[video] How Fast is a Trophy Truck on a Race Track?

By Zack Klapman

“Purpose-built” means built for a specific reason, use, or environment. A pencil sharpener is purpose-built to sharpen yellow pieces of wood. A land-speed car’s only functionality is on giant pieces of very smooth land. A trophy truck was built to drive as fast as possible over the dirtiest, bumpiest pieces of passable landscape. Seeing race cars or trucks racing in their proper venues is exciting, but sometimes we get the mischievous idea to take the fish out of the water and see how it does on land.

For example, in an upcoming episode of TUNED, Matt finds out how good a professional Formula D car is for hot laps.

It’s that same thinking that led Hot Rod Magazine to the idea, “How fast is a Trophy Truck, on tarmac?” I think this is a brilliant idea. I love these trucks, and have fantasized about driving one on the street plenty of times. We know these truck have upwards of 800hp, cost a bucket of money, and have so much suspension travel they can can jump small houses without disturbing a house of cards sitting on the dashboard. But how fast are they in a straight line, compared to a street car? Can they corner on asphalt at all?

To find out, Hot Rod brought Cameron Steele‘s SCORE Trophy Truck to a drag strip, and the Big Willow road course at Willow Springs. Sure it has a giant engine and expensive shocks, but soft springs and off-road tires aren’t popular choices for fast 1/4 miles and high-G cornering. As a comparison, they also brought a 2013 Ford SVT Raptor and a Boss 302 Mustang. Make the jump to see just how the truck did when it was put on terra tarmaca.

A 13.20 in the 1/4 (just behind the Boss), and a 1:53 on the road course. It’s unclear whether the lap time was with a  standing or flying start, but for comparison: they ran a 1:47 in the Boss, and Matt ran a 1:45 from a standing start in a Boss 302 Laguna Seca.

The last time I saw a truck like this take a corner, it was in the movie Dust to Glory, and it was leaning over so far I thought it was going to roll. It looked like these trucks were incapable of turning without sand and wheelspin. But Cameron’s truck did pretty well. A 1:53 is quick enough to hang with lesser (but still respectable) sports cars. And, if you want to, you can always just cut across the entire infield at 100MPH.

Source: HOT ROD

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