Rock Racing in Colorado

Today in your face. Rock racing from Colorado,

deep sticky mud action from Louisiana

Monster Truck freestyle in the heart of the Midwest

crawling in Utah that will give you the

jeebies

and an unbelievable collection of car crashes.

Next 30 minutes, we will knock you out of your suspension seat as we crisscross the country in search of off road action.

Hey, everybody. I'm your host me

twice and this is off road action TV.

First up, one of the most intense motor sports we've seen with the element of danger is a close second to the adrenaline rush

in the shadow of Colorado's largest auto graveyard. These pioneers are competing in off roads. Newest sport, extreme rock racing.

It's pretty extreme.

Uh It's like nothing you've ever seen.

Rock racing is trail running. It is not cone dodging. It is actually wheeling again. You pick your own lines, but you're doing it at speed.

It's the skill of rock crawling

with the action of Baha.

It's not 10 minutes to get around one cone. You know, it's go, go, go. You either make it break it a rule fed up with the ever growing rule book in competitive rock crawling. The founder of the XRR A had a solution.

There are no rules in rock racing

and that's just fine with these rock crawling anarchists.

I hate rules.

We don't like guns and we like speed. That's what we like around here. It's a brutal, brutal sport,

no cones, no penalty for backups, no penalty for stops.

This ain't no sissy rock crawling

making four runs through the quarter mile loop track. They're in a constant showdown against the clock. It's all on the stopwatch. Once your time starts and you don't finish until you're done. And

at the end of the day you add all your times up and that's your time. I don't miss the rock crawling competitions. It's too slow for me.

This isn't a rock crawl. This is rock racing. This sport has broken the chains of oppression and set these drivers free.

It's pretty much wide open throttle.

We're really motoring, hitting the rev limiter at 7500 RPM going just as fast as we can go in some of the straightaways. We'll hit 3035 sometimes 40 miles an hour for 10 years. They told me, hey, you drive with too heavy a foot, you need to learn how to crawl. And

so I spent 10 years learning how to crawl and got that dialed in. Now everybody wants to go race. You know,

sometimes you get done with a run. You can't even take your helmet off your hands. Are shaking so hard with adrenaline after years on the pro rock crawling circuit, JT Taylor made the jump to rock racing and hasn't looked back.

No, I don't miss the rock crawling competitions. People that get into the rock racing are

more into the adrenaline. They're more into

hitting the throttle hard and playing hard. And that's why we do it. We love

it in order to be competitive. JTS first upgrade was under the hood

running a 2000 Corvette LS one. It's been pumped up. I got a 06 cam 03 intake and injectors and a larger throttle body.

All the books tell me it's about 410 horsepower. You need a good high horsepower motor out here because you're, you're hitting it really hard

and getting the RPM s up and just really motor and rig only weighs about 2800 pounds.

So when you jump on the Stingy pedals, she goes,

this isn't Talladega, so he needs more than power

gearing is a fine line.

Uh You have to

hit a happy medium to where you can still have the speed. But when you get to an obstacle, have enough gear

to get you up

the way. I set this one up. I'm running 488 with Detroit's front and rear

and running a 3.8 Atlas transfer case

with a two speed Chevy power glide transmission

on JTS first run at Colorado. He proved that no matter how well a rig is thought out.

Rock racing equals carnage.

Brutal.

It's really hard on equipment. But man, it's fun.

His third run went even worse. Broke the rear link

rear drive. Sha

came apart

time to drink beer. JTS fans didn't seem to mind his 13th place finish.

Oh, it's great. Kids love these things. They like the noise, they like the flashiness, big tires slinging everything.

So it's pretty fun when they come up. Say that's cool, man. I like your rig.

That's pretty neat.

The extreme rock racing association runs a full east and west coast series culminating in their national championships each fall

and stay tuned off

action because there's more coming up.

They're not the biggest names in monster truck racing, but they know how to

the crowd

that's later on.

But up next, better strap down your picnic basket. If you want to run potato Salad Hill

every spring, thousands converge on a set of iconic trails turning Moab

Utah into the jeep capital of the world.

We're off to Moab

Rim. Hell's Revenge and Potato Salad Hill.

If you go to Moab Utah, there's one can't miss trail

rim trail from what I feel one of the best rock crawling trails in Moab.

After market companies gathered up the industry's heavies in order to showcase their newest parts on these four plus rated trails.

Going to the

ascending 1500 ft, the 10 mile out and back run, left some sweat on the brow and a few hearts in the throat.

The biggest thing is the pucker factor. These ledges are right on the edge of a cliff. So, it really makes it interesting. Kind of shows the men are men

keeping them pucker are nasty obstacles like devil's crack and the,

it's pretty gnarly trail. I haven't seen anything like this anywhere else. The obstacles are unreal. There are even sand dunes, a little bit of everything. Exactly. I love the rocks. But when you get to the sand and you see the sand, it, it's something you got to play in

suspension. Design engineer, Ryan

Kelly. I love my job. Knew that his company's new suspension system would ace the rocks and sand. I'm fairly confident that we're going to get

all through this and not have any problems. He had good reason to be cocky in areas where there

rocks passing through. I gave it all kinds of extra clearance to make sure that you could get through the obstacle easily. I bent the arm so that there would be areas for the tires to swing through, give you lots of clearance. So the tires aren't rubbing on the suspension binding up your axles. We want to focus on the individuals that want to go farther. This suspension allowed him to go wherever he wanted.

We're doing real good success on a four plus rated trail takes more than a well designed suspension system.

The most critical part of the suspension is the tires.

Scott Ward is president of pro comp tires and he didn't show up here empty handed

this year. We're busting out the, uh, extreme mud terrain. It's a new tire for us. A very exciting tread design. Very high tech. It's a armor tech three side wall construction which is a three ply side wall. Two of the plies are, are parallel to each other and then with the third ply, we just kick it about two degrees and it gives it that extra strength that needs to resist any sticks or pinching it on rocks and stuff like that. I think we've uh we've hit a home run with it as the group descended. Moab,

everyone here agreed. The slick rock with its obstacles makes for a perfect Jeep testing ground.

Put on an excellent,

excellent run. We can't wait for next year's Easter Jeep Safari. The way it looks now, I'm going to be coming back

until I probably can't come back anymore.

17 year old Mark mckay

is fresh off getting his driver's license

because

the way you want to spend your spring break

sporting every accessory he could find for his TJ. Mark's passion for four Wheeling started with a sticker collection

ever since Mark's been the little boy. He's been loving the skyjacker parts. They have awesome stickers

long way from that boyhood sticker collection. Mark handle the rock more like a 17 year veteran of Moab.

I

think most of the fun is in the challenge of just having to guide the jeep up over the obstacles, knowing that you could slide backwards or roll over at any moment and just pushing it through

the tip over. Challenge obstacle befuddled some

but not mark.

He takes it nice and slow and doesn't try to rush through. Everything

hasn't rolled over

and hopefully not anytime soon

when it came to the five RD hot tub.

Mom knows best mom said no, I am the mom,

I can say no to the hot tub if I

think I want to.

That didn't ruin Mark's first trip. I can't see myself ever stopping this. It's just too much fun.

After a day on the trails, the action moves to the most famous hill in Four Wheeling.

We're a potato salad in Moab,

Utah.

Potato

salad is just

getting its name when the picnic staples spill during a roll.

This place continues to put drivers into a pickle

from here. It looks like it's just ledges. Once you're up on it, you'll notice crazy angles to that hill that challenge everybody that temps. It's

that,

that pretty much tells you what it's like. Some chose to watch what it's like.

It takes guts. It more than I have, as they say here on potato salad hill. No guts. No glory.

Well, sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't. It's a tough hill man. It's slippery. It's bumpy. It's loose at the top. It throws you around my good times in Moab

and

what it's all about. I will do it again.

Now, while most insurance companies probably would write that Jeep off as totaled,

I'll bet the owner will have it back out on the trails in no time

up next. How can these trucks survive the wet sloppy mud without getting flogged.

Waterproofing hints from the experts when off road action continues.

Welcome back to off road action.

Now, we all know that Southern Louisiana is used to a lot of rain.

But when that rain seeps into the riverbed silt, you've got the perfect recipe for gumbo mud.

Over 60 trucks came to motor sports City raceway outside of Monroe while some would win, all would be keeping alive. A Louisiana tradition,

everybody's raised in the,

you know, where it's mud knee deep and you have to have a lift on your truck

and you have to have tall tires. It's just in everybody's heritage and in their blood and everybody watch their fathers and their uncles do it and they grew up in it and that's just what they take pride in doing it.

I've been around Louisiana for a long time

and just everybody likes a little mud

in these parts. A unique mud compound exists making conditions ideal for mud racing.

This is the slickest mud on the face of the planet. It is the Louisiana Southern Delta Gumbo mud. It's the old river route was hundreds of years ago. And it's also,

there's no better spot for mud racing right here. This gumbo isn't perfect. I have washed this truck before and washed off 1620 pounds of gumbo. And it is hard to believe that you could pick up 1600 pounds of mud. But, uh, it's taken me like seven or eight hours to wash it. It can be real bad whether racing $100,000 super mod or a $5000 stock truck,

every racer needs protection from the mud.

It'll cost you a motor and burns and just depends on how bad it is and how long you let it go. It can destroy one real quick and hurt

to a racer. The sound of water in the engine is like nails on a chalkboard.

A

like that.

We gotta have everything tight

or

the secret to keeping the engine dry has been passed down from generation to generation.

We use a lot of spray foam and duct tape, silicone. That's the main thing. I've got a pair of old neoprene waders that I, I put over the distributor and then the breather. I've got some aluminum pipe to go around and go inside the firewall and if you can get the distributor covered up good and, uh, get the air from inside it, it pretty well takes care of

all

plastic nose piece which keeps, you know, water from coming in on the engine. And then we've got fenders all sealed up to the frame with metal welded in. Just anything we can do to keep it dry. Keep it running a little longer

because there's nothing worse than

out running somebody to the water hole and it go dead in the water. A lot of thought. A lot of ingenuity that goes into these things. Waterproofing isn't the only time they use a lot of thought and ingenuity.

The name of my truck is Mac Daddy. And uh my name is Mac. The name of my truck is playing for keeping people like putting catchy names on that draw, you know, it draws a lot of attention to him and you know, the more attention to him, you know, that you have,

you know, there's more people like you

t

is always in a good mood. He's been around a long time. He bounces around and I ain't never hardly seen him in a very bad mood. That's how we come up with. Name.

Most of the kids have their favorites. If you ask them, they'll tell you. I, I like so and so

some of the adults are the same way. Our last name is Murphy and my dad's is Murphy. So we just decided an M and M much lang is what we do and we just figured we name it after a bull race days. Draw thousands who come out to celebrate their muddy roots

for the drivers. It's the young fans that make the time, money and effort to race all worth it

makes me feel real good to share my interest with kids and hoping maybe I can lead them in the right track for

doing right

from mud

to dirt. Let's go to Indianapolis where monster trucks are a sure thing at the four wheel jamboree

since 1981. The info wheel Jamboree has been blowing out the state fairgrounds.

It's just an awesome, awesome, awesome event. The Jamboree is the, the funnest events we do all year long. This is where we've come to raise this three day off road love fest

featured monster trucks, tough trucks and mud drags. They even had a rock crawl.

They have everything that was cool about the jam Bree. It's kind of like being a kid in a candy store. You know, this is, uh, if, if you have anything to do with trucks, this is like the place to be

out on the midway. Manufacturers were showing off their newest products.

Plus for us to get our name out and,

and, uh, you know, spend the time with customers and, you know, answer good questions and

that type of stuff. Whether it's taking a wild ride on Sergeant Smash or getting up close to Bigfoot. The kids know what they want to see at a Jamboree

monster truck

bracket races, show off a driver's prowess on the straight line.

You're racing, you're limited to, here's the track, follow the path that's what you got.

Who wants to follow the path, man. We're four by four guys.

They wait until freestyle to show off their driving chops.

You get to go out there and show off and just stretch your stuff. Have fun.

You can just go out here and

kind of let your hair down and have a blast.

Freestyle is different that the school about freestyle brings out your personality. There's no points or nothing involved. Just go out there and have a good time with it and give the fans a good

Ramin

and Bigfoot dominate monster truck racing. But when it comes to freestyle, no team can match the intensity of Chris Bergeron in spike,

tear it up, made a full throttle and Jim

Ker in the Avenger. We could just get nuts, man. Totally nuts

in just a few short years. This duo has become a must see main attraction

when it comes to freestyle. Them guys know how to freestyle. They run hard into racing. But the freestyle, they just get out there and lay it down on you. When I go out for freestyle, I give it everything I got because that's why I do it. I do it to have a good time

and have fun. If I got to hold back, I might as well just stay at home while some teams are backed by billion dollar corporations. These guys do it on their own.

We have a regular job. My partner, Chris is a plumber. I run a marina

that's what pays the bills, what their semi lacks and shiny new parts. The team makes do with something more important. It's all about having the hardest sport wanting to win. It's not about big corporate thing and the money and all that stuff. Those big corporate teams don't have nothing on us. They may have the money but they don't have the heart that we have. Man. We're here to kick, can't say.

But that's, we're here to kick

their freestyles have become the stuff of legend.

My truck is about having fun, man. If you're not having fun, don't do it. That's our motto. We wanna be the team that the fans enjoy to see and that's what we're gonna do is give them the best possible show the most extreme

show that we can give them and that's what we do and their generosity in the pits is just as impressive as their car crushing antics.

We know where we stand.

We were

standing in those lines 10 years ago getting autographs from other guys. We get the goose bumps when they want to stand in line and get our autographs the same that we got when we wanted someone else's autograph. We appreciate the fans big time. No doubt about it all day. You get to sit here and talk to the fans and you go out there and just tear it up at

in D spike. Didn't disappoint his fans.

A broken shock would knock out most mortals but not Jim and the Avenger.

It was awesome. We just had a blast. These people here in India are awesome.

No.

Next on off road action,

a

collection of crashes that you've got to stick around to see.

Don't go anywhere

for the fastest and most intense truck racing. You got to love the core series

fender to fender. Go get them, smash them up to the

racing,

rocks flying over the jump bumps, turns cart wheels, you name it. This is what off road racing about right here. This is definitely extreme racing. You have to be on the edge here to be competitive

packing 850 horses, the pro four and two wheel drive classes don't just push the envelope, they rip through it.

You know, I've never been in a dogfight in like an F-16, but I think that would probably be about as close as you can compare it to. So there's only a few people in this world that can probably understand what we do.

Um, I don't think there's any other motor sport that has anything, the extreme that we do. I think you're here to watch trucks roll over

running. This hard rollovers are just part of the game.

Yeah, the driver doesn't want to be the guy upside down. But, you know, that's part of racing and that's what people pay the money to come. See. It wouldn't be racing if it wasn't Robin Robin's racing, if you can't handle it, get out

somebody in the way. Sometimes you got to bump them, sometimes you don't. But, uh,

it can get pretty physical out there a lot of times,

you know, we're side by side

44 wide. And, uh,

I mean, it gets very exciting. Core racing is probably the most extreme off road racing

that the fans can actually enjoy

to win here. These guys have to first survive the land rush start.

The Oklahoma land rush here is incredible

doing 100 miles an hour into the first turn at the start.

You know, and it's, it's quite a challenge going into that turn. It is probably the most adrenaline packed start of any, any motor sport. So you get a bunch of trucks going side by side

to connect, you get some excitement going on there. Talk about

stacking up. That's a rush right there

geared to handle the rocks, the jumps and three G corners. This place doesn't get any easier after turn one

pretty intense. We're squeezing everything we can out of these trucks. The competition is so stiff

that, uh, you know, that, that's what you need to do. If you want to win races, you got to let it hang out there.

Yeah,

that is exactly why we love core racing because the drivers have no fear

as a tribute to these heroes behind the wheel. We'll leave you with a collection of crashes from our friends at championship off road racing.

And just to prove how safe these cockpits are, none of these drivers were seriously hurt.

I'm MEREDITH. We,

we'll see you next time.

Oh, man.