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Courtesy of Red Bull
Frozen Rush
Bryce Menzies and Ricky Johnson race during the finals of Frozen Rush
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Frozen Rush
Renezeder would fight hard, but just missed the podium.
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Why don’t we have this in Canada?
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Courtesy of Red Bull
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Hord making a mess of a freshly groomed hairpin corner.
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Frozen Rush
MacCachren was able to defeat Carl Renezeder for the final place on the podium.
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Johnson would try to hold off the youngster, but just couldn’t find the grip.
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Menzies would not be beaten on this day.
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Menzies leaping across the finish line for the win.
By Budd Stanley, photos courtesy of Red Bull
While winter is the down-season for car-based motorsports, in the off-road world we are privy to a series of high calibre and unique racing events around the world, clustering themselves at this time of year. SCORE tears up the Baja peninsula at the end of November, while the Dakar Rally slogs its way around South America in January. Like most off-road competitions, these take place in the blazing heat of arid deserts. However, a new competition that breaks all those rules is slowly becoming a fixture among the iconic winter races.
It’s called the Red Bull Frozen Rush, the brainchild of Ricky Johnson who imagined 900 hp Pro 4 trucks racing each other through an icy obstacle course on the frozen slopes of the Sunday River Ski Resort in Maine. It started out as a viral video stunt Johnson did in cooperation with the mountain four years ago, along the same lines as Ken Blocks and BJ Baldwins videos. Today it is a sanctioned race that has attracted nine of off-road racings top talents to take on both the mountain and a fellow competitor, in a featured head-to-head, bracketed, single elimination racing format. Two drivers compete at the same time on the course , one goes forward, and the other goes home.
Unlike last year’s event that saw freezing conditions, this year’s race was unseasonably warm with a thin layer of snow on the ground making traction difficult. BF Goodrich was again on site with their specially designed Mud-Terrain tires modified for frozen terrain and their Research and Development team to manage the challenging conditions . These one-of-a kind tires feature almost 700 metal studs on each tire, providing maximum grip and control.
With 10,000 spectators in attendance, the trucks attacked the slope two by two in a manic explosion of screaming V-8’ s, filling the air with great rooster tails of snow torn from the ground by 2,800 studs per 900 hp truck. Drivers threaded their trucks through narrow slaloms, backing into banked hairpin turns at nearly 90-degrees with all four wheels tearing fiercely at the icy surface and then soar silently over a 45 m (150 ft) jump.
As expected, defending champion Bryce Menzies and 2014 champion Ricky Johnson fought their way through the field to set up a repeat of the 2015 finals. The bronze medal race would feature Rob MacCachren challenging Carl Renezeder . Unfortunately a slip up would cost Renezeder the win as MacCachren clinched the final podium spot.
In the gold medal race, Menzies and Johnson were neck-in-neck off the line , with Menzies eventually taking a slight lead. A scary moment occurred mid-race when Johnson was blinded by snow spray and nearly rolled his truck end over end. Johnson was able to save the impending wreck with an armful of opposite lock and keep his truck on the course, but by that time Menzies had pulled far enough ahead to easily secure his second straight win.
“ It’s a lot of pressure being the reigning champion,” said Bryce Menzies. “Everyone kept asking if I was going to win again. It wasn’t easy last year, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy this year. I’m just glad I was able to pull it off.”
With that, the fourth edition of the Red Bull Frozen Rush race was over, to the delight of the sponsors as once again a Red Bull sponsored truck found the top position on the podium. With the success of this years event, despite lack lustre weather, they’ll be back again in 2017 for what will undoubtably be an even bigger event.
Final Results:
- Bryce Menzies
- Ricky Johnson
- Rob MacCachren
- Carl Renezeder
- Johnny Greaves
- CJ Greaves
- Chad Hord
- Scott Douglas
- RJ Anderson