Off Road

"Driving a CORR truck is so awesome because you can be flying for 150ft, 10ft up in the air, and banging doors with somebody while you're in mid-air. That's a little scary, because a little bit of a bump while you're in the air can turn your truck real easily..." Rick Huseman trails off, perhaps considering the consequences.

Huseman drives in CORR races in the Pro 4 class, piloting the No. 3 FABTECH/TRAXXAS/TRD/Toyo Tires Toyota Tundra. It's an 800-plus-horsepower, four-wheel drive monster of an off-road vehicle that can handle feats like the one described above with aplomb. Huseman hustles the truck well enough that he just missed winning the championship in Pro 4, CORR's fastest class. He tied in points with Carl Renezeder, but missed the title based on number of wins. If the final doubleheader race of the season hadn't been unexpectedly canceled, Huseman might have been the champ.

"It's always one of those things - if we'd done this, done that, if we could have won one more point, we'd have won the championship. But anybody could say that," he says. "It would have been nice to finish off those last couple of races - the last track was Chula Vista, which is a track our truck did really well at. The last time we were there, we had the fastest laps in practice and fastest qualifying time. We felt really confident about winning the last race. Not having it really threw a wrench in our plans."

Huseman began his full-time CORR career - during which he's scored 21 victories - in 2000 in the Pro Lite class for compact/mid-size two-wheel drive trucks with around 300hp. Moving to the four-wheel-drive, 800hp Pro 4 trucks in 2005 was a big step, and one for which he was, and still is, very enthusiastic.

"To drive a Pro 4 truck, it's really an awesome experience," Huseman says. "I've driven two-wheel-drive and Pro Lite for many years. In the Pro 4, you can come into a turn a lot faster, because you have the front wheels to pull you around the turn. You can come out of the turn faster; you can control the truck so well with all four wheels turning."

CORR tracks are fairly compact, twisty affairs, designed so spectators can see all the action, and they often double back on themselves with tight 180-degree turns. In between, there are small jumps, big jumps and whoops - a series of jumps that can either be great fun if you attack them right, or ruin your day if you hit them wrong. All those jumps mean you spend a lot of time in the air, where it's very hard to make a truck change direction.

"You've got to be able to read the jumps, know what to expect and, if you feel like it's going to kick you one way or the other, you've got to hit the jump right, on and off the gas; you've got to keep the front end in the air. A lot of it is about reading the jumps and knowing which way it's going to throw you. It just takes experience," says Huseman.

For the whoops, it's all about rhythm and timing, he explains: "If you try to banzai them and hit it as fast as you can, you won't hit it consistently. You might hit it perfect one time, and the next time it will throw you sideways, buck you too much or endo into the next one. Usually the fastest way to go through the whoops is doubling them and trying to set up a rhythm. You have to slow down the truck and it doesn't feel right, but sometimes that's the fastest way to do it."

Just as in other forms of motorsports, what seems fastest isn't always. That's especially true when trying to get around a competitor. The fastest way around the course may not aid you in moving up a position.

"A lot of passing is just watching someone's lines and seeing what they're doing and trying different lines." Huseman says. "Our truck is set up pretty good for the inside of the turns. People are trying to slingshot around the outside and I can shoot right into the inside and try to beat them to the exit." Of course, when that happens, there might be a little bit of bumping and banging. But, although the drivers do their best to keep the racing clean, sometimes the rubbing is part of the appeal.

"Flying into a turn side by side with someone and using them the whole way through the turn, then flying through the air together, it's just awesome," enthuses Huseman. "It's fun out there by yourself; when you get everybody else out there racing with you, it's twice as much fun. The adrenaline factor shoots way up."

For the drivers and spectators alike.