At the Texas Truck Rodeo, rustling up the best truck in America

Before this year's Texas Truck Rodeo, held last month at a private dude ranch in the Hill Country northwest of San Antonio, I'd never driven a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. For that matter, I hadn't driven a Ram 2500 Power Wagon SLT, an F-250 Super Duty Platinum, a Toyota Tacoma T-Force, a Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn, a Ford F-150 King Ranch, a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk 4X4, or a Jeep Wrangler Moab. But now I've driven all those vehicles, and I've also, for good measure, been photographed while sitting atop a tamed longhorn steer. Let me tell you: America makes some serious freaking trucks.

The Texas Auto Writers Association, or TAWA, has thrown an annual Truck Rodeo for the last 20 years. This year's Rodeo featured 60 vehicles from a dozen manufacturers, everything from off-road monster trucks to comparatively dainty and unglamorous compact crossovers. We got to drive them on three different courses: a four-wheel drive run that featured two river crossings and an optional "XTREME" rock crawl,a two-wheel-drive jaunt that was mostly dirt track with some occasional rough patches, and a road drive for tenderfoot family style vehicles like the Buick Enclave. The driving started at 9 a.m., broke for lunch for an hour, and then continued until five p.m. Then we resumed the next morning. By Saturday's end, the hill coming out of the river crossing was pretty slick.

Over an unhealthy Texas ranch breakfast of various forms of liquid cholesterol and fat, a representative from TAWA explained to us the rules of the Rodeo. As TAWA members, we'd been tasked with selecting this year's "Truck Of Texas," which is an honor that the car business takes seriously, since Texas is the largest truck market in America, with a population that gets in a truck for everything, including going to the end of the driveway for mail. Every house on my block has at least one truck, SUV or crossover in front. Except mine. I own a Prius. But I'm the one with a Truck Of Texas vote.

"The Truck Of Texas," the TAWA official told us, "is the truck that's best-suited for the average Texan. We drive our families in them on weekends. We haul our boats with them. We do everything with them. So when you vote for the Truck Of Texas, you need to keep that in mind." He added, "Don't forget: Drive these vehicles as if they were yours and you were still making payments on them."

With that, we headed to the course. When we went outside, there sat all 60 vehicles in neat rows on the lawn, and a swarm of industry technical experts and flacks stood next to their cars, pitching them like carnival barkers. You had to be polite, but you didn't have to take the bait. At one point, a guy sauntered up to me and said, "interested in taking a ride in the Dodge Journey?" I said "maybe later," expressing the true feelings of all car hacks everywhere, and walked away.

I drove a lot of cars that day, but there were some definite highlights. After enduring a five-minute lecture on extra-capable bead locking, I got into the Ford Raptor for the first time. With a 6.2 liter V-8, 411 hp and a suspension designed for serious desert road racing, that thing was a beast. The Raptor laid waste to the landscape like Robocop, leaving me to truly believe that it could survive three Armageddons. Since I started this ridiculous gig, there are few cars that I could legitimately say I was proud to have driven, but the Raptor is one of them. It made me feel like I had dominion over the Earth, rare indeed for a Prius-driving Jewish yoga instructor.

Next, I took my turn in a couple of Jeep Wranglers, the off-road equivalent of a party mobile. There was a sweet mustard-yellow Moab that provided a fun nut-buster of a ride, but better yet was the Wrangler Sahara, which my Jeep minder improved vastly by removing the ragtop. Going over the XTREME rock climb, we engaged "hill assist" mode, which most of these high-end vehicles had. The idea with hill assist is that you press the gas to as fast as you want the car to go down the hill, say 15 m.p.h, and then remove your feet from all pedals. The car will lock in at that speed and then brake you gently down the hill. You do have to steer, though.

Over the toughest rock on the course, the Sahara seemed to tip over, over, over to the left, until I was about 45 degrees to the ground, open air. And then it stopped and we coasted down the hill. It provided ten times the thrill as the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.

"I thought we were going to tumble there," I said.

"It is always a possibility," said my minder.

Upon returning to the flats, I saw that the Mercedes GL450 was available, and I jumped in it immediately. A TAWA representative had pretty much told me not to vote for this car in its category. "This is Texas," he said menacingly. "We need to choose the best car for a typical Texas family." This seemed a little hypocritical to me, because he couldn't stop singing the praises of the Ram Laramie Longhorn, which runs almost $55,000. I know plenty of Texans who'd get a high-end Mercedes SUV if they could.

The GL450 didn't win Motor Trend's SUV of the Year for nothing. We ran the full four-wheel-drive course in the GL, and compared with just about every other car in the Rodeo, it was the difference between staying at the Embassy Suites or in a luxury condo with a private butler. I could barely feel the bumps. The hill assist worked perfectly. We didn't go XTREME, because, as the Mercedes minder said, "I have to protect my baby," so instead I took the GL out on the road and put it into Sport mode, which I'd ride from San Antonio to Big Bend if I could. That car can do everything.

Over the weekend, I drove a lot of trucks, some of them more impressive than others. The Ford Escape wasn't bad, but the Toyota 4Runner didn't do much for me. I got some time behind the wheel of the Mercedes G-Wagon, which looks like Darth Vader's helmet and cruises like a Tie-fighter. But all of this was a sideshow to the weekend's real activity: A showdown to the death between Chrysler and Ford for the Truck Of Texas prize. Ford won last year, Ram the year before. These dudes (and some women, but mostly dudes) were pressing hard. "This is the truck wars," a guy from Ford told me. "We don't take our leadership lightly. We're here because it matters." As someone else said, "whoever wins, it's like money in the bank. You should see the trophy they hand out at the Houston Auto Show. It looks like the Stanley Cup."

The Ram people seemed especially pumped this year by their brake assist, lift assist, their front-view cameras, and their "Ram boxes," side-mounted individually locking tool containers that include individual drains in case you want to pack them full of ice and beer. I took several Rams, both 1500s and 2500s, through their paces, and multiple F-150s and F-250s on the Ford side. At the pinnacle of these fleets were the Laramie Longhorn and the F-150 King Ranch, both tricked out with as much brown leather and kitschy country curlicue stitching as Tim McGraw's billiards room. Honestly, they were all pretty good. I might have given Ram a slight edge, but that Ford Raptor was such a machine that I thought it might nudge my vote.

Regardless of what I thought, it was pretty obvious that Ram was going to win. A TAWA official pulled me aside with a conspiratorial whisper at some point and said, "it's Ram's year. Just look at what they've done. Last year, it was Ford's turn, and now it's Ram's."

Sure enough, by 5 p.m. on Saturday, the awards had been announced, and groupthink won out. The Ram 1500 took the award for Full-Size pickup truck, and the Laramie Longhorn won in the Luxury Pickup category. The Ford Raptor won the off-road truck category, but the Truck Line Of Texas, the best-picture award of the Truck Rodeo, went to Ram. It was their year, as prophecy dictated.

The next two days, I got a flurry of press releases, mostly from Ford and Chrysler, touting their big truck rodeo victories. An especially enthusiastic one came from Fred Diaz, San Antonio native and chief of the Ram brand. He usually attends the Rodeo but was in Mexico this year to receive an award. In his letter, he addressed TAWA members directly. "I could not, in good conscience," he wrote, "go without sending all of you a heartfelt word of appreciation for your vote of confidence on our great new products."

I'm sure TAWA was glad to give him a hill assist.

But next year, it's Ford's turn.