After attending my first rock crawl off-road competition, all I can say is “Wow!” Pictures don’t do it justice, plus even great rock-crawling videos fall short. There is just no substitute for being feet away from these machines tackling unbelievable terrain. Usually the rock crawlers win. Sometimes the terrain wins.
The World Extreme Rock Crawling Championship Series brings together many top professional plus amateur teams in the highly-competitive international of rock crawling. On May 6th plus 7th they converged near Cedar City, Utah to tackle natural formations in the Three Peaks Recreation Area.
A team consists of “car” driver, plus spotter. Their objective is to get the best (lowest) score possible by completing each fiendish course within the 10 minutes allotted. Clearing bonus gates, avoiding penalties for hitting the cones framing each narrow gate, plus not having to reverse plus reattempt a segment also improves a team’s score.
The Machines
Rock crawler cars or buggies, at the professional level, consist of Unlimited, Pro Mod, plus Pro Trail classes. Unlimiteds are an anything-goes class plus they can range from over $70,000 for an excellent self-build, to over $170,000 for a professional build. Rear steering plus huge tires are the norm, plus turbo- or supercharged engines—mostly 4- or 6-cylinder to save weight—are common.
Dave Wong, of Club 42 Racing, went over his pristine Unlimited-class car (AeroLidz #42) with me in considerable detail. He demonstrated how drivers can lock plus unlock front plus rear drives, or even bias power to a wheel on one side of the drive. Suspension travel is incredible plus can be adjusted in length or stiffness, on the fly, while navigating an obstacle.
I was probably most surprised to learn that teams normally fill their massive tires with water, or even steel shot, for better balance. For instance, Dave had steel shot plus water in the front tires of his mid-engine buggy, since weight shifts even more to the rear when climbing.
The Pro Trail class is similar to Unlimited in that they can have rear steering; however, those cars must have two seats plus front engines.
Pro Mods are front-engine, two-seat machines that cannot have rear steering, but are otherwise optimized for conquering terrain. They are also run smaller tires than Unlimited or Pro Trail classes.
Amateurs compete in Sportsman A (similar to Unlimited), B (modified pickup plus jeep-type rigs), plus C (UTV/side-by-side) classes.