July 2002

Susie Payfer
(aka Scarlett)

Hello fellow DOC'ers,

Thank you to the DOC for selecting me as as July's Durangoer Of The Month. My name is Susie and I'm a true southern gal born, raised and residing in the Virginia Beach area my whole life. I've been married to my husband Jack, a wonderful man, for 12 yrs. He's from Washington D.C. and retired from the Navy after 21 yrs of service to our great country and presently works for Northrop Grumman as a Logistics Specialist. I worked for 21 yrs in retail but gave it up 11 yrs ago and don't miss it at all. I enjoy being home and, between the 'D', the doggie, the house, and the yard, stay busy.

Between us, we've got four children and eight grandchildren from previous marriages. Our kids are all grown and married now, so we're enjoying having the house to ourselves. That said, one of the true pleasures in my life are the children and grandchildren. We're also dog lovers and currently have a Black Lab/Dalmation with an attitude. Her name is "Dixie" and she thinks she's a person!

We're a Durango/Dakota family and have always liked Dodge trucks. The Hubby drives a 98 Dakota SLT + and "Scarlett", our 01 Dark Garnet Red R/T 'D', is mine. We liked the looks of the 'D' ever since it first appeared in 97 and I was ready to move up to something bigger, more powerful, and with more protection than the small, 4-cylinder cars I'd owned previously. I knew in 97 I wanted one, but we waited until the 01's became available in honor of one of our favorite movies, "2001-A Space Odyssey." After many unsuccessful trips to different dealers in search of the perfect 'D' for us, we finally decided to special order one. The build date was Sept. 21, 2000 and we took delivery of "Scarlett" on Sept 27, 2000. If you're wondering how we chose the name for our 'D', it came from my love of Civil War era history and the movie "Gone With The Wind", another all-time classic and favorite movie of mine. One of the characters in the movie is Scarlett O'Hara, and in one scene she wore a beautiful red velvet dress that reminds me of the Dark Red Garnet color of our 'D'. So you see, Scarlett has a lot of special meanings to us. I'm sure most of you feel the same way about your 'D's too.

We became proud members of the DOC in Sept 2000 and I've enjoyed the forum and met so many nice people over the net. We had the pleasure of attending the 2001 Durango Plant Tour in Newark, DE - the birth place of our 'D' - and had a great time meeting people and putting faces with the names we'd only known via the net.

Jack is Scarlett's mechanic and we've installed all of Scarlett's mods ourselves. The hardest most time consuming were the upper & lower Street Scene grille inserts and the Hotchkis sport sway bars. I've created a web page documenting the sway bar installation which may be helpful to those of you thinking about making this mod. We're very pleased with the way they hold the 'D' closer to the road, making cornering safer. The Manik brush guard also took some time because neither the hardware nor the instructions were provided for installation on an 01 'D' so we had to figure out the differences between earlier model year bumper mountings and those for the 01 model ourselves. The Fastman TB and Intense Performance Stage III cold-air intake were easy to install and didn't take much time at all. If you'ld like to see everything we've done to "Scarlett", feel free to check out our webpage.

Again, let me say Thank You to everybody in the DOC for this great honor. Jack and I are proud to be members of the best Durango club on the net or anywhere else.

Happy 'D'ing everybody!
Susie Payfer

Editor's Note: Susie was nominated as Durangoer Of The Month by a fellow member in recognition of her contributions to furthering the goals/credo of the club. She welcomes new members to the forum, shares information on the modifications she makes to her 'D', and is always ready to provide other helpful information to anyone who asks.

Back to Winners List