February 1980: "You desert rats won't like hearing this, but closed-course off-road racing is growing fast." With those words, Randy Black summed up the popularity of desert racing's kissing cousin, the short-course race. Held in venues as diverse as the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Pontiac Silverdome, and a brushy track in Wisconsin's farmlands, short-course racing brought the desert's speed, jumps, and carnage to cities all over America. Below, Doyce Henderson negotiates the U.S. Off-Road Grand Prix in Fresno, California, in his winged Ramcharger.
February 1999: "Insane!" was the title of Trent McGee's coverage of the Brush Run 101 in Crandon, Wisconsin (above). Probably the most famous of the short-course races, the Brush Run got its start several years before Mickey Thompson started closed-course racing in southern California. The appeal is undeniable: "You haven't lived until you've seen a gaggle of high-tech race trucks heading into the nasty 90-degree first turn four and five across at speeds topping 100 mph with tires and fiberglass flying everywhere," wrote McGee.
January 1998 and January 2001: The SODA (and later CORR) Midwestern short-course race series were the subjects of several posters in the magazine. Here you see Scott Douglas's SODA Class 4 championship Ford in action, and Rob MacCachren's CORR Pro 4 championship truck naked.
August 1995: If short-course racing distilled the desert's action to smaller venues, tough trucks reduced the formula even more to nothing but air time and breakage. In a story called "YeeeeeHaaaww! Tough Trucks Mean Cheap Racing," Editor David Freiburger described the competition this way: "The premise is simple...You show up with your truck, register for about $30, then put your foot in it until either you see God or something breaks."
January 1998: Jamborees, 4xFun Fests, U.S. Truck Fests, and other events we sponsored, staged, or supported were good sources of tough truck mayhem. Staffer Tori Tellem called the action at Petersen's first U.S. Truck Fest this way: "Psycho-II got way jiggy wid it on day one, hour two of the Truck Fest. He went high, came down and compressed the front suspension until sheetmetal hit dirt, then decided that wasn't dramatic enough, and fell heels over head to the finish line, bending the Bronc into a grin."
July 1996: Sand drags were another form of competition that was covered more often in our early years than later. But Editor Freiburger took a fresh look at the sport when he went to the 25th annual Las Vegas Jeep Club Jamboree in "Sand Blasting": "We hadn't seen this form of derbying in a while, and it was way neat."
June 1980: We covered this wet-and-wild form of competition just a couple of times over the years, but it was always interesting to watch. The truly fast machines are the boat/truck hybrids, with their hull-like bodies and tall, skinny mud tires. But as we saw at this event in Naples, Florida, Jeeps have their place in the swamp too.
January 1992: Like swamp buggy racing, ice racing was a sport we covered only a couple of times, probably because our thin Southern California blood couldn't stand much time on a frozen lake. Staffer Ed Fortson braved the cold in Georgetown, Colorado, to bring back this report, which was filled with references to "studs" and "cheaters." He was talking tires, of course.