Remember the old Stadium off road races?

[MX304]

They are coming back! Not sure of the exact format yet but Robby Gordon is bringing it back. They are announcing it all on the 29th. Should be SICK.

[Knarly Nerd]

I've been wondering about this. He's just the guy to get it going again, too.

[OTE_TheMissile]

Life before bypass shocks

[Knarly Nerd]

Ouch. That was painful to watch. Mazda...are they still in business? I haven't heard a peep out of them in a while.

[OTE_TheMissile]

I think they've been out of the light pickup market for some time, but they're still plenty alive and well in passenger cars. Not sure where you've been looking but I see TV ads for them all the time, and of course the MX-5 Miata is still the undisputed king of entry-level road racing.

EDIT: Actually now that I stop to think about it, the spec motor for SuperLite is a Mazda 13B rotary mill, and they provide the licensed bodywork for those trucks as well



EDIT 2: Doing some digging on Wikipedia it looks like the body's front end is a Mazda B-series, a pickup that isn't directly sold in the West but has some close ties to the Ford Ranger.

[87_iroc]

ahhh this is sweet.. Now hopefully we can get some bodies based off of these things :)

[audiostylz]

I absolutely LOVED watching those races. They even made a video game at one point.

Watching that older video, my god those trucks had horrible suspensions!! Yeah I know those trucks were built with the best of the best back then just goes to show how much improvement there has been.

OTE, watching that video reminds me of your custom desert truck rig.

[Knarly Nerd]

Yeah and it made me realize how old I really am.

[OTE_TheMissile]

[OTE_TheMissile]

It's going to be a handout series...no pro teams allowed. They're going to maintain a fleet of 30 identically prepped trucks that will have their engines dyno'd before every race on the 10-stop series. "Teams" will consist of a driver and 2 crew members who will be allowed to set up the truck and hang their own decaled body over it. Each driver will blindly draw a number from a hat and that's the truck they get for the night.

$50,000 cash to each night's winner, $500K to the season champion.

[Knarly Nerd]

What is your information source?

[OTE_TheMissile]

Oh duh, thought I was forgetting something.

I'm having this same forum conversation in, like, 3 places right now, getting hard to keep track of

Robby Gordon SpeedEnergy Stadium SUPER Trucks USAC Racing

[Knarly Nerd]

Thanks!

[OTE_TheMissile]

I should probably give credit to the last picture to FAST-aid cofounder Adam Gunn. This one comes from Jim Riley, owner of Azunia Tequila and driver of the Azunia TrophyLite. The website just said that there was a free event going on at the old LA Coliseum (which was THE show to watch back in stadium offroad's heyday), no hints as to what it actually was.

Looks like this deal might be partnering with Monster Jam

[OTE_TheMissile]

"Fish" Farner (of Race-Dezert) just sent this to YouTube:

[MX304]

It is NOT partnering with Monster Jam. They are doing some stuff with Bigfoot.

[OTE_TheMissile]

Ah. Lots of info and speculation flying around as you might expect

[Knarly Nerd]

I sure hope they bring a race to the mid-Atlantic region. We're jonesin' for some off road over here!

[MX304]

Originally Posted by OTE_TheMissile

Ah. Lots of info and speculation flying around as you might expect

Well, you will NEVER see Bigfoot at Monster Jam as long as Bob Chandler is still alive and calling the shots. There will be an orange SPEED branded 'Foot at some of the Bigfoot demos this year though. Did any of y'all catch the U-Stream feed all the way to the end? Robby jumped in and out of the stadium a few more times and went HUGE on his last jump out. I thought he was going to wad it up. Robby mentioned working with Indycar's Randy Barnard to hopefully bring the trucks to the Long Beach Grand Prix course on the pavement with metal ramps. Talk about exposure. That would be awesome!

[OTE_TheMissile]

Off Road Magazine:



Yeah...that's kinda up there