Just about every freshly licensed teenager has taken Mom’s Volvo out for a ’wheeling trip. Maybe it was burnouts in your buddy’s front yard, airtime at the local 7-Eleven speed bump, or power slides on the dirt road to grandma’s house. If you were lucky, you had a local mud pit that you and all your friends tried to cross in Mom-mobiles. As adults we haven’t changed much, except we don’t have to explain to Mom why there’s mud on the car with some cow-in-the-road story.
If you’re like us and still haven’t grown up, you might like the rough driving and competition JeepSpeed offers. Sure, less than 25 percent of the United States has suitable desert terrain for the JeepSpeed races but every State in the Union has some sort of unimproved dirt road or occasional rough surface street. So something close to a JeepSpeed Cherokee could be a fun daily driver that you can go beat on for the weekend.
Think it’s expensive? Think again, a competitive rig can be built for less than $10,000, which includes the price of a used Cherokee. And get this, desert race Jeeps need wheel travel, clearance for big tires, and more traction just like rockcrawling Jeeps. You could build a Jeep that does it all. If you’re interested in an inside look on how a JeepSpeed Cherokee is built, drop us a line at Jp< Magazine, c/o More JeepSpeed, 6420 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048 or e-mail us at More JeepSpeed (or e-mail john.cappa@primedia.com).
For more information on JeepSpeed you can check out the Web site at www.jeepspeed.com or call 714/538-7434. For now here’s a few race photos that just might give you some ideas for your own Cherokee.