June 29th, 2010

Every year a dynamic group of enthusiasts gather at the Del Mar Fairgrounds during the historic San Diego County Fair to show off their passion for off road. The annual Tuff Trucks Competition put on by WGAS Motorsports is one of the few events that allow amateur racers, professional racers, and plain old desert enthusiasts to come together and compete in front of a large crowd. Everything from garage built pre runners to full blown trophy trucks come out to demonstrate to the fair’s crowd that their trucks are tough enough to make it around a brutal short course.

For most of the trucks it appeared to be 35 seconds of pure abuse. For the Fiberwerx Trophy truck it looked like a tank driving over speed bumps. Dan Vance in his Total Chaos Toyota made it look like his personal playground and Fish Farner in the DGAF TrophyLite methodically cruised the course proving that slower is sometimes faster. And while a Jeep built for this type of racing would take the win this year it was no question that the stars of the show were those who chose to go big and keep the skinny pedal to the floor when approaching the big bumps. I think most will agree that while we never wish anyone to take home a wrecked truck, inside the carnage is what brings us to this event year in and year out. I mean what’s better than hearing the crowd “oooohhhhhh” from a truck coming to a near stop while stuffing the front end into the dirt?

For me the highlight of the event was a toss up. The easy choice would be Dan Vance boosting his Toyota off the final jumps like Bo and Luke Duke were behind the wheel. You could almost hear the truck play Dixie as it lifted into the air. While there were tons of hard hits and near misses I will admit that for me the highlight of the show was seeing the silver Ford Expedition stuff the front end so hard the air bag blew out. Instead of pulling off they just hammered down and not only finished the run but came back out for their second! To me that’s what Tuff Trucks is all about, boys willing to put their trucks on the line and let it all hang out just to put on a show!

Until next year………

By: Joey DiGiovanni for Race-Dezert.com / UTVUnderground.com

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Here are a couple highlight videos from RDC’s own “Team Underground” at the latest 24 Hours Of Lemons race! Its basically a $500 max car value series that is growing bigger each race. This race had over 130 entries! One Trophy Truck and CORR driver recently drove at one of these races and was heard saying “This is way more fun than CORR ever was”. For more info on the series check out www.24hoursoflemons.com