Believe it or not, this story starts in late 1970s — the first years that a team from BFGoodrich® Tires went down to Baja to participate in the most ruthless racing event on the planet.
During its first decade of off-road racing, the team became frustrated by the high barriers to entry that prospective racers faced. Determined to help, the team formed the BFGoodrich Pit Support Program, which grew to enable more and more drivers to compete in Baja with free pit support stations and the creation of a course terrain mapbook. Methodically charted and highly coveted by racers, these racecourse maps made the task of competing in a race easier, safer, and a little less daunting for newcomers.
Books like those Baja course maps existed in the world of non-competitive off-roading as well — if you could find them. Created piecemeal by scouting organizations, government land surveys, parks boards, and others, these tools took the form of trail guides, atlases, and good old-fashioned paper maps.
Before the dawn of consumer-facing GPS devices, discovering new trails for off-roading required a friend in the know, a lucky bookstore discovery, or a library card. Early GPS devices were expensive and unreliable, but the technology evolved, and today, most drivers rely on smartphones and GPS technology to find new places to explore. While these mapping tools have come a long way, they still rely on cell service and aren’t intentionally built with off-roading in mind.
Until now.