At the Prerunner Maniac, Las Vegas Prerunners meet-up in Jean Jason owner of Las Vegas Prerunners made a run down a trail with log rollers. Seeing this video really shows how BIG this F-150 prerunner really is.

Jason’s F-150 is no slouch with the Dixon Bros Racing long-travel kit in front, King coil-overs, Fox bumpstops and a rear bedcage with Deaver springs and King resi-shocks out back. The Fox bumpstops up front were no match for the weight of his truck. About midway down the run you will hear a pop in the video that sounds like a gun shot. Once Jason stopped there was no more bumpstop on the driver side, just the splatter of oil all over the frame and shock hoop. We looked for it but could not find the grenaded bumpstop.

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During the Prerunner Maniac, Las Vegas Prerunners meet-up in Jean Bryan in his green Ranger prerunner went for a run down this whooped out straight away. We had our friend Brady shooting video and I was shooting stills, and what we thought was oil leaking from the driver side rear coil-over turned out to be a blown seal on the driver-side of the rear axle. The pictures and the video really tell the story.

Right before this run Bryan was saying, "I won't be too crazy since I don't have a cage"...famous last words of a Prerunner Owner.

You will be able to see in the images below how my still shots got a little squirrely. Well at the point where Bryan was pointed sideways he was point right at me. All this was happening while he was doing about 70 mph

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Starting the Best in the Desert Henderson Fabtech Desert Classic Race, saw the #1725 Jeep Speed racer Bob Standage on his lid.

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Now that the dust has settled we wanted to show you what not to do in your RZR or any other Side x Side you own.

Off-Road Magazine now has their own RZR project, and out playing they took it a little too far. Here is what they had to say:

Ever seen those mountain biking videos where the guys go cliff/ledge jumping on downhill mountain bikes? Well, we made a guess that our Polaris RZR could do that too. Too bad we had such a rough landing spot.... Every jump went well until the very last one (that's why it was the last jump...).

In a split second, I had to make the decision between trying to stop for an 800-pound boulder or creaming a really nice little bush. Well, I saved the bush, and didn't stop in time for the rock....

Damage: one bent frame, two wasted lower A-arms, one annihilated prerunner bumper, and one destroyed OMF beadlock wheel. Suck.

-Jerrod Jones
Off-Road Magazine

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The feature you see in this months issue did not go without a hitch. Our day was cut short after a huge jump with the stock rear suspension.

The owner Brandon came off a jump and while circling around to hit it again we saw the driver side rear shock dragging on the ground. If you look at both pictures you’ll see the shock shaft was completely sheared. I guess shocks don’t make good bumpstops.

We looked at the passenger side shock and it had a huge dent in the can so it would not last much longer either.

We did the photo shoot in Pahrump and Brandon lives in Las Vegas 60 miles away. As you can see from the second picture Brandon simply removed the dead shock and limped out of the desert to the highway to head home.

I am glad it happened at the end of the day as we still got a ton of great shots.

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It is Friday morning and the race truck is loaded on the trailer.  Once all the crew arrive we head north to the California/Nevada state line for SNORE’s Battle at Primm, a two day race in which we were to complete 4 laps of a 13 mile course each day.  We arrive in time to prerun the course, in this case that meant following a train of others at a controlled speed not exceed 25 mph.  Objects were noted, passing areas remembered and the general layout memorized.  Off to contingency, tech and then the drivers’ meeting.  Everything was in place and running smooth.  We even escaped the lure of the Tree Bar and the tables, calling it an early night.

Feeling rested, we woke to the sounds of the Sportsman cars getting ready for the first race of the day.  We set up pits, gave the truck a once over and made sure everyone was on the same page.  We were using this race as a shake down of the truck and to get a new co-driver used to getting in the truck and performing the needed duties in a race situation.  All things are looking good.

We arrive at the starting line, get staged and wait for the green flag.  The flag drops and off we go flat out.  The truck feels good and we settle into our pace.  Out of the desert section and into the groomed infield of the course.  We come through a few corners and hit a few jumps, the last of which was right before a 180 degree right turn.  We land off the jump, the truck settles, on the brakes, off the brakes, into corner, and back on the gas.  Well at least that is what was supposed to happen.  It went more like, on the brakes, off the brakes, turn the wheel and start rolling onto the driver’s side, a quick correction to steering and throttle but it is too late, over we go.  We almost landed back upright but we settled on the co-driver’s side.  We hit a rut with the front left tire just right, or perhaps just wrong, and over we went. 

The safety crew got us rubber side down and off we went.  The truck felt okay but was hurt and ugly.  We pulled into the aux. pits for a through once over and some Zip Ty body work before heading back on course.  As we were making our way around the course it became evident that the steering was damaged and getting worse.  We made it a total of 1 ¾ laps before the leaders caught up.  The steering was so bad at this point that we had no choice to pull off course and call it a day. 

Back at the pits, we realize the damage is too great to repair for tomorrow’s race so we load the truck on the trailer, pack up the pits, grab a couple cold drinks and resign to being a spectator for the rest of the day.

WideOpenDesert.com

It's too bad we weren't there to get the actual roll-over shot, but this does make for a great story.

Rob Mc Cacachren in the Red Bull Energy Drink sponsored Pro 2 truck went for a wild ride coming out of the 3rd turn heading for the tabletop jump at the Las Vegas International Raceway on Saturday.

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March 2007
It was my first trip down to Baja. We left San Tomas at around 10:30am. We were hauling on a graded dirt windy mountain road. I came around a blind corner to fast, saw a brand new double-cab Ford Ranger, slammed on my brakes, he slammed on his, I couldn't turn any sharper, burm on the outside, I had no choice but to plow right into him. we had a head on collision at 10:40am, 10 MINUTES INTO MY FIRST TRIP, ON OUR FIRST DAY!!!!

Alejandro’s truck had considerable damage, it wasn't drivable. My truck drove away no problem. A broken Light Force HID was the most expensive thing that broke on mine. I also bent the hood, fender, bumper, and core support a little bit, and broke the grill. We had the insurance adjuster come out and we talked to him for about an hour.

Then the Polcia came out and we all talked for another half hour. Things moved slowly because I didn't speak too much Spanish, and the adjuster and Alejandro spoke no English. In the end, my Mexican insurance (that costs me 64 dollars for a week of coverage) covered all of Alejandro’s damage and none of mine. Which was fine with me. We left San Tomas at 3pm to drive for another 150 miles to San Quentin that day. It went on to drive for another 5 days around Baja with no problems.

The best part was that my US insurance doesn't go up because Mexico does not report anything to the US, even with vehicles from the US involved. GREAT TRIP!

Next month we will be doing a full feature on Eric's Ranger...before the accident.

Then it was time for our neighbor and his boy to take it out. Now our neighbor has been flying through the dunes at Dumont for years and has a ton of experience, but no amount of experience can change the laws of physics.

First we have some shots of them having fun, rounding dunes and throwing roosts.

Here we see how the difference in their weight is affecting how the RZR handles. You can see the passenger front wheel lift in this turn.

My wife and I are atop another dune shooting all these pictures. We see them come over another dune and start a hard right turn that lead to the roll-over. I have the camera set on continueous shutter so I can grab a series of shots of the action, and after the fourth closing of the camera's shutter, I hear my wife scream and take off running. That is when I realized they were going over.

When we finally made it to them we were out of breath, damn zoom lens, and they were upside down hanging from the seatbelts. After getting them out, they were both fine, with my neighbor having a small scrape on his forehead we think from when he released his seatbelt to attend to his son. After the initial shock was over, we flipped the RZR right-side up and discovered the passenger side rear tire became unseated and our day was over.

I think if I were shotting action at an event I would have got more pics, but seeing how our RZR started rolling and our best friends were inside, I simply reacted and ran to their rescue.

If you visited our Prerunner Blog you would have seen these pictures of the damage.

All in all the damage was very minimal considering the speed of the impact. We already ordered new plastic and this week we are getting a complete custom cage fabbed up by Woolworth Motorsports. Along with the cage Robby Woolworth is also fabbing up a custom spare tire carrier with an integrated cooler and gas can carrier. Look for a complete report of this build in a future issue.

We are already looking into a long travel kit or possible some wheel spacers to get a little more width to our RZR, but in the meantime we just have to be more cautious out on the dunes.