By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Do two wrongs make a right? Check out the build pics at autobeyours.com

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

I can’t even believe how horrible this is: an off-road truck rolled over and plunged into a crowd of spectators at the dry lakes of Lucerne Valley, CA, this weekend, and a too-close crowd of spectators camped out at the course’s treacherous “rockpile” paid the ultimate price. The driver was uninjured, but spectators–who by some estimates were within four feet of the hot track, with trucks racing by at 45-50 mph–did not fare as well after the Misery Motorsports truck went out of control after getting airborne, rolled over, and landed on its roof. Four bodies were found trapped beneath the truck once it was righted, and people had their kids out running around by this dangerous stretch of track–one victim was seen shoving children out of the truck’s path before he was crushed. Read more…

Continue reading "8 Dead, 12 Injured in California 200" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

If you’ve ever gotten a chance to go over one of these pro-quality RC cars up close, you’ve been amazed by how precisely the components mimic their full-sized corollaries–it’s like all your favorite car parts only smaller!–so I guess it’s no surprise that, weird body-panel distortion aside, these tiny rides appear to behave exactly the way full-grown vehicles do when you slow them down enough to really be able to see what’s going on when you slam them around. Enjoy the show–the footage toward the end of the baja cars playing in the puddles is worth holding out for.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Ford’s first sport-utility vehicle got a lot of exposure thanks to Bill Stroppe’s racing efforts in the Ford Bronco in the late 1960s. To commemorate the success, Ford in 1971 began offering the Baja Bronco, a “limited production duplicate” of Stroppe’s racing Broncos. Ford painted the Baja Broncos Metallic Blue, Wimbledon White and Poppy Red, then shipped them to Stroppe himself for the remainder of the conversion, which included fender flares, a padded rollbar and oversize tires. Continue reading at Hemmings

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

The Team 71 Trick Truck, General Tire’s off-road competition rig, packs a 442 cid V8 that gets a whopping 822 horsepower. Since it’s racing on loose surfaces, I have a hard time imagining how it’s able to put all that power on the ground. It doesn’t hurt that it’s running General Tire’s tear-resistant Grabbers. The team 71 is a contender in the infamous Baja 1000 as well as the Mint 400, and it won the Vegas-to-Reno race this year. More pics after the jump!

Continue reading "Burly General Tire Baja Race Truck" »

ICON owner/designer Jonathan Ward is one busy guy. In addition to the Lexus LX 570 I showed you a few days ago, he is building two ICON FJs for SEMA. Based on the old Toyota Land Cruisers, these ICON FJs are built from the ground up. The Baja FJ43 pictured below has an all new chassis, a hand crafted alloy body, a 450HP LS series V8, 4L65E automatic, Atlas II transfer case, and Dynatrac axles with four wheel power assisted vented and slotted disc brakes. Want to see more? Check out his ride page. And we’ll keep you posted on this build as we get closer to SEMA.

After enjoying 85-degree weather in Daytona Beach last weekend, I have to say I’m glad that the Northwest winter is almost over. But a lot of you out there still have a couple of solid months of snow-wheelin’ ahead of you, and I kind of miss that as well. Ryan’s Subaru Baja gets around in all kinds of weather, and it’s not hard to see why. He’s actually going to be installing a snorkel intake on it, which is something you rarely see except on serious off-roading trucks and Jeeps! If Ryan keeps pouring on the mods at the rate he’s been going, this Baja will soon be unstoppable.

Last year TLC launched the Icon, their awesome FJ reproduction. This year they are rolling out a special SCORE Baja 1000 edition at SEMA to commemorate both the 50th anniversary of Toyota in America, and 40 years of the legendary SCORE Baja 1000 race. The SCORE Baja 1000 Icon has a hand-brushed aluminum body and is powered by an 450 hp LS6. We’ll have more pics next week.