The night before Top Truck, competitors gather for their last decent meal of the week, catered courtesy of the Four Wheeler staff. After that they will be on a steady diet of mud and busted parts. | 
Celebrity judge (and winner of the first-ever Top Truck Challenge) Jim Piatt checks out the impressive approach angle of Ferris' Hot Rod. Measuring in at 89 degrees is about as good as you can get. |
The '82 GMC Jimmy of Stephen Watson awed onlookers with its jaw-dropping amounts of flex. However, as we have seen in the past, just because a rig does well on the RTI ramp doesn't necessarily mean it will perform well on the trail. | 
The acceleration test is fairly simple. Basically, competitors gas it and hope for the best time. Being shod with big, heavy 44-inch Swampers isn't exactly the best setup for the acceleration test, but Brian Ellis, driving Colonel Jim Hall's CJ-7, was able to use the power of the Jeep's big-block to make a run that put him in the middle of the pack. |
Ferris McCollum and his pink Hot Rod got the honor of being the first one to break. His rear driveshaft U-joint let loose during the acceleration test and took a transmission-fluid line with it. Much to our amazement, Ferris was able to make some quick fixes and make another acceleration pass, this time without incident. | 
Last year's Tow Test was fairly easy; everybody made a full pull up the hill. Who would have guessed that a bulldozer just wasn't enough weight? This year we decided to make things a bit more difficult. We strapped 40,000 pounds--that's 20 tons, friends--of loaded dump truck to the competitors. It worked! Nobody made a full pull. Chris Moeser and his 454-powered K30, which he calls the Moeser Dozer, managed to make it farther up the hill than everybody except the F-150. |
Before each event, the competitors take their chances with Lady Luck by drawing cards to determine their starting order. Scott Ellinger must be a gambling man, as he left the day after his wedding to attend this year's Top Truck Challenge. We heard that much to his surprise, his wife was still there when he got back to his hometown of Firestone, Colorado. | 
Ferris and his '30 Hot Rod were making good time until he got hung up by the third log. While trying to extricate himself, his winch blew apart, leaving Ferris without many options. The 10-minute time limit expired and the tractor was called in to get Ferris out of the mess. |
We feared that Bob Kelly might be one of those types who restore military vehicles and then are afraid to scratch them. He quickly allayed our fears by flat-out assaulting the Frame Twister in his M-37. Eventually the M-37 spit out its rear driveshaft and Bob had to resort to using the winch to make his way out. More time was lost when the winch cable snapped. Twice! | 
The Frame Twister is where we usually see some different strategies played out. Some would rather take the penalty points for winching than burn time trying to hammer through the Twister. Stephen and his Blazer was one of these, as he winched as soon as he got into trouble. |
The third log from the finish seemed to be the most troublesome for competitors. The mud and water were fairly deep here and even Jim's Jolly Green CJ, shod with 42-inch Swampers, couldn't power over it. After working with the winch for a while, Jim (the owner) and Brian Ellis (the driver) were finally able to escape the Twister. | 
As more competitors tried to claw their way through the Twister, the holes in between the logs got deeper and deeper. Even with 44-inch Boggers, Eric and his F-150 still had a tough time. After working it for a while, he decided to break out the winch cable to escape before time expired. |
Robin and his S-10 hybrid showed us how things are done down South when he blew through the whole Frame Twister in a record-breaking 29 seconds. Even though he throttled through the Twister like a madman, he didn't take out any cones, making for a clean, penalty-point free run (This Image and The Following Four Images). |  |
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Chris and his Moeser Dozer had a hard time finding anything resembling traction in the Frame Twister. After giving it plenty of right-foot, he slid completely out of the course, taking plenty of cones with him in the process. Chris then attempted to winch himself out of his sticky situation but the time limit came quickly and resulted in a DNF for the big Chevy. |