[View with PicLens]

Friday Picture UPDATES:

[View with PicLens]

Saturday Picture UPDATES:

[View with PicLens]

Safety drives everything we do at Yamaha. We are proud of the safety record and safety features of the Yamaha Rhino, which has skyrocketed in popularity due to its exceptional reliability, safety and versatility.

Over 150,000 Rhino owners have used the vehicles safely, including the U.S. military, border patrol, and a growing number of law enforcement agencies, fire fighters and other first responders. In fact, more than 99 percent of Rhino owners have operated their vehicles safely and responsibly over millions of hours of use. The Rhino has won virtually every “first in class” award and top safety ratings in independent reviews since its introduction.

The popularity of the Rhino, and the fact that it represents a new category of off-road motorized vehicles, has made it a target for some plaintiffs’ lawyers who increasingly use the Internet, television advertisements and the news media to attract clients. As the first trial dates approach in personal injury litigation in various courts, some law firms have embarked on a misleading publicity campaign to influence potential jurors and/or the outcomes of these cases, and to solicit potential clients. Yamaha will properly deal with these cases in the courtroom based on all the relevant evidence and a fair opportunity to be heard.

Unfortunately, these law firms successfully convinced CBS News to help further their disingenuous publicity campaign, and the network aired a story on the Rhino that included inaccurate, incomplete and false information.

To begin with, CBS featured an incident involving Justin Miller, but failed to mention that Mr. Miller was driving a heavily modified Rhino. As the photo of that Rhino posted on CBS’s own website reveals and the investigating officer testified — the Rhino Miller was driving had an extended cage structure, and what looks to be a back seat bolted to the rear cargo bed. The vehicle’s owner signed a waiver for his purchase of a “Custom Rhino” stating that the vehicle has “additional third party parts and accessories not offered by the manufacturer” and releasing all claims against the dealer and “all other persons and entities” related to the purchase of the vehicle.

The CBS story also shows security camera footage of an incident involving Zach Murray, a former employee at a Yamaha dealership who is currently a plaintiff with his own pending lawsuit. In a post-incident letter to his employer, Mr. Murray wrote that he intentionally stepped out of the overturning vehicle. Although CBS was made aware of Mr. Murray’s letter, they neglected to include mention of it in their story.

In addition, Mr. Murray was not wearing a seatbelt or a helmet. He was operating the vehicle on pavement then made a sharp, high-acceleration turn, and did not stay inside the vehicle.

A more complete version of the security camera tape shows two other vehicles being driven recklessly on the same stretch of pavement where the accident occurred, suggesting that an atmosphere of horseplay existed just prior to Murray’s crash, and that the only reason for Murray to be making a sharp, high acceleration turn was to also engage in horseplay.

In a separate part of the story, CBS cites documents that discuss an early pre-prototype vehicle that had a different design than, and no relation to, the Rhino that is on the market today. Despite being told weeks ago that it would be false to imply that these documents relate to the Rhino in any way, CBS chose to include this misleading information in its report.

Yamaha was contacted for the CBS segment two months ago by Myron Levin, a freelance reporter with a long history of writing news stories that favor the plaintiffs’ bar. Yamaha provided a great deal of information to Mr. Levin, including responding to more than 40 written questions. Mr. Levin also conducted an hour-long interview with a Yamaha representative at Yamaha’s offices in California. Yamaha did not agree to an on-air interview with the reporter, Armen Keteyian, because we could not be assured that such an interview would not be selectively edited and used in misleading ways with statements taken out-of-context given the obvious plaintiffs’ slant with which the CBS producers were developing their story.

Like the CPSC, Yamaha takes very seriously any reported Rhino-related accident, and Yamaha has fully cooperated in the agency’s investigation of the Rhino and its request for modifications. Yamaha will continue to work to promote safe and responsible use of the vehicles, including the active, ongoing development of standards for all recreational off-road side-by-side vehicles, including the Rhino.

Yamaha stands firmly behind the Rhino and will continue to vigorously defend the product against baseless claims and distortions, whether they be from plaintiffs’ law firms or biased, inaccurate media reports parroting these lawyers’ claims. The Rhino is a safe and useful off-road vehicle when driven responsibly by licensed operators aged 16 or older and according to the instructions and warnings in our on-product labels, owner’s manuals, and other safety materials.

Not only will the new Yamaha Generators power our events, we will be giving away an all-new EF2000iS at each event.  The all-new EF2000iS is lightweight, quiet, and powerful.  Delivering maximum output with minimum effort, it weighs only 44 lbs and features an extra-large handle for easy transport anywhere.  It’s whisper quiet and meets the strictest invariant standards.

“We are proud to power our events with the most fuel efficient and quiet power available in today’s market” says Nick McFayden, Group Director of PGI Media.

I just got home and wanted to post some pictures from yesterday that I didn’t have time to post after the long and exciting day.  Keep coming back to the website for more updates as we sort through our pictures and reminisce of the weekend.

Our next stop will be at Pismo Beach in August.  If you have never been to Pismo, you need to come…camp right on the beach!  Yes, up against the water.

So, the wind was torture on the way home this afternoon…I hope you all made it home safe!  As I was driving I was thinking about the different parts of the weekend…so if you want to know what I thought about this weekend…here it is…

What was my favorite part?  Hmmm, the whole weekend was great…but the Karaoke on Saturday night was a blast.  The singers were all great and the crowd was very fun!

What was the most impressive?  The vehicles that entered the Show and Shine contest.  Yes!  Very impressive    !

Most Chaos?  Haha if you were there, then you would know the answer to this!  The Easter Egg Hunt was off the hook with over 50 kids lining the sides and rushing in to grab eggs.

Craziest?  The amount of awesome raffle prizes that we had to give out!  Over $10,000 in prizes lined the stage for 3 different raffles.

Best Feedback? “Thanks for a great dune ride!  The Scavenger Hunt was absolutely a hunt as we had to find the stops at the different locations.”

The Worst Part?  The 2 hours of wind on Saturday.  Luckily it was during the couple of hours where we had some down time before the night activities.  I was so scared that we weren’t going to be able to pull off the evening activities.  But we talked to the Wind Gods and they followed through with a perfect night!

What made me smile?  Walking around and being able to talk to all of you!  Sorry that the food line got backed up a couple of times while the burgers caught up, but I enjoyed the chats.  I also got to talk to a lot of you while I walked the vendor circle.

Most Exciting?  The number of people that showed up for the drive in movie on Friday night.  That told me right there that we were going to have a great group to have fun with over the weekend.

Of course I have more thoughts on all of the weekend… But you will have to come back for more!

I want to take a moment to thank Yamaha for their endless support.  Not only did Yamaha Present the Rhino Rally at the Dune Tour for the Glamis stop, but they also brought out the Demo Ride group, a huge tent for you to sit under to eat your lunch out of the hot sun, the Yamaha Generator as the Karaoke Grand Prize, a ton of great raffle prizes, and so many more great additions to the Glamis event!

And Most Importantly, THANK YOU to all of you that came out to play!  We appreciate you making the trip out!  If you have pictures or stories from the weekend that you would like to share, be sure to email us at events@pgimedia.com

Check back for more pictures!
And look forward to seeing you at Pismo!

www.thedunetour.com

Pismo Beach  Aug  7-9
Gordon’s Well  Nov 9-11
Dumont Dunes   Jan 2010

We want you to come and play with us….
Check back tomorrow for more pictures and updates!

There are 3 FREE Raffle Tickets available to you this weekend!

All events are FREE to participate in, but we need to have you come through our registration process to get a wrist band.  The tab on your wristband acts as your first FREE Raffle Ticket.

We always like to give back and with Kawasaki’s help, we are helping support a dune clean up.  Bring a bag of trash back to the registration table, and get a FREE Raffle ticket!  It’s just that easy.  Unfortunately, we all know it is easy to fill a bag, so help do your part!  We appreciate you!

The Scavenger Hunt is going to be a blast with multiple vendors out in the dunes at different stops.  Grab the scavenger hunt card from our registration table and head off to the different stops.  There are 6 different locations.  Ride to each, hang out for a while and check out their products on display.  Get your card stamped, and then off to the next stop.  This is not a race, take your time and enjoy the ride!  Bring your completed Scavenger Hunt card back to the registration card for a FREE Raffle ticket!

So what can you get with these raffle tickets…thousands of dollars in prizes!  Yamaha has been generous with a multitude of gifts from their huge accessories catalog, Forest River has donated 2 Flat Screen TV’s, Orange County SandCars brought out 5 Flat Panel Monitors, ITP has sent out 5 sets of paddle tire and wheels, Baja Designs has brought out 4 Soltek Lights, Kawasaki has sent 5 digital cameras, HPI has donated 2 remote control cars and that is only the tip of the iceberg!  KW Machine, PU Products, KalGard, AO Coolers, Dune Gear, Race401, UTV Sound, Poles and Holders, Atlantis Enterprises, ModQuad, Dune Slider, Black Rhino, Magnum Offroad, Simpson, OMF, Muzzys, Acro Lights, RB Components, Hands In Wrist Restraints AND SOOOOO MANY MORE have been generous enough to donate products for you to win!

There are 4 raffles…A warm up on Friday night at 8pm and between movies.  Saturday at 2pm is the BIG Raffle and Saturday night in between Karaoke acts we will pull the final tickets!

Tonight the bonfire lights off at 7:30pm and then we will be showing the Glamis premier of UTV Meyham 2, a raffle and then National Treasure 2.  Registration opens tomorrow at 8am!

You still have time to get here!  Load up and roll!  See you soon!

www.thedunetour.com

Here are some pictures from this morning.

We got the Yamaha rigs set, the Huge Yamaha tent erected, the Forest River trailers in line, Envy Trailers just showed up, the Sand Addiction trailers unloaded and we are waiting for more to show up tonight!

There are already a lot of people stopping by to say HI and register.  This is exciting!  Can hardly wait until tomorrow!

I wanted to share a few more details on a couple of our events with you…

Karaoke?…How about Dune Idol?   Yea, that’s it!  We are putting a cap on the contest at 20 singers, so be sure to register as soon as you get here!  As I mentioned yesterday, there will be 3 very sweet, nice and completely innocent girls judging you…  We will narrow it down to the top 5 based on the show and the singing ability, and then it is up to the crowd to bring the winner home! We need as many people here as possible to throw in your vote!  Of course there are prizes!  The Grand Prize is a Yamaha 2000 watt Generator!  2nd Place – Flat Screen TV From Forest River and 3rd Place will receive a Monitor From Orange County SandCars!

We have left a big area for our Show and Shine…LETS FILL IT!!  There are multiple classes so there is no excuses ~ categories include: Long Travel Sand Car; Beam Cars; Quads; Dirt Bikes; Side x Sides; Yamaha Rhino; Jeeps; Truck; and Best Random.  Please register your vehicle between 8am and 12:30pm on Saturday.  There will be a limit of 20 vehicles per class.  Vehicles will start lining up at 12pm and the voting will be between 1pm – 2pm.

We have come up with a brilliant idea of how to capture the votes for the Show and Shine.  You can get a book of vote sheets at the registration booth.  Everything is color coded by class.  Put the correct color sheet into the vehicle of choice’s same color box.
For an example…the Yamaha Rhino class has blue boxes and vote sheets.  Each Yamaha Rhino will have a blue box in it (looks like a Chinese take out box).  Look over all of the Yamaha Rhinos and pick your favorite.  Put the Blue paper from your vote booklet into that Rhino’s box.  Then move onto the next class of vehicles.

The winners of each class will be announced on Saturday night at 8:00 just prior to the Karaoke contest!  All winners get an on-line feature on Sand Addiction.com and a really classy trophy.

Remember we are kicking off the Dune Tour tomorrow night at 7:30 with the lighting of the Bonfire.  The first raffle of the night will be at 8pm, then the Glamis Premier of UTV Mayhem 2.  At intermission there will be another raffle and then we will be playing National Treasure 2.

See you tomorrow, and jump online tomorrow for more updates!

Ok, so for some time now we have been saying that we are going to give away the two completely accessorized Polaris RZRs this weekend at the Dune Tour in Glamis.

Then, sometimes we have brain-wracking ideas.  Some good, some bad…

This one is Good, I promise…

We have pushed the giveaway date to Saturday April 4th where we will be proud to announce the two winners at the 1st ever Side X Side Jamboree in Parker, AZ.

This allows YOU another 2 weeks to CLICK HERE and enter to win.

It also allows everyone that attends the Yamaha Rhino Rally at the Dune Tour this weekend and PRE-REGISTERS for the Side X Side Jamboree to be included in the pot!

Yep, we thought it was a good idea too!
See you in Parker!

Pre-Register for the Jamboree Today!   www.sidexsidejamboree.com

Enter To Win

Special Thanks to the Sponsors of the RZR Builds:
Beard Seats, Speed Industries, OMF, ITP, WARN, Simpson, Fox Racing Shox, Jagged X, K&N Filter, Mafia Industries, PU Products, Quad Tech, Summers Bros, FullBore, High Lifter, Maxxis, Pro Armor, Side X Side Outfitterz, and Twisted Stitch

You know you want to come and play…so load up and come out!   IT’S FREE!

~  Yamaha will be lighting the bonfire at 7:30pm Friday night to kick off the weekend.

~  Have you ever been to a Drive-in-Movie? How about in the sand?  Thanks to Forest River RVs now is your chance!  See the Glamis Premier of UTV Mayhem 2 ~ and then onto another family friendly movie that is sure to make you laugh!

~  There will be a RAFFLE that will be happening both before the movie and at the intermission between movies.  We like giving away BIG Prizes!!

Make sure to get some good sleep after the movies because Saturday is going to be packed with excitement.

Most of the day on Friday and all day Saturday we will be available at the Registration Table to help you with anything that you need or any questions that you may have.

~ At the Registration table, you will need to sign our event waiver <and get a FREE raffle ticket>; then grab a Scavenger Hunt Card <complete and you get another FREE raffle ticket> ; also grab a Kawasaki sponsored trash bag and do you part while out in the dunes and pick up a bag of trash <return for another FREE raffle ticket>   Um, YEA, participate and get 3 FREE Raffle Tickets!

~  While you are at the Registration table be sure to check out our family packages that include Event T-shirts, BBQ tickets, the ability to vote for the Show and Shine Categories and a Goodie bag full of surprises!

~  Be sure while in the event area to stop by Yamaha’s Rhino Display and demo one of their units ~ now it’s your turn to sit behind the wheel and drive!

~ If you have kids, let them participate in the Arctic Cat Kid Zone activities including a jumper, coloring, crafts, and more…  At 1:30 we will be pre-running for Easter with a Easter Egg hunt for the kids.  There will be one GOLDEN TICKET in a lucky egg per age group that will win a VERY special prize.

~  Please visit all of our vendors in the circle throughout the day:  Yamaha, Arctic Cat, Forest River, Funco Kawasaki, Baja Designs, Alba Action, SSV Works, MVP RV, Black Rhino, Fox Racing Shox, Elka Suspension, and HPI.  See the great products they have brought all the way out to the sand for you to see!  You can also stop by the Sand Addiction and Side X Side Action Magazine booth for some sand wear and magazines!

~  Between 10am and 1pm head out into the dunes on the Scavenger Hunt.  Take your time to visit and see more amazing products for your toy!  Talk with the professionals from Yamaha, Simpson Racing, Orange County Sand Cars, Dune Gear, Evol Offroad and Pro Armor.  Bring your stamped card back to the registration table for another FREE Raffle Ticket!  It’s just that easy!

~  Make sure to polish up the ride and bring her out for show!  Enter the Polaris Show and Shine contest between 8am and 12:30pm for a 1pm-2pm voting period.  You could be featured on our website as the top winner!  (psst, not to mention a really cool trophy!)  And, don’t forget to vote for your favorite in each category!

~  After a good morning ride in the dunes, there is nothing better than a yummy BBQ that will be fired up between 12-2pm.  Mmmm I can smell it now!

~  The Main Raffle will begin around 2pm.  You already have 3 FREE raffle tickets <scroll up if you forgot how you got them, lol>, but if you want to up your odds you can of course purchase more.  Huge prizes have been donated…nope…I’m not going to tell you what they are…you will have to show up to find out!!  Trust me! It’s worth it!

~  A good Dune Trip is never complete without a Saturday night campfire…but we added a slight twist.  Yamaha Generators stepped up and donated a Generator…so we started thinking….hmmm…how about Karaoke with a HUGE grand prize!  Yamaha will be lighting the fire at 7:30 and will begin the festivities of the evening.  Be sure to SIGN UP ahead of time if you want to Karaoke for a Yamaha Generator…there are a limited number of spots.  There will be 3 very sweet, nice and completely innocent girls judging you…   There will also be raffle prizes thrown in between acts…so if you don’t win on Friday night or Saturday afternoon you still have a chance!

~  Oh, I forgot to mention, that there is plenty of time to hang out, listen to some great music, grab a t-shirt or two for silly reasons, talk with your friends you may not have seen in the desert for a while, get your picture taken that will be played on Saturday night on the big screen and so many more fun things that have escaped my mind!

Time for me to go out and start the truck…See you in the Dunes!
Vendor Flats…Trust me, you won’t miss us!

www.thedunetour.com