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Never in the long and colorful history of off-road motorsports has there been a better time to go out and get dirty. While other major forms of racing in America continue (with the exception of NASCAR) to struggle for survival in the new millennium, in many ways the past several years represents the Golden Age of our sport. From the surge of interest in professional rockcrawling events to record Trophy-Truck fields at this year’s Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, off-road racing is alive, well, and looking toward a bright future.

For the staff of 4-Wheel & Off-Road, signs of this dynamic growth are everywhere. There are racing events nearly every weekend, with sanctioning bodies announcing new corporate sponsorships, higher contingency awards, and even national television packages. The guys and gals who make a living in fabrication and parts sales are thriving, and the opportunities to join in on all this fun are more numerous than ever.

What better time to present 4-Wheel & Off-Road’s 2003 Off-Road Motorsports Guide. From the highly charged short-course action of Championship Off-Road Racing (CORR) all the way to the spectacle of UROC’s World Championship SuperCrawl, we’ve created this guide to steer you through great racing events all around the country. To get you up to speed, we’ve also included an up-close look at some of the most awesome machinery in the dirt, including the Herbst Motorsports SCORE championship Trophy Truck, Jon Nelson’s revolutionary “Tiny” rockcrawler, the Ford Protruck of Rick Johnson, and Toyota’s CORR Pro-Lite Tacoma of Jeff Kincaid.

To make going to events even easier, we’ve included previews of the major off-road racing series across the country, as well as our Gear Guide to make sure your rig is properly outfitted for racing fun.

While we enjoy reading about our favorite sport or enjoying a great race from the comfort of our living room, the truth is that live is always better. What better way to enjoy America’s great outdoors and the fun of off-road adventure than by adding some racing on top of that? So pick an event, load up your truck or SUV, and head out with your family and friends.-Marty Fiolka

Two grown men playing with kids’ toys,” a hiker says as he walks by. Alex Mace hits the brakes on his RC truck and pauses for an awkward laugh. He starts to explain the RC rock crawling hobby to this man, as his friend sends a truck up the side of a boulder in the background. After less than a minute, the hiker chuckles and turns to his wife to say, “Now I know what I want for Christmas,” before moving along the trail.

What makes these high-performance radio-controlled vehicles stand out from those that most had as kids is the complex engineering, suspension systems and powertrains. These intricate off roaders provide fun for the whole family and come in various shapes, sizes and types to accommodate different budgets, interests and skill levels.

Hobby-class RC trucks are durable enough to withstand crash after crash and several rollovers. When damage does hit, they can be repaired with dasar hand tools and inexpensive replacement parts. The versatile and user-friendly design of RC models makes hours of mudding and rock crawling arguably as much fun as it can be in their full-size counterparts.

Meet Alex
Alex Mace, 22, has grown up practicing almost every off-road sport imaginable in the mountains of western North Carolina. Mace was introduced to the RC world through a friend who he rides dirt bikes with, starting a chain reaction of interest. “Since then, the hobby has done nothing but grow for me and the community I live in,” said Mace. Their grup of trail riders often take their RC trucks on trips together. Much like many overlanders and off roaders enthralled with the RC hobby, Mace and his friends use RC truck driving as practice for picking lines in their regular vehicles when off road. And the small-scale trucks are easy to find room for when packing for a camping trip.

RC Race and Rock Crawling
There are RC cars and trucks to fit many different interests, including rock crawling. Some hobby-class RC models, like on-road drag cars, can run up to 100 mph. Those RC cars and trucks are best utilized in racing competitions, tracks, and wide-open asphalt where they can hold their grip during bursts of acceleration. Rock racers combine crawling with speed to climb over rocks in record time.

For rocky terrain, an elaborate frame and high-torque motor complete with giant tires will trek virtually anywhere. Mace got his RC rock crawler so he could traverse across gravel, roots, boulders and bluffs with ease. He now has three 1/10 scale crawlers. “They are all different in their own ways, you can modify and replace every part on the crawlers from winches, to tires and suspension,” said Mace. “The customization and ideas are endless.” His favorite is his Axial SCX10 Deadbolt, an electric ready-to-ride 4WD RC with a realistic interior. He accessorized it with a roof-mounted LED light bar and a remote-controlled WARN winch.

Bulbous rock formations and carefully balanced climbs can easily be surmounted with well-equipped utility terrain vehicles (UTVs). The average off-roader is designed to navigate uneven terrain, but steep drops and inclines make for a bumpy ride that can throw you overboard and push your equipment to the breaking point. Use this rock-crawling guide to reinforce your gear and UTV against rigid terrain.

UTV Rock Crawling Gear
Expect more rough and tumble than your average off-road outing. That means doubling down on safety gear. Wear a helmet to protect your head from colliding with the interior roof. Pair your helmet with an ATV off-road communication system to talk hands-free to your passengers over the turbulence.

Rocks make for a harsh landing if you get thrown from the vehicle. Wear shoulder, knee and elbow pads over your riding ensemble to protect the parts of your body you’re most likely to land on. Bring a first aid kit to treat aches, cuts and scrapes. Cover any open wounds to prevent infection.

How to Prepare Your UTV for Rock Crawling
UTVs need serious muscle to climb obstacles that would bring other off-roaders to a halt. Some manufacturers offer XL models with reinforced tread patterns, higher stances and elite shock absorbers that are ready to ride. However, serious crawlers use machines modified with aftermarket parts.

Upgrade to mud tires with larger tread patterns to maximize contact with the ground. You can also increase the tire diameter to get more traction and increase your ground clearance, which helps you drive over obstacles that would otherwise damage the undercarriage.

Check which sizes are compatible with your UTV. You may need to carry the suspension to make room for larger tires. Installing a carry kit requires a keseluruhan rebuild with new shocks, control arms, spacers and carry blocks. Thirty-three or 35-inch tires tend to work best. Lifting more than a few inches to make room for monster-truck-style treads will change your center of gravity, so avoid going too large for the sake of appearances.

Overly stiff rubber won’t bend to the variances. Reduce your tire pressure to nomor less than half your usual psi to increase flexibility. Don’t forget to reinflate when driving on loose gravel and forest debris.

Pair your new tires with matching beadlock wheels to prevent the tire from slipping off the rim when exposed to excess friction.

Moving larger tires requires more power. If your specs change dramatically, use gear reduction to maintain enough torque to get up and over boulders. You’ll lose speed on the high-end, but you shouldn’t go faster than five to 10 mph even when racing.

Everyone needs to buckle up to avoid flying out of their seats. Install five-point seat belts, handrails, nets or doors to keep your passengers inside the vehicle. Encourage them always to keep a grip to steady themselves. Add a skid plate to the undercarriage and control arms to cushion your vehicle against the rocks.

You should have winch capabilities to latch onto another vehicle, a nearby tree or a stable ledge to boost yourself out of a tight situation. Bring a fire extinguisher to prevent the gas tank from exploding in an accident.

Rock Crawling Tips
Read on for some helpful tips before your next rock crawling outing.

At first glance, Jack Cline’s rock-crawling machine is a wild looking thing. The bright yellow panels and purple frame jump out at you. Add over-sized tires and you have one mean machine ready to climb over anything in its path.

Cline’s rock-crawler, built almost entirely at the Vance AFB Auto Skills Center, is based on a 1985 Jeep CJ7 with a 401 cubic-inch Jeep engine. The frame is relative light, weighing in at only 580 pounds. The machine has 1-ton axles, two transfer cases and a Turbo-400 transmission.

This isn’t Cline’s first off-road vehicle. He has been tinkering with machines most of his life. “I’ve always worked on something along the lines of motorcycles, cars and Jeeps while growing up,” said Cline, a hydraulic shop lead with CSC Applied Technologies here.

His current rock-crawler started out as two 2-inch by 3-inch rectangle tubes and nine pieces of inch and three-quarters round tubing. “I brought in 11 pieces of material and that is what we started with,” Cline said. “It is a project built from scratch.”

Most of the work on Cline’s rock-crawler — framing, sheet metal, welding and engine work — was done at the Auto Skills Center. The colored-powder coating of the frame was done off base.

Work on the rock-crawler started two weeks before Christmas of 2010. Fast forward nine months and the project is near completion. A lot of man-hours went into this project, said Cline. “I took many days off and vacation time as well to work on it,” he said.

“The guys here at the Auto Skills Center, Greg Ludlow and Nathan Shearon, put a lot of their own hard work into helping me out on this project,” Cline said.

“These guys know their jeeps inside and out,” Cline said. “I cannot thank them enough.”
Cline’s rock-crawler features Holley fuel injection that allows the vehicle to run even if it tips over on its side or sits straight up on the tail. There is a master kill-switch that completely shuts off everything onboard if the crawler turns over. It has a longer wheelbase which allows room for four passengers.

This crawler, as well as Cline’s first rock-climbing Jeep, a 1981 model with camouflage paint, is street legal with working lights and tags. The 1981 Jeep is usually parked outside one of the maintenance hangers on Elam Road.

Cline chose bright yellow for the newest rock-crawler so people can see it on the road way. “Some people tend to have problems seeing my camouflage Jeep and I have almost been hit several times,” he said.

When hitting the rocky trails, Cline likes to go to Disney, Okla., near Grand Lake. He plans to have his new rock-crawler up and running in time to get to Moab, Utah, this fall. “But most likely that will have to wait until sometime next year,” he said.

You can go off-roading to some degree with almost any 4×4 vehicle under the sun, but if you’re expressly wanting to go rock crawling, then there are some things you really need to consider for your vehicle before you venture into a rock garden.

Simple trail riding, light mud whomping, plus sand exploration have their distinct array of hazards, but none holds the potential for inflicting vehicular damage to your body, undercarriage, plus drivetrain components as rock crawling. Whether it’s contact damage from a rock hitting your sheetmetal plus preventing your doors, tailgate, or hood opening plus closing properly; smashing differential covers, oil pan, transmission pans, or driveshafts with boulders; slashing tires on razor-sharp outcroppings; or simply imparting too much torque to tires benefiting from high levels of traction causing driveshafts, U-joints, axleshafts, ring plus pinions, or other drivetrain parts to explode, rock crawling can be treacherous to an unprepared Jeep or 4×4. So here are some things to consider addressing on your vehicle before you hit gnarly, bouldered trails.

If you’re going to be playing in the rocks, then bigger is better as far as axles are concerned. Go with a spool or an automatic or selectable locker in the rear plus a selectable or automatic locker in the front. Depending on your tire size plus vehicle weight, you could make 30-spline shafts work, but if you’re running 37s or bigger, you’ll want to bagian up to some Dana 60s such as this 35-spline Dynatrac unit.

The key to keeping your rig’s exhaust leak-free is to keep your pipe(s) tucked up plus out of harm’s way. Envision where rocks plus suspension components are likely to make contact, plus have your muffler guy route the pipes around the danger areas. If you know your muffler(s) will be in harm’s way, consider a fully welded heavy-wall piece like a Flowmaster. Fenderwell headers are vulnerable to damage from rocks plus tires. If you want to run headers, find some that dump inside the framerails.

Norden is a small community in Nevada County, about nine miles west of Truckee, California. The community is located on a former portion of U.S. Route 40 near Interstate 80 plus lies along the historical First Transcontinental Railroad, 1.5 miles west of Donner Pass. This is first plus foremost a skiing community with ski lifts plus ski resorts in almost every direction. With a population of 27 people, plus situated at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet, Norden is typically one of the quietest communities in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer.

World Extreme Rock Crawling (W.E. Rock) changed all of that the weekend of July 6-7 when it hosted the third event of the Western Rock Crawl series at the top of the Donner Ski Ranch. Rock crawling events draw spectators from all over the Western United States plus the W.E. Rock events draw many of the best teams plus the best drivers competing in the states.

What Is A Rock Crawl Event

We cover a lot of events plus typically a well-built car plus a skilled driver with just the right amount of crazy seems to be a winning combination in anything off-road, but rock crawling is different. It is technical plus favors precision plus control, with speed as public enemy number one.

You win rock crawling events by running the course perfectly plus placing every wheel where it is needed to pass through a series of gates with the fewest number of penalty points. These courses are outlined with flags to mark the path plus are covered with cones identifying the gates competitors must pass through on each course. The events this weekend had eight courses plus the winner was determined by the team with the lowest number of penalty points upon completion.

If you have not been to a rock crawling event, here is what you need to know to understand the rules, scoring process, plus method the penalty points are assessed. The driver plus spotter work in combination to watch the cones plus borders to make sure the run remains clean plus the score is as low as possible.

Jed Boal Reporting Four-wheeling has grown here in Utah since the first Jeep ever left the road. Now some of those die-hard drivers have taken the sport even further, with rock crawling competitions plus custom buggies built to climb walls.

Move over Hummers, Jeeps plus custom tough trucks. Rock crawlers are climbing the mountain.

Randy Torbett, Rock Crawler: “It’s exciting, you got an adrenaline rush. If it wasn’t exciting, or we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t do it.”

Randy Torbett of Tennessee is the Super Crawl World Champion. He earned the title in October on a manmade course at Rocky Mountain Raceway, the only one of its kind in the country. His spotter, Eric Dixon, picks the route through the rocks plus tells Torbett where to turn.

Randy Torbett: “Gotta be a team, gotta work together.”

In competition they wind their way through a course marked by cones, problem-solving on the roll.

Randy Torbett: “The whole thing is being in the position plus trying to make the right decision between you plus your spotter, safely plus not turn over.”

Torbett let Jed Boal hop behind the wheel to see how the buggy handles. He says, “It’s an amazing sensation to have this much control plus power on a steep rock like this, plus you truly feel like you’re crawling.”

This weekend 50 pro teams will creep around the rock puzzles.

Ranch Pratt, UROC Founder: “This is the toughest of the tough as far as obstacles go, plus the hardest competition you could find yourself in.”

Ranch Pratt of Salt Lake founded U-ROC, the United Rockcrawling plus Off-Road Challenge. The upstart association is adding events plus drivers each year.

Ranch Pratt, UROC Founder: “You look at stuff like that, plus you think there is no way a vehicle can go up that. And then to see it, it’s just unbelievable.”

The competition starts Friday plus Saturday at 11 am, if you want to see unbelievable feats of riding the rock.

The rock crawlers are pricey, around $100,000. Torbett plus his team are mechanics so they handle their own ongoing repairs.

Driving on any style of rocky terrain requires slow driving, hitting these sections or areas at speed will almost guarantee damage.

Knowing where the diffs, fuel tank and other vulnerable areas are on the 4 wheel drive is critical, also knowing the wheel placement is very important, this is not something that’s mastered quickly and will be different on other vehicles, over time you really get to know your 4wds weak points and where to place the wheels in order to avoid smashing a diff or fuel tank against something.

Rock Crawling.
This is when the terrain is mostly rock or totally just rock. These situations can be common in some areas, they are usually near or sometimes crossing rivers and should only be driven/attempted if the water level is low.

These are not small rocks we are talking about, some rocks can be the size of a two storey house with rock steps, nice rounded curve to the top or navigating between boulders, multiple large and small rocks and driving over stretches of loose rocks.

This can be real fun but also very dangerous and damaging if not knowing the hows and why’s of navigating rocks.

It’s always best to have a spotter, without one some areas you just won’t get though in one piece or not at all.

Rock Crawling is all about wheel placement and careful planning on the fly, expect which ever challenge there is in front of you to take twice as long as most of the time it will. This will help you not to rush anything.

Crawling through dried up rocky river beds can be done slightly faster and will most of the time only require a spotter now and then at the tricky parts. These areas are usually covered in small boulders that will move now and again while driving over them.

Taking on hills with big or medium rocks in your path will require good foot work on the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals as you will need to find the balance with the right momentum, best wheel placement and keeping your nerves on tight camber and angles all at the same time. That’s when it’s really challenging and fun.

Rock-crawlers are slender, flattened, soft-bodied insects. Adults range from 0.6 to 1.4 inches (15 to 35 millimeters) in length. They are mostly brown, while the legs plus underside are light brown. The larvae (LAR-vee), or young, form of the animal, which must go through changes in form before becoming an adult, are white, yellowish, or sometimes black. The head is short, with small compound eyes present or absent, depending on species. Their chewing mouthparts point forward. The antennae (an-TEH-nee), or sense organs, are threadlike plus made up of twenty-eight to fifty segments. Rock-crawlers never have wings, plus all of their legs are long plus thin. The abdomen has ten segments, with a pair of long, segmented structures at the tip.

GEOGRAPHIC RANGE
All twenty-seven species of rock-crawlers live in the Northern Hemisphere; they are found in Siberia, northeastern China, Korea, plus Japan. Eleven species are known to live in the United States plus Canada.

HABITAT
Rock-crawlers are secretive animals that live at elevations between 656 plus 10,499 feet (between 200 plus 3,200 meters) in mixed forests or in mountains above the highest point where trees can grow, usually near snowfields. They prefer cooler temperatures, of about 38.7°F to 60°F (3.7°C to 15.5°C), plus are found in moist habitats beneath rocks plus in crevices (KREH-vuh-ses) in rocky snowfields or inside subterranean lava tubes.

DIET
Both adults plus young eat the soft tissues of captured plus dead insects plus spiders. The larvae also eat parts of plants plus other bits of plant or animal tissues in the soil.

BEHAVIOR AND REPRODUCTION
Rock-crawlers are typically found singly or in sexual pairs plus are active at night.
Some North American species look for food on the surface of the snow. They detect prey plus other food items with their mouthparts. The larvae can survive without food for three to six months. Although they are adapted for survival at cooler temperatures, rock-crawlers will die if they are caught in extended periods of freezing temperatures. They will also die if temperatures rise to 82°F (28°C). Courtship takes place under stones plus includes lots of leg nibbling plus touching with the antennae. Occasionally, the female may suddenly eat the male. Females lay sixty to 150 eggs in or on the soil, in decayed wood, or under leaves plus stones. The eggs hatch in about 150 days but may take as long as three years. The larvae strongly resemble the adults when they hatch plus gradually get larger as they mature. They molt, or shed their outer covering, or exoskeleton, three times during the first year plus once a year for the next four or more years before reaching adulthood.

What is the Best RC Rock Crawler – Really?
(Updated: Aug 2023)

If you’re contemplating a purchase plus want to make the best choice, you’ve come to the right place. Here we’re going to help you more clearly define what you’re after, plus then to hopefully point you in the right direction. There’s a lot of choice in the RC rock crawler market, but with a little knowledge plus exploration, you’ll be on track for the best off-road rig in nomer time!

(If you’re after something other than a rock crawler, or don’t know what you want, check out our Best RC Car guide instead!)

Research Now Pays Off Long-Term
There are many blog sites out there purporting to be knowledgeable about this topic, giving ‘Editor’s Choice’ plus ‘Author’s Recommendation’, but half the time it seems they’re recommending 2WD monster trucks or other similarly ridiculous vehicles. As a long-time hobbyist, this is a bit galling to know that so many people are being mislead on what constitutes a “best crawler”. They’ll buy the “#1 Recommended for 2021!” model, making the blog site some ad revenue in the process (which is fine – as long as the advice is good!) only to find it utterly disappointing plus deciding crawling just isn’t for them.

Step 1: Get Good Advice!
RC-TNT is run by me, Craig, a hobbyist who also has participated in national plus world level events plus has run local competitions in/around Melbourne, Australia. You’ll find good advice on relevant vehicles on this site, rather than just blog-factory churned-out articles designed to get your clicks plus not having more than 20 minutes of situs searching to back their regularly silly, outdated or plain wrong claims! Repeat after me: a monster truck is not a rock crawler!

Trail Driving
The best RC rock crawler for trail obstacles may be a different beast entirely from a rock-focussed truck. Trail obstacles often include dirt, dust, mud, possibly water plus possibly sand. Essentially, you’re taking a drive ‘off-road’ with your crawler. Top speed isn’t relevant beyond an average of walking pace, because you’re going to work the vehicle through plus over various obstacles on a trail through a park, forest (or bushland in Australia), or other outdoorsy settings.

The best RC crawler for this terrain will ideally a 1:10 scale vehicle, or 1:18 at the smallest. Smaller than that plus your average walking trail will just be too much for it. Bigger than that (like 1:8 or larger) plus you’re unlikely to be crawling – it’ll just be too big and/or too fast for a satisfying drive.

The ideal vehicle will be electric, will typically have a battery life of a couple of hours, plus will be a reasonably accurate scale jenis of a real-life 4WD vehicle. This is known as ‘trailing’, ‘scaling’ or ‘trail driving’ plus it’s a commonly enjoyed niche of RC rock crawling.