Exploration - page 5

“AHH-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! OOOH-OOOH-OOOOOOOOOOOOH!”

Roaring through Yellowstone on a summer evening at dusk, Sam and Josh Soholt roll down the windows to see the majesty of the land unfiltered by glass.

The year is 1970, and Pete Brown — an off-road enthusiast from Saugus, California — is thinking. He’s been chewing on something for a while now. Pacing back and forth in the place where many do their best thinking: the garage. Aside from the warm, dusty winds outside, it’s quiet. A fine Saturday afternoon to stare at your rig and think.

Growing up in southern California, surfing was in Josh Martin’s family. So was building. But to build, first you must gather materials. For the Martins, this didn’t mean a trip to a hardware store, it meant a trip to the desert.

In 2016, Jason Miller bought a run-down 12-acre farm in south-central Pennsylvania from an elderly relative. There’s a lot of work that goes into getting a neglected farm back up and running. Jason got to work: fixing the farmhouse, repairing fencing and taking care of the land. He soon realized he needed a utility vehicle that could help him get from one job to the next. The solution? A 1965 Jeep CJ5.

It’s golden hour in San Diego at Mission Beach. The sun hangs low over the Pacific surf as a light breeze ushers the daytime heat away. Swerving down the boardwalk past couples, families, aggressive seagulls, and friendly dogs, two men laugh as they swirl around on Rollerblades. They’re athletic and limber, pulling off tricks you’ve seen only on TikTok, and grooving to ’90s R&B while talking about life through mouthfuls of colorful fruit snacks. At face value, it’s a simple scene. Just two dudes out enjoying the evening air. Not a care in the world.

Rich Minga can trace his off-road heritage to his childhood, when he went camping in Baja with his family. In the decades to follow, Minga experienced everything that off-roading has to offer—good and bad.

Planet Earth has crossed the finish line on another lap around the solar track. For many of us, it went by in a record-breaking blink. For others, perhaps it dragged on like LA traffic. Either way, the New Year is an important time for everyone.

Looking back on a recent off-road expedition in the Colorado Rockies, there’s one thing that Roger Lovell, a BFGoodrich® Garage Pit Crew member, realized: You can’t climb mountains without the right gear. In this case, his set of BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A® KO2 tires.

While bouncing over rocks, free-falling down drops, and full-sending off dirt ramps, a downhill mountain biker can reach speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. It’s the kind of speed where a wrong move results in a gnarly scrape, on a lucky day. An intoxicating mix of nerves, balance, and potential calamity, the adrenaline rush that results from an intense downhill trail ride is necessary to stay alive and alert — and thrilling enough to keep everyone pedaling back for more.

Jeepfreeks.com is one of the largest online Jeeping communities. Meet Travis Daines: the man behind the website—and, arguably, the biggest Jeep freak around.

Last year on December 31st, we asked our social media audience, “in 2021, what are you building for?” And dozens of people responded with their hopes and plans for the coming year. In December, we caught up with a few of them to ask “how’d it go?” And, “in 2022, what are you building for?” 

Here’s what they had to say.

The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in South Carolina has a tall order: Develop the next generation of automotive engineers. Alongside more than 20 industry partners, CU-ICAR provides equipment, technology and expertise to Clemson graduate students working on Deep Orange projects.