Northern California Rover Club

Northern California Rover Club - About Us

The Northern California Rover Club was founded in 1997. Currently there are in excess of 200 Land Rover enthusiast families in NCRC. Many club members reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, but members can also be found living in other areas of California and as far away as Hawaii and New York! The club's primary function is to help Land Rover owners in the Northern California region meet and enjoy their Land Rover vehicles. Our membership consists of every type of Land Rover made including Series vehicles of all shapes and sizes, Defender 90's and 110's, 101 Forward Controls, Range Rovers, Discoveries, and Freelanders.

The NCRC actively assists the U.S. Forest Service with trail maintenance in the Mendocino National Forest and has recently appointed a Public Affairs Officer to not only act as a club liaison with the outside groups and organizations, but also to keep members informed on land use issues related to off-road vehicles.

NCRC typically tries to hold one offical club off-road event each month. Club members also arrange additional more infomal outings as desired throughout the year. Club events will always be posted to the club calendar, as will some of the non-offical club events as deemed appropriate. Events run from mild scenic trail rides suitable for all Land Rovers to "gonzo-style" runs suitable only for advanced drivers in highly modified vehicles. Each trip posted in the club calendar will be listed as to the type of drivers and vehicles it is most appropriate for. Some trips stick to graded forest roads while others have been on some of the toughest rock-crawling trails in North America. NCRC tries to offer something for everyone while recognizing that intermediate events appeal to the majority of members.

The NCRC's flagship event is the annual club rally, a two-day competition involving time-speed distance driving, navigational, mechanical, recovery and medical tasks, and tests on general Land Rover and wildlife knowledge. Other events include: The Annual Mud Run (Willits to Ft. Bragg on Sherwood Road), Niagara Rim Trail (Stanislaus National Forest), The Rubicon Trail (Tahoe National Forest), The Dusey-Ershim Trail (Sierra National Forest), Annual Fall Colors trip to a different mountain location each year, and the Annual Holiday Party. There is also a week-long expedition trip each year to more distant areas. See the club calendar for more information on specifics.

All U.S. specification Land Rovers are represented in our group as well as many specially imported vehicles — everything from 80" Series I's to the latest Defenders, Discovery's and Range Rovers. The ratios of late-model trucks to heritage vehicles are approximately 1.3:1, about 56%. Many members own more than one Land Rover. The NCRC also has one of the largest concentrations of 101" Forward Controls in the U.S. with the last count up to at least 5, and of NAS Defender 110's currently with 6!

NCRC members have diverse interests related specifically to Land Rovers including general off-roading, expedition driving, competition, vehicle maintainance and restoration, and other activities such as regional and world travel, fishing, hiking, wine-tasting tours (it is California, after all!) and much more.

A Detailed History of NCRC

Special thanks to Ben Smith for much of this information.

In late 1994/early 1995 Granville Pool and Morgan Hanniford, both Series Land Rover Owners from the San Francisco Bay Area, decided that it had been a long time since Land Rover Owners had driven off road together in a noticeable way. They decided to plan a Rallye in the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California for April of 1995. In order to plan and properly prepare for this event Granville and Morgan determined that a reconnisance needed to be done first. On 28 January 1995 a small group of Land Rover owners gathered for what became known as "Mud Run One".

Meanwhile, Benjamin Smith heard of the plans for Mud Run One over the lro@team.net email list. After hearing the trip report, Benjamin decided that he wanted to join them on the next recce trip. However, at the time Benjamin was living in Ridgecrest, CA, a town in the Mojave Desert some 500 miles from the San Francisco Bay Area. Benjamin contacted Granville and was added to the email alias.

At this point the emails alias was really just a "carbon copy" list between about 10 people. Everyone on this list sent each messages to all other members by cc'ing them. There was no single email address to send messages to. If anyone on the list wanted to stop getting emails, then everyone else needed to remember to not include them! As you can imagine, cc lists do not scale very well. As a result, Benjamin created a more powerful email list, one with a single address to send messages to. The name of this new email list came from the fact that the group was conversing via email to plan for a reconnaisance of the Mendocino National Forest. Ben therefore picked the name "mendo_recce". The new email list was originally intened to simplify the adminstration of communicating and was only intended to be around for a few weeks. However, mendo_recce still exists today and continues to be a very active Land Rover email forum. The offical birthday of the mendo_recce list was 20 February 1995. At that time it had about 10 members.

The next recce trip, Snow Run One, was on 25 and 26 March 1995. At the end of the trip it was asked if the list could be kept going until the main event in late April. Benjamin agreed. By early April 1995 there were 27 people on the list. The Joe Lucas Mendocino Rally I was held on 29 and 30 April 1995 at the Deer Valley Campground in the Mendocino National Forest. It rained and drizzled the entire time. However it was a huge success with 26 people attending and 16 Land Rovers! At the end of the event everyone asked for the email list to become permanent. Benjamin agreed. After the trip a digest version of the list was created. This service started on 7 May 1995.

The list continued to grow and to be the focal point for organizing trips, reaching 50 people on 14 July 1995. By years end 96 people were on the list. Over the year 1996, the list grew to 149 people.

In 1997 a number of issues became apparent that many mendo_recce participants felt needed to be addressed. For one, the size of the mendo_recce list had become so large that it was becoming difficult to maintain an informal gathering approach to trips. As well, there existed a number of Land Rover owners that did not have email access and were therefore being excluded from receiving information on trips. As a result, in April 1997, Bruce Bonar, Morgan Hanniford, Jeremy Bartlett, Eric Cope and Jim Russel formed the Northern California Rover Club, or NCRC. All five had originally attended the first Joe Lucas Rallye in April 1995 so there was a very direct connection to the original mendo_recce foundation.

As the years progressed more and more trips have been organized by NCRC and fewer and fewer via the mendo_recce email list. Many of the mendo_recce members have since joined NCRC, but mendo_recce still remains today a vibriant email list outside of NCRC for discussion and where informal trips are planned and posted. Many people on mendo_recce are also members of NCRC so it has increasingly become common for club members to communicate about club matters using mendo but it is not a club email list.

Thus was formed NCRC. April of 2002 is our five year anniversary! We look forward to a great future for the club.