SoCal Dirt and Sand Expo 2007

Just 2 weeks before the event we were offered a great deal on a 10x20 booth, and then scurried to get our stuff together. Originally we planned to simply cover the event, but the offer was too good to pass up, and I am glad we didn’t. We did find out that 10x20 with our Project Desert Ranger in it did not leave us much room. Next Expo we are going 20x20.

The Expo was small but had a huge impact. The vendors that showed up definitely brought their “A” game. One of the most notable was CORR, complete with semi truck, 3 different race trucks, music blaring and videos on the flat screens, you name it, it was there.

Next to CORR were the nice folks of Mobile Creations. They specialize in custom motor homes, toter homes, and custom trailers. The motor home and trailer combo was so long I couldn’t get the whole thing in the camera lens. You can always to take a tour of their motor homes as I have seen them at every race I have been to.

Dirt Alliance was there to get some attention. The backdrop of their booth, a huge by wide 5^th wheel with a full vinyl wrap. They also brought along a super clean Chevy Silverado, Trophy Karts, and music slammin’. We met the guys of Dirt Alliance and will be featuring a lot of the prerunners in their arsenal, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss them.

After Dirt Alliance we headed over to the Fabtech booth. Fabtech had a wicked Rhino that was featuring their new Rhino Long Travel Kit (we are featuring it in the issue). Like so many of the big vendors they had a fully customized Trophy Kart and a brand new Chevy Silverado showing off their new lift kits for 08 Chevys.

I know this is not a quad magazine, but I know everyone can appreciate the work that went into the quads brought by Rhino Bling. These 2 Banshees were unreal!!!

Our next stop was at the Schampa Racing booth. They had a great concept for the show. One side of their race truck looked like a race truck. The other side had the body cut off to show the “meat and potatoes” of the truck. I thought this was a great way for others to see and appreciate the shear amount of work involved with building one of these desert demons. We give them 2 thumbs up!!!

Looking just passed Schampa we saw some really cool sand cars. We introduced ourselves and met the folks of Monster Rails. These 2 super high quality sand cars had every create comfort you could think of.

Around the corner from our booth we saw Desert Rat Buggies. Ray Palmer the owner gets raw chassis and builds these sand cars from the ground up. The attention to detail was something to be seen.

Next we visited our booth neighbor, Randy, owner of Wicked Carts. We first met Randy at the Extreme Motorsports Expo in Costa Mesa. This time we were able to get some pics of his Lifted Golf Carts, and some of the Side x Sides he brought. Randy custom builds golf carts, Rhinos, Rangers, you name it, he will customize it. We are working on getting some of his vehicles featured in our magazine in the near future.

Tucked in the corner next to CORR we had Rolling Big Power. Let me tell you they brought some HUGE trucks with them.

From there we moved on to the Federal Sand Rails booth. They got our award for creativity.

Our next stop was at the Real Fast Rails booth. They had 2 long-travel sand cars in their booth both sporting orange paint jobs with one of them having a cool Monopoly mural on the side.

Our last stop was at the Redline booth where I met Bob Wallace the Director of Sales and Marketing. If any of you are old enough to remember Honda’s Odyssey then you’ll love the Revolt. This little buggy is going to revolutionize the offroad market. Tons of travel, light weight small package…I am shocked it took so long for someone to come up with the idea. Be sure to see next month’s issue when we feature this bad boy.

All in all this was a great show. Getting to meet the promoters of the show was great as we already reserved our booth for their upcoming event in Arizona, the Arizona Truck and Offroad Expo. This expo is I think the biggest in Arizona with over 50,000 attendees in the 2.5 days it is on. So make plans to come out to AZ in December, and while you’re there come say hi. We always enjoy meeting our readers!!!