Red Bull Frozen Rush: 900 Horsepower In The Powder!

Just three years ago, a gang of racers and engineers got together on a ski hill in California. But instead of climbing aboard the chairlift and hitting the slopes, this team was on a mission: with Red Bull’s support, it wanted to find out if it was possible to organize a race in the snow.

During their first attempt, their race truck – a Pro4, built for dirt-track racing and able to jump over mounds several metres high, and equipped with a big, 900-horsepower V8 matched to a four-wheel drivetrain – was shod with a set of tires that were designed for mud racing. The vehicle was let loose on the snow… and almost immediately sunk into it.

A solution had to be found, and BFGoodrich suggested one with some prototype tires they brought along. Instead of drawing complex treads or spending a fortune to discover some chemical composition that would make the tires more capable in snow, the engineer in charge of the project came up with a great idea: each tire would benefit from 684 tread blocks, each measuring 1.2 centimetres. By comparison, a regular tire needs about 100 blocks to handle an icy surface. As a sidenote, the engineer in question was inspired by another project he worked on a few years earlier, when the Top Gear UK team asked him to come up with a tire which would equip Toyota Hilux pickups used for their trek to the North Pole. It’s basically the same type of tread blocks.

With this new rubber, the Pro4 hit the slopes, and according to pilot Ricky Johnson, it could now go anywhere they wanted it to, whether the snow was packed or loose.

Once this detail was taken care of, Red Bull could now use the Pro4 truck for a brilliant advertising campaign. With Johnson’s help, an obstacle course was laid out on the snowy mountain, and the vehicle was filmed trying to climb up. After the video of the stunt went viral, racking up more than 1.5 million views on YouTube, the company decided to create a sporting event.

The 2016 edition was the most promising so far: 10,000 spectators gathered up along the sides of the track to see nine pilots duke it out for top honours, including Ricky Johnson, Bryce Menzies, Carl Renezedes, Greg Adler, Scott Douglas, Todd LeDuc, Rob MacCachren and Johnny Greaves. If you follow the off-road races, these names will give you an idea of the skill required to participate in the Frozen Rush event. If not, know that these pilots are amongst the best ones that ever set foot in a race truck.

The competition is simple: at the end of each race, a driver is eliminated, and at the end, only one will remain. One little mistake and it’s over, so the pressure is high.

This year, it’s Johnson that emerged victorious, beating Johnny Greaves in an exciting finale. If it wasn’t for a five-second penalty that Greaves received for hitting a checkpoint, the outcome likely would’ve been different.

You can see a summary of the action in the video above.

If we’re to believe Red Bull, the future is quite promising for the Frozen Rush. With its increasing popularity, we can expect more and more pilots to sign up, that the track will be modified for more action and that the spaces reserved for the spectators will be improved, too.

Nevertheless, the Red Bull Frozen Rush is a unique event in the world, and all about true automotive passion.