frame= 80LF 6 sticks of 1" square tube steel =120LF 7 sheets of 4'X10' paint lock 22 gauge sheet metal 2 sheets of 4'X10' perforated 18 gauge 1/4" holes metal. 16 pieces of 1/8"X 1 1/2" flat bar steel=320LF 12 pieces of 1/8"X 2" flat bar steel =120 LF 1 sheet of 1/4" plexiglass 1 sheet of 3/4" expanded metal 5' of 8" flat bar 1500# lbs of steel and over 1300 linear feet!!! And that does not include the scraps and odd pieces we used We already know what we're building next year... Care to guess? Thanks for taking the time to read this and hope you enjoyed the read and the photos. This car is for sale too! Contact Howard at howardsiron@cox.net or you can go to www.facebook.com/dumontlandspeeder