Al Vandervelde
Baja T/A
Story and Photos by Al Vandervelde
It started with the All Terrain way back in the 70s, the dominate tire of the time. Then the Mud Terrain in the 80s became the dominant tire of its time. The Krawler in the late 90s followed to take the same title. There is another BFGoodrich tire however that doesn’t receive the recognition that it should. It the tire with the most wins in Baja history, the Baja T/A.
Think about what this tire must survive. It has to spin at the same speed as the best pavement-only supercar V rated tire, but it has to perform in gravel, rocks and sand, while absorbing the impact of a 5000lb vehicle from 15-20 feet in the air at over 100 miles per hour. They suck up punishing bumps, bashing over shards of rock at speeds most common people would consider insane. All that, and still have good road manners on pavement. Sounds impossible right? Naw, it’s just another day at the office for the BFGoodrich Baja T/A.
This tire comes in an array of flavours but they all have the distinctive Baja tread pattern. The tread pattern is not as deep as your typical mud tire and in race trim they have a soft rubber compound just like the best rock tires. The 8 ply sidewall – twice that of the Krawler - allows the tire to laugh while landing those 20 foot jumps. When you take into consideration that the Class One race trucks and truggies are pushing closer to a 200 miles an hour during a desert race - while hitting bumps most of us would crawl over – you can see how the performance of this tire makes for a pretty impressive piece of rubber.
Is this tire for everyone? Heck no, but if speed is your thing or racing is in your blood you need to take a hard look at what these tires offer.
The Baja T/A is a racing tire that comes in a DOT version. Sizes are limited to those most popular to the race crowd but they cover the sizes most common to the off road crowd and that’s all that really matters.
Sizes and specs:
33x10.50R-15LT
33x12.50R-15LT
LT315/75R16
35x12.50R-15LT
35x12.50R-17LT
37x12.50R-17LT