"I feel like I won a contest," one journalist reflected on his experience at the BFGoodrich Tires "Kings of Off-Road" Fantasy Camp. The event was designed to showcase the extreme off-road performance and domination of BFGoodrich's tire offerings, while also allowing attendees an opportunity to interact with numerous champions and points leaders from professional off-road motorsports, including SCORE, Best in the Desert, and UROC. Through the course of the three-day adventure, we traveled a distance equivalent to the SCORE Baja 500, putting in approximately 16 hours behind the wheel of Wide Open Adventures' open-wheel tour cars.
The Fantasy Camp experience began at Wide Open Adventures' Horsepower Ranch, located outside Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. After a brief tire presentation detailing the BFG products we'd be testing, we quickly moved on to a mud-bog course, where we put BFG Mud-Terrain T/A-equipped Jeep Wranglers through the ringer. A driver orientation came next, where we learned the ins and outs of the Wide Open tour cars, which would keep us busy for the days to follow. Using the BFG All-Terrain T/A, the tour cars performed flawlessly through the variety of terrain we conquered. Even after days of abuse, the set of BFGs under the car we piloted still looked brand-new. Considering the rocky paths we met head on, we expected at least to get a flat, but the All-Terrains held up well and proved to be a valuable asset in maintaining control of the vehicle during particularly nasty sections of the course we followed. Also on hand was a slew of professional desert racers and rockcrawling competitors, who gladly provided ride-alongs in their purpose-built vehicles. The desert racers displayed the attributes of the BFG Baja T/A, while the rockcrawling crew performed feats of gravity using BFG's Krawler T/A.
We finished off the weeklong adventure back at the Horsepower Ranch, where the BFG team broke the news of an upcoming change to its off-road-tire lineup. A newly designed Mud-Terrain is on the horizon for 2005, which we're confident will be as capable and satisfying as its predecessor. In a truly unique method of tire testing, the BFGoodrich Tires' "Kings of Off-Road" Fantasy Camp proved to be an incredible experience that left us itching for more. With an honest understanding of what a difference a tire can make, it's east to decipher how BFG has garnered 18 consecutive Baja 1000 wins, the most wins in rockcrawling history, and an unmatched record on the pavement. For more information, contact: www.bfgoodrichtires.com.
Wide Open Baja
If you're anything like us, you can't sit by and witness an off-road racing event without that itching voice in your head that says, "I can drive better than that." Wide Open Adventures offers the opportunity to discover your driving prowess behind the wheel of its custom open-wheel tour cars. The company provides four- and seven-day tours and corporate programs at its Horsepower Ranch location, which travel throughout the Baja California peninsula. One-day adventures are also available at the company's Cabo test track located near Cabo San Lucas. For more information, contact: Wide Open Adventures, (949) 635-2292, www.wideopenbaja.com.