Norman Motorsports / Enduro Racing Trophy Truck

If you hear “Duralast Trophy Truck” mentioned at any race or off road event today, most will remember the unique sound of it’s 8 into 1 exhaust screaming across the desert.  This one of a kind Trophy Truck that sounded more like a F1 race car was the creation of Dan Smith and Dave Ashley of the Enduro Racing team.

The Duralast Trophy Truck in it’s original paint design at the 2000 Laughlin Desert Challenge.

With their 10 year old class 8 truck, Enduro Racing was named champions in both the trophy truck class of the 1998 SCORE race series, as well as the Trick Truck class of the 1998 Best in the Desert race series.  Even after being named champions with this older truck, they decided it was time to debut a new Trophy Truck for the 1999 season and the new “Duralast Trophy Truck” was born.

In the 90’s, Bill Savage built the “Baja Truck” chassis, intending to start up a new spec truck class to compete with the once thriving Pro Truck series created by off road legend Ivan “Iron Man” Stewart.  Though it was unfortunate that these “Baja Trucks” were never actually completed and production of them ended prematurely, Dan and Dave were both impressed with the chassis and decided it would make the perfect platform for their new single seat Trophy Truck, which quickly became known as the “Duralast Trophy Truck.”.

2003 SCORE Baja 1000 Ojos jump

Changes were made to the Baja Truck chassis replacing the front suspension with their own A-Arm design, making them more competitive in the Trophy Truck class compared to the original hybrid 4-link TTB design of the Baja Truck.  The rear quarter elliptic suspension of the Baja Truck chassis was also replaced with a conventional 4 link coil-over setup.  Enduro Racing custom built their own 3.5” bypass shocks for the front and rear suspension which were eventually replaced with King shocks.

Enduro Racing was also fortunate enough to still have the support from Ford, who designed a custom 4 valve 5.4 DOHC engine for the new truck.  We don’t have the original specs but it was rumored to have over 700 HP at over 5500 RPM.  The sound of this truck was one of a kind as you can hear in the video.

Over the years, while owned by Enduro Racing, the sponsorships and graphics changed from Duralast to Torqshift, BFGoodrich and Optima Batteries.  It wasn’t until more recently, in 2007, when Roger Norman purchased the truck, that it was changed to Norman Motorsports and their signature paint scheme.  In 2008, Rodger Norman decided to swap out the drive train for a Patton 442 engine and a Rancho Drivetrain Turbo 400 transmission. (full specs below)

The truck as it sits today at Norman Motorsports

After racing this truck for a few years, Roger Norman bought the #99 Nick Baldwin Trophy Truck to be used as his main race truck.  The former Duralast truck was still used in smaller races as well as some Baja prerunning.

Currently, this well known truck is for sale in the RDC classifieds (click here).  With all its history and all of its class wins, this would be the perfect truck for anyone looking to compete or to be behind the wheel of a powerful, one of a kind, off-road race vehicle.

Race Wins:

8 class wins – The 1999 BITD Silver State 300, the 2000 SCORE Baja 2000, the 2001 SCORE Baja 500, the 2001 SCORE Primm 300, the 2001 SCORE Baja 1000, the 2002 SCORE Laughlin Desert Challenge, the 2002 SCORE San Felipe 250, and the 2002 SCORE Baja 1000.  It has 1 class point’s championship – 2001 SCORE Desert Racing Series.

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