The FTE Rally Relay is a new tradition started with the MidAtlantic chapters meet at the Carlisle Truck Nations in August 2012. FTE has created a "special" FTE banner to be passed from meet to meet, and member to member across FTE land in our Ford trucks. Upon each passing, the person passing off the banner would sign it signifying their contribution to the Rally Relay Banner's journey, and a picture taken of the "pass-off". After the banner is passed along, the FTE member who carried it will then write their story of the drive and post it on FTE.

If you would like to get in on the tradition, here is how you can:

1. Sign-up and become a member of FTE. (It's easy and free. All you need to do is create a username and password and become active in our forums.
2. Check out the Rally Relay events travel page to see when the banner might reach your area.
3. Post in the appropriate region thread your desire to carry, who you can contact to pick it up, pass it off, with locations, dates and times.
4. Drive safely and most important have fun.
5. Take lots and lots of pictures and post them on FTE in the Rally Relay events pages.
6. Be sure to write your story, with the routes taken, pictures of your journey and most important you handing the banner off.

Any questions, just pm Renee, FTE Membership, Tim, IB Tim, or George, glruff.


BASIC RULES FOR THE FTE RALLY RELAY:

1. The banner can only be carried and passed to registered members of FTE.
2. The banner can only be carried in a Ford truck when possible. Of course, UPS, USPS, or FEDEX are acceptable when distance is too great between members which make it impracticle to hand off in person.
3. All actual FTE members are eligible to sign the banner. One signature per FTE member is allowed. Include your username and first name.
4. A photo or photos of the members involved in the drive should be submitted along with a story and route taken with the banner. Please submit these stories to the "Rally Relay Travels" thread.

 

The first leg of its jouney started here,,,, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ay-banner.html

The banner started it's jouney in Los Angeles, CA. Renee, FTE Membership, and member of IB's marketing team, mailed the banner to me for the August 2012 MidAtlantic Chapters meet in Carlisle, PA.

Here is a picture of those FTE members who signed the banner.

 

Well.... to make a long story short... as we left All Truck Nationals in Carlisle, PA, the banner somehow ended up in MY truck (We actually thought it needed to come back to DE to glruff), so, it travelled south 200 miles with us.

As soon as I received the message that Gary Lewis (OK Chapter Leader) was interested in it for his GTG out west, I shipped it out. Not quite a "Driving Adventure", but I'm thinking that if the walls of that USPS truck could talk, the Banner will have some tales to tell!!

 

Can't say when I will be needing it, but I will be posting up here when I do. Also, if anyone close to us is going to have it, that'd be nice to get together.

 

October 27th(unless rain hits then Nov 3rd

 

OK, Gary Lewis has the banner now for a September, tbd, date.

 

Awesome!!!! Me next, me next!!!

 

I might be able to do some traveling with the banner!!! I live in southern Illinois!

 

Ok, the banner is read for its next adventure. Who gets it next?

 

We are having a gtg/tech day in late October. We could use it if no one else has anything coming up

 

This whole thing kinda fell apart lol. Either were not posting about it or theres months between handoffs...

 

October 27th I could use it if it's not confiscated by then HA HA HA HA

 

OR INSTRUCTIONS ARE NOT BEING FOLLOWED.

 

Or the plans assumed one thing, like driving between sites, and reality gives something else - USPS/UPS.

In any event, the Fall 2012 Oklahoma Chapter (the only chapter that is OK) was held at my shop on Sept 15th. We had 10 FTE'ers, and 3 wannabe's, in attendance, with several others having planned to participate but not being able to for various reasons. One of the latter is from Kansas but lives close by so hopes to participate in the future. And, we had one from CO - ctubutis, the moderator.

The writeup for the GTG is in the OK Chapter forum at 2012 Fall GTG, and more pictures are in my album under Fall 2012 GTG. But, for your viewing pleasure some are repeated below.

As outlined in the OK forum thread, this was really more of a WTG than a GTG:

• Ray1986F150 had donated a bed to ctubutis (Chris). Ray and I'd unloaded it from his truck and put it behind my shop. Bruno2 stopped by a place in Tulsa that has pallets free to the public and picked up two. The FTE'ers got those pallets screwed together and Chris' bed loaded on them upside-down. Then it was strapped to the pallet and the combo loaded on the back of Dad's truck, which is sitting in the shop in the midst of a ZF5 swap. I'll take it to a trucking company in Tulsa when I get the truck going so it can be taken to Chris in Denver.
• Ray got the old bearings off and the new bearings on his rear axle, and the differential flushed out and checked for backlash. When he was cutting the keepers on the axles they went off like gun shots and you should have seen the guys duck. He hadn't done axle bearings before but Rogue_Wulff, who has done several of them, oversaw that effort and it went well.
• Bruno finished part of his project of building "posts" for the sides on his truck, to which he's going to add side boards.
• Bruno's son Kris, a new FTE member, got a new project - motorizing a bicycle. He happened to mention that people are doing that in order to save gas and have some fun, so I gave him the 4-stroke Ryobi trimmer engine I'd saved for whoknowswhat.
• Jason, Bruno2's friend that has now come to two GTG's, got 95% of the welding done on my new exhaust system, with the last bit not done because we couldn't get the exhaust "Y" off due to interference between the tranny and exhaust flange/nut.

Here are some of the pics:

Chris' bed on its pallet and loaded on the back of Dad's truck:


Jwtimme, jstitts, and BigGuy58 working on Ray's axle housing:


Bruno2 working on his stake-pocket post project:


Jason, on the right, and me working on the exhaust:


As for shipping the banner, at this point it looks like Tejas is its next home. But, I'll hold off a bit longer to see if someone else chimes in with an earlier date.

 

And OK pics of the banner, what it's all about





This is the FTE banner, with our signatures.