4 Reasons Every Petrolhead Should Try Offroading
Off roading seems to be the paradox of what most car guys love about cars. Most car guys love lowered, fast and shiny cars, while most off road vehicles are high off the ground, are slow and are usually dirty. So why do people love offroading? Here are some reasons to try off roading
Off roading seems to be the paradox of what most car guys love about cars. Most car guys love lowered, fast and shiny cars, while most off road vehicles are high off the ground, are slow and are usually dirty. So why do people love offroading? Here are some reasons to try off roading
ONE Freedom and exploration.
Most cars are consigned to travel on paved and sometimes dirt roads for almost all of their existence. Sometimes you drive along in the middle of nowhere and want to explore; but then you realize have an M3, and trying to go off road will surely damage your car. Not the case with off roaders; off roading gives you the freedom to explore just about anywhere even up a 20,000 foot volcano. Off roaders carry the same spirit as Christopher Colombus, Lewis and Clark and Buzz Aldrin. Go ahead, be curious and get out there and explore.
Curiousity made the off roader go that way.
TWO Conquering mountains (literally)
One good reason people run marathons and the like is so they can brag to their friends that they did it. The same can apply to off roading; Jeremy Clarkson climbed to the top of a mountain in Scotland that no car before it had been able to climb. That was until he used a Land Rover to drive all the way to the top of it, and claim it in the name of Top Gear. Sometimes, you just can’t help but look back and say “I can’t believe I drove over/up/through that.”
Try getting HERE in your WRX
THREE You can do some crazy stuff off road.
While almost all roads have cops prowling for trouble makers, the wide open spaces of the Earth usually don’t have anyone waiting to bust you. This means that out in the boonies, you can do almost anything. You can jump, drift, speed, do burnouts, donuts, race you name it. The world is your oyster, waiting for you to open it.
Hold my beer, watch this!
FOUR There’s more to cars than going fast.
I have to say, going fast on a track in a sports car is pretty exhilarating. However, there’s more to cars than going fast. Sally Carrera in the movie Cars was talking about Route 66 to Lightning McQueen when she said this, “Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.” Drifting in a snow covered parking lot at 8 miles an hour, or driving on a tight dirt road can be just as fun as driving a sports car on the open road. Like Lightning McQueen, we should sometimes slow down and enjoy the view, which sometimes is spectacular.
Life off road is a life well spent.
Comments
The fact that you snuck in a quote from the Porsche in Cars should earn you an Internet point for this article. Fresh, and I couldn’t agree with it more.
Thanks
Brilliant article, I couldn’t agree more. Off-roading is one of the coolest things you can do with a vehicle, and it is vastly under appreciated on this site.
Thanks
“My wrx can go anywhere”
Put forester suspension on it and it can go anywhere indeed ;)
MOAB BRO!
Utah is a beautiful place
I like offroading as long as its not to technical like slowly crawling through rocks. I understand why some people enjoy the challenge and skill it involves but I prefer the thrills of going fast on and off road. :D
however, there’s something about clenching your ass at 45 degrees with a big drop on one side, in your 50,000 rig that gets the blood pumping.
I tried off-roading once…In my Traxxas R/C car
Lol same here. it was a stampede 4x4. Sounds great, but it was lowered with crazy stiff springs, open diffs, and bald street tires. Still kept up with my friends rock crawlers though. Meybe cuz I just hit stuff fast and hoped for the best. :p
Done my fair bit in offroading, absolutely love it! Couldn’t agree more with you - I love driving fast on the road but there is something just as special as crawling up the side of a muddy hill and crossing rivers
“Crawling up the side of a muddy hill” sounds a bit childish, it was more a figure of speech. I’ve done some pretty crazy 4wding in my time ;)
I’ve never been proper off-roading, but I used to work in the sales dept at a self-service junkyard (a family-owned deal similar to Pull-N-Pay or Pick-N-Pull). At the end of the day, when it was time to clear the customers out, we would drive our yard car around the yard to chase them away. We went through several cars customers had junked because we would just drive them until they either died (which happened often) or another customer junked something better. We had a first-generation Ford Escape (4-pot, auto, FWD), a 1980s 4WD Dodge D-150, a ‘90s Oldsmobile Ciera, a ‘90s Saturn, a ‘90s RWD Ford F-150, a ‘90s RWD Isuzu Rodeo, and several others. Because they were junk cars, never to see a paved road again, we thrashed the hell out of them on the gravel and mud lot, skipping over ruts and small hills, occasionally ricocheting off a parked car because we were lucky enough not to have to care. The Olds and the Isuzu were definitely my favorites for what we used them for — they were a blast to tool around in. I once got the Isuzu up to around 50 mph (if the speedo on the loose gravel was to be believed) and smashed that worn-out suspension into a rainwater rut so hard I got several feet of air from my bounce. And I still didn’t kill it — last I checked, that POS is still chugging along as the current yard car.
The Isuzu is clearly related to the top gear hilux
Quite honestly, rallying is one of the most difficult sports there is. Hairpins at 40 hoping the dirt is as good as the current patch. I don’t understand jeeping or rock crawling. But rallying I do
hey fellow washingtonian, I’m from spokane valley
You had me at “offroading”!