My first racing love, the thing that got me into going fast, was rally.
I'd sit at my parent's computer as a kid, wait for our modem to dial up, wait again for the video to fully load, and then watch a 30-second clip of WRC or Baja, and then do it all over again. Going fast along wooded trails, snow-packed logging roads, and the open deserts just got my heart pumping.
And it's why I, eventually, bought myself a Can-Am Maverick X3. But in those halcyon days of my youth, the thing that'd conquer deserts the best were the 800-horsepower trophy trucks.
They were big. They were burly. They were the gnarliest things on the planet. Able to crush the landscape and take Mike Tyson-level hits and shrug them off. But while I'd still kill to drive one—Honda, call me—those days are over. There's a new king of the desert and its cousin is in my garage.
Case in point, this video from the NORRA Mexican 1000 where a line of trophy trucks all beached themselves in silty sand, while a race-prepped Can-Am UTV just comes scampering through like "No big deal." It's hilarious to watch and was, apparently, hilarious from the driver's and co-driver's seats too.
Take a look.
The video clip comes from the forward-facing action cameras run by Team 603 NH onboard their Can-Am Maverick X3 racer. And the clip shows a deep sand pit within the race's course that's caught not one, not two, not three, but a whopping eight trophy trucks.
Now, I don't know if you know this, but trophy trucks tend to be weighty things. As such, they don't much like silty, granular sand pits, as it's beyond easy to get stuck within their confines. Think of when you thought as a kid that quicksand was going to be an everyday occurrence and a real threat to your existence. Yeah, that's what sand is to trophy trucks.
But that's just not the case for UTVs.
Because a UTV weighs under a ton, but still has around 200 horsepower, its power-to-weight ratio is way better than even the wildest trophy trucks. And, combined with quick thinking by the Team 603 NH driver and co-driver, they kept their foots on the gas and scampered through the perilous terrain like it was nothing.
And they both got a good laugh as they witnessed the carnage around them. Hilarious.
