Rock Bouncing Is a Lesson in Vehicular Violence

In the world of off-roading, nobody is more extreme than the rock bouncers. The sport is centered around one-off buggies with ridiculously powerful engines, which their owners throw at gigantic obstacles with unwavering confidence. It’s a shockingly violent vehicular endeavor, as this recent footage from YouTube user MadRam11 shows.

The footage was captured at a National Rock Racing Association event at Hawk Pride Off-Road in Tuscumbia, Alabama. The park is a mainstay on the Southern Rock Racing Series tour, with more than 120 trails spread across more than 1000 acres. The facility includes everything from basic 4x4 trails to some serious rock gardens, the latter of which we get a taste of here. The first-person view provided by the camera setup helps to provide a sense of the impacts involved with trying to tackle some of the seemingly minor obstacles on the trails. You’ll quickly realize those aren’t small shelves and boulders that these drivers are aiming toward. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a big supercharged V-8 engine at your disposal, which is the fan-favorite powertrain combination for the sport. Many drivers are pushing close to four-digit outputs.

I’m more impressed with the roll cages, however, which handle a consistent amount of “roof time” without any concern from the drivers. These flips and rolls aren’t happening on soft sand, but everyone shakes off the hits like it's nothing serious. Even the successful landings on all four wheels look brutal to endure. I can assure you that all of the competitors walked away with a sore neck.

While you're not going to tackle this sport in any production off-roader, it does serve as the ultimate challenge for the rock-crawling fanatics. Assuming the footage of the races doesn't immediately turn you off from the endeavor in search of ibuprofen.

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