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Mickey21

Wildtrak
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First Name
Mickey
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Feb 1, 2021
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Round Rock, Texas
Vehicle(s)
2021 Ford Bronco Wildtrak (Race Red)
Your Bronco Model
Wildtrak
Clubs
 
I just wanted to stop in and give some photos and video of my experience at the recent attendance to the Off-Roadeo event in Horseshoe Bay, TX.

Who am I, an auto enthusiast with no affiliation other than a passion for most things automotive much like many average customers out there. I am by no means an off-road expert and most of my practical experience comes from muscle car ownership and drag racing. My technical knowledge only comes from what I learned from others, posted internet content, and limited off-roading in any capacity that would be even moderately severe. I have no interest in rock crawling, but overlanding and camping are more my desire for this vehicle. I enjoy getting out there with friends and family around a camp fire and just enjoying nature responsibly. If you want a clean approach and no spoilers to the event, I would stop reading now, I will be as thorough as my recollection allows 1 day after the event.

Attending the event is pretty straight forward from the GPS pin location they provide and they have a handy "turn here" indication for you to look out for when finding the location, trust the push pin, it is dead on the spot for the entrance as out there, there are so many ranch entrances you can easily get confused, but the push pin location is dead center on the entrance, stray no further to get there. Parking is adequate as they tend to not have too many planned guests at any one time and shouldnt be an issue if you are driving there directly. The location is iirc roughly a bit more than 350 acres of property, so there will be somewhere to park I can assure you.

Upon arriving and parking, head towards the easily distinguished main building and in through the tinted sliding or opening glass doors, where in the center you will be greeted at the check-in registration desk. There you will sign your forms for the event and given a few details on what it going to happen that day. You will be given a colored bracelet for your group color if you are a driver, but guests and non-drivers are given a different color to indicate they are not the main attendee. In practice, does this mean only the main attendee can drive, absolutely not, but it does designate that you and your guests will share a vehicle and can at times swap drivers through the 2 day event. The main building holds the registration area, relaxing area after and before the event with chairs and fire pits, eating area, restrooms for both men and women kept pretty tidy, a merchandise store area (caps, shirts, Yeti items like mugs/cups/bottles, and some misc Bronco swag gear, and a Bronco Outer Banks models on some rocks in a display. Getting this part out of the way as well, approx. 150 Full sized Broncos were ordered for the event locations starting with the Austin location. There are about 54 Broncos on location at the Austin site including the Bronco Sports. According to the person who ordered the vehicles, he made attempts to order the vehicles in such a way as to get a varied sampling, while not hitting a whole lot of constrained items (as much as he could avoid and still have the course vehicle) as to avoid as much as possible from impacting customer vehicle wait times. This is why at times you may see Broncos with configurations you couldnt get in your own hands because they modified it to limit that impact. In other words, don't base your knowledge completely on how you see these vehicles because they are preproduction, may not have the final versions of those parts, may not be the final colors, and may have already been changed several times since these parts. For instance, the White Wildtrak I drove had the very early tacked on sasquatch bumper winglets that look very tacked on and cheap, while other Wildtrak models had the newer version of the bumpers that included the portion extensions on them that looked a lot more integrated.

Most of what you see is a timeline of when the event took place, but might be very slightly out of order, though I think I got it right. I give my thoughts on what was happening there and what I observed from my perspective. All of the linked items are videos I shot from the attendee perspective.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_133945

Registration desk

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_133951

Outer banks display unit (pre-production)

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_133302

Main Entrance, this shot taken about 50 feet in from the turn in. To my right though out of camera is sitting the sign that indicates to turn into this area. The sign ahead says turn right for the event location area and parking. Parking is just out of view over the ridge here on the right.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_133512

View from just in front of the parking area where there is a roundabout. Event main building on the right here and there is a group preparing to head out after a brief orientation and group introductions from the trainers and attendees. The Broncos seen on the left are staged for after the off-road initial basic orientation and fundamentals of off-road, the basics of vehicle approach/departure angles, etc, and some basic facts about the vehicle capabilities (this stage starts at the Blue Bronco [yes I know their real colors but that is gonna get tedious real fast if I use the real color names every time I reference a Bronco in shot, just go with it] seen directly dead center in this shot slightly pointed in the air on the rocks). There is a canvas covered area there that gives some modest shade. I will point out here, that YES, it will very very likely be hot and very very likely be humid, drink plenty of water with the provided Yeti water bottle and fill it regularly as they have cold water Yeti coolers throughout the event area. Afterwards, you will be heading to the far left of this shot to be introduced to more concepts like seating position, camera views on the dash cameras (with the 12 inch screen), how to locate obstacles in front, trail turn assist feature, sway bar disconnect feature, and overall basic vehicle handling, spotter commands, and the site functions.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_142714

The blue Bronco referenced above where the initial "ORX" orientation, second portion of the journey, took place. Referenced as the "Sluice Box" onsite.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_155137

Getting up in the air with the sway bar disconnected, the vehicle was pushed with a few fingers forward or back on balance and learning how to deal with tires that have traction and the "hero switches". Also, a big note, the camera does not easily convey just how steep or large the obstacles are. The Bronco is showing to be very capable and in person on inclines of as tested even 30 degrees or more with casual users, this is a basic course, but also shows what the vehicle even with a basic understanding of off-road techniques can do. Kudos Ford and Bronco.

All of the following videos are uploaded unedited or changed from their original shooting. This is not a review, only a sample of some of the content seen while in attendance of the Off-roadeo event. All content if property of their respective owners and I am by no means saying any that they say is fact, only that I am representing it here for an idea of what to expect when attending and the kind of testing you might experience.

The following video is just one of the attendees who has absolutely no experience "volunteering" to be one the first to drive within the group. Good sport.
Bronco Basics and Articulation

The following video is a demonstration of one of the attendees trying out the trail turn assist feature just after coming out of the water way for basics of water fording. Of note, the event goes over proper usages of water fording and when and why to do it. I really loved that the event trainers put a lot of emphasis on responsible off-roading and to avoid water at almost all costs because it is very detrimental to the ecosystem when done improperly. It can kill a lot of wildlife with chemicals off the vehicle, destruction of habitat itself, and of course animals. To note, almost all the bodies of water on this entire property are just spill ways created for the course or surveyed by the water ecological surveyors for proper usage of water controls, contamination, and effects on the local wildlife prior to any vehicle usages. I am very happy that they took the time to think it through and not just do things because they can.
Bronco Trail Turn Assist feature

The following video goes over the trail control feature which helps with hill climbs and even reversals which was something I didn't see very many say anything about. The ability to control your reversing off a hill is actually a pretty good feature for safety on say a climb that you ended up not being able to complete.
Bronco Trail Control feature training and usage


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_162206

Yes, you can just unscrew the antenna and just take it off, good, because I really didn't like the look of it whipping around. I will never use the radio anyway.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_162914

Marine grade vinyl seats, and the inside of my Badlands for the day. I was very happy to try out a Badlands versus my Wildtrak order, but was super keen to get some Wildtrak time in before the event completed. You do get 1 vehicle for each day you have to sign off on before and after for damage. Of note, and I asked this, to date, had anyone "damaged" a vehicle and the answer was "no". Not in the 2 weeks the event has been running with about 2 groups of ~10 (15 to 20 people as not all attendees are in front of the vehicle at all times) drivers. I was alone as my wife couldn't make the event, but was okay with that. The MGV was softer than I expected, even after being told it was softer than others expected. It felt a lot more like leather than I was thinking, so most will be happy with that. To be honest, I might have preferred a more solid MGV feel, but I am sure they thought about that for longer term hauls and comfort. The interior was what I expected, good enough, but not so good I had to worry about the textures and what they would be like in 20 years. They seem durable and that they will last. Something I am more interested in and ease of cleaning then their soft feels. I was more taken by how much smaller it felt inside even compared to my Ford Flex. It was more cramped then I expected, even for a 6 foot tall 300 lb guy, but not so much that it was bad, just not expected. Especially after seeing the outside. The unit appears bigger than it is, I think based on flares, 35 inch tires, etc. I could have used maybe an extra inch of clearance on the left and the right seemed alright. I was also very surprised the doors were very thin, but also expected that based on weight of them and their removal. My Badlands had the 8 inch screen which I can honestly say was not good enough at all in my opinion. Screens looked squished together and not as ideal for reaching than the 12 inch (I got to use the 2nd day). This unit is clearly dirty from all the dust and debris, which they wash the vehicles after every use (COVID spray inside and out for 8 minutes, then a wipe on seating and hand surfaces and occasional vacuum and floor washes, while outside of the vehicle gets a full wash after every group run). Makes complete sense. These vehicles are used quite a bit. My unit had just under 2000 miles on it already and the others were within a few hundred miles of each other it seemed. These units do see quite a bit of abuse even based on 2 days of me in them, I am pleased to see how good they look still. The fuel read 50 miles to empty from a full tank, which is laughable, but understand these units almost never see upwards of 20mph and almost never leave 4 low gearing. Both of my test units were the 10 speed auto and 2.7 liter engines. There are that I noted at least 3 manuals onsite, and it seems 1 or 2 in each group possible, so if you want to try a manual, let them know, but I saw and they mentioned the manual was usually the last to be picked in the lineup. And the ordering shows that autos are largely being ordered over manuals even with the 2.7 limit on them atm. I can totally see why as well. With the way the vehicle is setup, braking, and capability, the auto was so capable I barely missed it at all. When the vehicle crawls forward SOOOOO slowly you can crawl next to it and keep up. The engine always seems to be in the power band for lifting the vehicle up and over an obstacle that it was hardly a concern. I am very pleased with my auto purchase after owning manuals more times in my life then not, and I thought I would miss it in this even when climbing real rock faces, but I found myself forgetting it was an auto in at least off-roading so far. There are no paved street testing at all on this event as it is strictly off-road play, but you do get a chance to get them up to a little bit of speed in an off-road course at the near end of the event when you have learned everything you have learned.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_162916

Just another close view of the MGV seats, starting to make out the textures. Much softer than they seem to the touch.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_163529

Warm super humid day as thunderstorms were predicted for the entire 2 days I had scheduled, thankfully, they don't ever cancel they said. Unless it was near hurricane and tornadoes, lol. Eight inch screen is passable, but no camera views is a deal breaker for me, especially after using them. The trail views were phenomenal at hitting a line with the wheels. At several points the rocks are only spaced enough to even fit a 35 inch tire, you gotta hit it just right, which on day 2 using the camera was easy as pie. Not so much with the 8 inch screen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_163532

Yeah, these trucks get off the road all day every day. It shows. Good to know they can handle it without breaking a sweat. In fact, after all of this, very little has happened to their test vehicles so far they mentioned. A door mirror was hit on a tree (not by an attendee) and was swapped on one of the non test unit display units so far. But nothing has broken on the trail itself from this roughhousing and the last video shows how much these go through at times.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_163536

Badlands with the liner. BTW, the storage netting there, also on the driver side the same, held a 3.5 inch diameter water bottle with room to spare for those wondering what can fit in there. And even while off-roading and tossing it around, it stayed in there.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_163554

Close up of the accessory hole. Looks like a standard camera mount screw, easy enough.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_164335

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_164657

Cottonmouth creek iirc, apparently they find a lot of snakes around the water area here from time to time (hence the name). The ground is very littered with sharp rocks, large rocks, and slippery when wet dirt that coats the rocks. So often the tire can slip on the rocks when a vehicles has gone before you wet. Seems obvious, but particularly changes your line when following so closely like this. Generally you proceed in 4 low for about 1.5 hours the first go, which is about 1.5 hours after the initial start of the event, so not long till you get to drive your own truck. Seen here following a 2 door Wildtrak with the soft top.

The following video was one of our first larger rock obstacles. The vehicle in this video is a Manual transmission vehicle in the group and was the first to go over the obstacles. The entire group is asked to leave their vehicles as we go over concepts of how to climb and as this video is shot go through the mental processes of thinking about the obstacle and what we might want to do to go over it. Most of the vehicles were asked to go over in different spots and the guests were asked to use the spotting techniques we learned earlier to guide the driver up and over.
Learning how to climb rocks
My Specific attempt working with the attendee spotter.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210703_171005

Here we came to a pretty steep climb up the side of a very rocky hill, we are told to let the vehicle in front get halfway up before the next vehicle goes. Waiting my turn, we are told we should try the "trail control" feature if on our model and set to about 4mph. This feature I thought would be kind of silly, but ended up really liking the feature in the end. It was very good at maintaining that speed no matter what and easy to use. I was not as impressed with 1 pedal driving, but I can see why some would like that for certain situations. At the rate the Bronco would crawl, it was really nice to set a speed and leave it for long trails following others. Adjustable from 1mph up in .5 increments. If I remember correctly, this hill was about 45 degrees at the steepest spot I saw or noticed. Might have been more but there was a lot to look at and see when testing it.

All the above was day 1. A lot was covered and why day 1 is about 6 hours long give or take of actual off-road time and training.

Day 2 was a start with some good education about good off-roading and respecting our part to do what we can to preserve our ability to do so. Drive responsibly and with respect to the environment and those around us. Even Jeep guys, just kidding, but it was mentioned. Respect everyone out there, be a good example of what others should do, and do our part to educate others to not disrespect our right to be out there so that others can partake as well for years to come. Jonny (the lead trainer) knew I was keen to drive a Wildtrak 4 Door since my order is being built in August and was dying to try one out, so he mentioned I should take the white Wildtrak out for a go. I knew this was also the vehicle that Josh (our secondary trainer, but in no way lesser of course) preferred to drive as well. This was a complete awesome thing to have as well. Since I was attending solo, this also gave the opportunity for Josh to ride shotgun with me through the day when he wasn't spotting and pick his brain on some of those questions I had about the development of the Bronco. Josh has been working about 12 years with Ford Performance and key to the engineering on the Bronco platform. His knowledge on how it was developed was vast and mostly because I don't know his thoughts on what I am able to repeat, I will leave that for him to say anywhere he would like to say it. But know that there are a lot of things we hoped and wished for and a lot of what we speculate are those very reasons they are what they are, but many are not. I know he is still working on future development and I would never presume to try to pry that from anyone for obvious reasons, but I can say that I am happy it is people like him making sure companies like Ford get these things right. Thanks to engineers and people like him, I think the Bronco (ignoring delays and manufacturing itself) will be a worthwhile product to hopefully brings smiles to many.

I won't put many photos or videos here for day 2 because it was essentially about 3 hours of what we learned yesterday being applied to a good cruise around the various trails on the 350 acres.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_085622

My Wildtrak for the day, YES! Giving it a once over and taking pictures of the outside for insurance purposes. To note, and this isnt fact but what I gathered from attending the event. "Damage" to the vehicle seems to be exactly that, damage to the vehicle. Mild scrapes on underbody protection, skid plates, bash plates, etc were par for the course. In general a smooth operation and paying attention to your surroundings should mean no one has to ever worry about the 75$, but as insurance goes, it is just that. If you are worried, please by all means pay, but I was confident I would listen to my instructors and follow as advised as much as humanely possible and avoid any issues, I did not pay personally.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_092755

The camera views were great, and I had them on basically the entire time. Not perfect clearly, but very very close and much better than nothing by far. Also of quick note, the stereo, absolutely as good as I knew it would be. Perfect, no, but on par with "the upgraded factory stereos" of past from Ford and it didn't disappoint. Could it be better, yeah, especially if it had door speakers, but that adds a whole new can of worms. For me, it was about as good as the Sony upgraded stereo in my Ford Flex, and that was also good enough for me. If you want more, well, I am sure there will be more later.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_092829

At times they will adjust the course paths (go right here instead of left) to do different things like this water area that shows a bit more of finding a good line into the water, being comfortable with the vehicle hitting tilts to it that are more severe and after this water area there is a large rock/hill climb that we are queueing for, hence the backing up of vehicles. The next area had a big breakover area that tests finding a good line to not scratch the underbody area. I was happy to make it through with no touching by watching my spotter and finding a good line to avoid any even minor scraping or rear bumper taps on the way off the rock by flowing gently off and controlling the throttle.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_100513

Short break as I was the last to climb and others have been watching the attempts up the rock obstacles now behind me in this view. Just nice to see a lot of Broncos lined up, something I wont see for probably a while.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_102429

Here we all stopped at the top of the hill to go over vehicle rescue techniques and concepts with rescue straps, strap locations, and conceptual education on vehicle rescue. Clearly this is a very large topic, but to undertake this by very knowledgeable trainers and experienced drivers on a picturesque hillside like this with a spectacular view of the course below was fantastic. To the right is a nice area where the property owner shoots sport targets at times, wish we could do that to, lol. It was great to have someone to just have a chat with about what to do and not to do when attempting to rescue another vehicle and that many new users were learning this as well.

I don't have any video of the "track" course we ran for obvious reasons, I was driving, but we were informed to stay below 25 mph, give about 12 truck lengths of following gap (which was leaving when the truck in front made the first left turn off the straight away) and keep under that speed limit the whole time and not bunch up. It was a twisty winding track course of I would estimate about 1.25 miles of track with lots of turns and places to get the tail a bit loose. I was VERY VERY fortunate to have the white Wildtrak and Josh (trainer) as my passenger. With his instruction and his guidance, he asked me to give more room in front of the vehicle in front before I took off because my guess is he knows I could handle some extra fun after watching me for 2 days and he would be there to help back me off when it was too far. The video below shows more why he does this and he is good at what he does. My experience is mostly with muscle cars around circuit tracks in New Zealand and high speed driving on road courses. Not dirt track running. We put the Wildtrak in Baja mode and set off. All the while he was pushing me and pushing me to give it some more which I did as instructed as much as I could bring myself to do, which as I got more familiar with, was easier to do. I did really start giving it a go and getting the tail happily out fast and loose, honestly reminding me a lot of the solid rear axle SN95 Mustangs and how happy they are to let the tail out controllably. Well, controllably for those that are accustomed to shaking the back end loose happily. Being that I was alone in my group, everyone lined up at the end to give it another go around, and luckily as I said, I was alone. Let's give it another go! Going through the paces again, I was happier to get the tail out far and wide and let the steering overshoot to the inside corner to bring it back to center. So much fun and as I told Josh, this alone was worth the event entirely, just to do that part. Of course, his response was "Wait till what is next!". He let me know to hang back a bit (also being the last truck all day) and U turn around to the middle of the 10 vehicles they were lining up to separate, and in the pouring rain we started to get ready for the fun runs in the video below. I was first to get in a turn since my vehicle was already lined up and Josh was getting in out of the pouring rain.

The following video is the end of the event. It was the last thing we get to do as some "fun time" runs with the lead trainers Jonny and Josh. They had 2 vehicles (a dark blue Badlands and a white Wildtrak) that ran run after run with the 10 groups of people to hold on for dear life and get some real smiles like one of the best rollercoasters. Now, some more context. Normally, they do this run topping out at about 50 mph or sometimes a little higher on a dry course, but about 10 minutes before we started our runs, the heavens finally opened up after threatening all day to rain with rain clouds and weather reports of thunderstorms and hell broke loose. Josh was driving the Wildtrak while Jonny was driving the dark blue Badlands. The camera does not do justice at all to the elevation changes in the track and the slipperiness of the tires in the now soaking mud (was never dry, so the least amount of water saturated it completely). So much mud was on the vehicles that the back doors started getting stuck shut between riders and having to shove them loose due to suction and mud getting into the truck rear compartment due to mud queueing on the fender flares.
Ford Bronco "Hot Lap" with professional driver Josh in the very wet.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

This picture does SOME justice to how much mud was on it, but realize when it was all done, we set off back to the main event center and this is after driving back about 5 minutes in the still pouring rain which was stopping just as we pulled up to the center. Looks really good with mud!

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124150




Overall thoughts: I loved the experience despite worrying it would be so basic and not worthwhile. I am no expert as I have said at the onset, but I am a car/truck person and this was a really good way to get some time in the seat of one of the most capable vehicles I have ever had the pleasure to drive. Is it perfect, far from it, but is it worth it, in my humble opinion, very much so. I would highly recommend anyone even considering one of these, to try out the event. Having the concept I had going into it, would I travel far for it, I am not sure, but knowing what I know now, yeah, probably would travel far. If you can, bring one guest at minimum so that they can at least see what you see. So many that came with not much enthusiasm were having the biggest smiles. It will convert you if you are on the fence for sure. A huge shout out to the trainers Jonny and Josh for all the hard work they put in day in and day out to give us a chance to see what they see all the time. Also a huge shout out to Ari who was a trainee trainer learning to do what Jonny and Josh are doing. She was a great spotter and very helpful and cheerful about everything.

I asked a few times about future plans to allow those that take delivery to come back with their Bronco and indications seem to point to this may be in the cards someday soon. For now, it is only for vehicle owners and those with orders, at least at this location. I am so glad I got to drive both the Badlands (which I worried was what I should have gotten) and the Wildtrak. I don't think either one after driving them both is a deal breaker. And more solidified that both trainers are getting Wildtraks as well as the run in the mud with one. I also saw from the trails that really, ANY of the Bronco models can do all what we did in those 2 days and frankly that is a lot for so little, most times in even just 4 Low and no hero switches enabled at all. A couple of the vehicles were not on 35s either and handled the terrain just fine. I can honestly say if anything, attending made it easier for me to wait (though I was decently patient before), but knowing now after driving it in real life cemented my knowledge that the vehicle is a great decision and I will love it. Oh, while still on my mind, a few of the vehicles had the tube steps and they didnt become an issue in all that we were doing. That was good to know they clear all that we played with on the weekend. If they hit something, you are generally doing something a lot more severe or you may need to gauge a better approach. Loved the entire event, great work Ford, the Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo team, and all that went into making this happen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013
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Mickey21

Mickey21

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If you do nothing at all, watch at least the last linked video, there isnt much I have seen anywhere out there that that shows a Bronco getting wild in the wet mud from the passenger perspective. I used a gimble and stabilization in the video, but even then you can see the Bronco is a beast.
 

GotGOAT

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Outstanding review and videos. Looks like a great time.
 

TNcoupe

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Im ready to go in a month. I havent been rock crawling in 20yrs and last time was in my Early Bronco which of course is all analog with mechanical lockers and such.
 

Kmcran

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I just wanted to stop in and give some photos and video of my experience at the recent attendance to the Off-Roadeo event in Horseshoe Bay, TX.

Who am I, an auto enthusiast with no affiliation other than a passion for most things automotive much like many average customers out there. I am by no means an off-road expert and most of my practical experience comes from muscle car ownership and drag racing. My technical knowledge only comes from what I learned from others, posted internet content, and limited off-roading in any capacity that would be even moderately severe. I have no interest in rock crawling, but overlanding and camping are more my desire for this vehicle. I enjoy getting out there with friends and family around a camp fire and just enjoying nature responsibly. If you want a clean approach and no spoilers to the event, I would stop reading now, I will be as thorough as my recollection allows 1 day after the event.

Attending the event is pretty straight forward from the GPS pin location they provide and they have a handy "turn here" indication for you to look out for when finding the location, trust the push pin, it is dead on the spot for the entrance as out there, there are so many ranch entrances you can easily get confused, but the push pin location is dead center on the entrance, stray no further to get there. Parking is adequate as they tend to not have too many planned guests at any one time and shouldnt be an issue if you are driving there directly. The location is iirc roughly a bit more than 350 acres of property, so there will be somewhere to park I can assure you.

Upon arriving and parking, head towards the easily distinguished main building and in through the tinted sliding or opening glass doors, where in the center you will be greeted at the check-in registration desk. There you will sign your forms for the event and given a few details on what it going to happen that day. You will be given a colored bracelet for your group color if you are a driver, but guests and non-drivers are given a different color to indicate they are not the main attendee. In practice, does this mean only the main attendee can drive, absolutely not, but it does designate that you and your guests will share a vehicle and can at times swap drivers through the 2 day event. The main building holds the registration area, relaxing area after and before the event with chairs and fire pits, eating area, restrooms for both men and women kept pretty tidy, a merchandise store area (caps, shirts, Yeti items like mugs/cups/bottles, and some misc Bronco swag gear, and a Bronco Outer Banks models on some rocks in a display. Getting this part out of the way as well, approx. 150 Full sized Broncos were ordered for the event locations starting with the Austin location. There are about 54 Broncos on location at the Austin site including the Bronco Sports. According to the person who ordered the vehicles, he made attempts to order the vehicles in such a way as to get a varied sampling, while not hitting a whole lot of constrained items (as much as he could avoid and still have the course vehicle) as to avoid as much as possible from impacting customer vehicle wait times. This is why at times you may see Broncos with configurations you couldnt get in your own hands because they modified it to limit that impact. In other words, don't base your knowledge completely on how you see these vehicles because they are preproduction, may not have the final versions of those parts, may not be the final colors, and may have already been changed several times since these parts. For instance, the White Wildtrak I drove had the very early tacked on sasquatch bumper winglets that look very tacked on and cheap, while other Wildtrak models had the newer version of the bumpers that included the portion extensions on them that looked a lot more integrated.

Most of what you see is a timeline of when the event took place, but might be very slightly out of order, though I think I got it right. I give my thoughts on what was happening there and what I observed from my perspective. All of the linked items are videos I shot from the attendee perspective.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Registration desk

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Outer banks display unit (pre-production)

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Main Entrance, this shot taken about 50 feet in from the turn in. To my right though out of camera is sitting the sign that indicates to turn into this area. The sign ahead says turn right for the event location area and parking. Parking is just out of view over the ridge here on the right.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

View from just in front of the parking area where there is a roundabout. Event main building on the right here and there is a group preparing to head out after a brief orientation and group introductions from the trainers and attendees. The Broncos seen on the left are staged for after the off-road initial basic orientation and fundamentals of off-road, the basics of vehicle approach/departure angles, etc, and some basic facts about the vehicle capabilities (this stage starts at the Blue Bronco [yes I know their real colors but that is gonna get tedious real fast if I use the real color names every time I reference a Bronco in shot, just go with it] seen directly dead center in this shot slightly pointed in the air on the rocks). There is a canvas covered area there that gives some modest shade. I will point out here, that YES, it will very very likely be hot and very very likely be humid, drink plenty of water with the provided Yeti water bottle and fill it regularly as they have cold water Yeti coolers throughout the event area. Afterwards, you will be heading to the far left of this shot to be introduced to more concepts like seating position, camera views on the dash cameras (with the 12 inch screen), how to locate obstacles in front, trail turn assist feature, sway bar disconnect feature, and overall basic vehicle handling, spotter commands, and the site functions.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

The blue Bronco referenced above where the initial "ORX" orientation, second portion of the journey, took place. Referenced as the "Sluice Box" onsite.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Getting up in the air with the sway bar disconnected, the vehicle was pushed with a few fingers forward or back on balance and learning how to deal with tires that have traction and the "hero switches". Also, a big note, the camera does not easily convey just how steep or large the obstacles are. The Bronco is showing to be very capable and in person on inclines of as tested even 30 degrees or more with casual users, this is a basic course, but also shows what the vehicle even with a basic understanding of off-road techniques can do. Kudos Ford and Bronco.

All of the following videos are uploaded unedited or changed from their original shooting. This is not a review, only a sample of some of the content seen while in attendance of the Off-roadeo event. All content if property of their respective owners and I am by no means saying any that they say is fact, only that I am representing it here for an idea of what to expect when attending and the kind of testing you might experience.

The following video is just one of the attendees who has absolutely no experience "volunteering" to be one the first to drive within the group. Good sport.
Bronco Basics and Articulation

The following video is a demonstration of one of the attendees trying out the trial turn assist feature just after coming out of the water way for basics of water fording. Of note, the event goes over proper usages of water fording and when and why to do it, and I really loved that the event trainers put a lot of emphasis on responsible off-roading and to avoid water at almost all costs because it is very detrimental to the ecosystem when done improperly and can kill a lot of wildlife with chemicals off the vehicle, destruction of habitat, and animals themselves. To note, almost all the bodies of water on this entire property are just spill ways created for the course or surveyed by the water ecological surveyors for proper usage of water controls, contaminations, and effects on the local wildlife prior to any vehicle usages. I am very proud that they took the time to think it through and not just do things because they can.
Bronco Trail Turn Assist feature

The following video goes over the trail control feature which helps with hill climbs and even reversals which was something I see very little about. The ability to control your reversing of a hill is actually a pretty good feature for safety on say a climb that ended up not being able to complete.
Bronco Trail Control feature training and usage


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Yes, you can just unscrew the antenna and just take it off, good, because I really didnt like the look of it whipping around. I will never use the radio anyway.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Marine grade vinyl seats, and the inside of my Badlands for the day. I was very happy to try out a Badlands versus my Wildtrak order, but was super keen to get some Wildtrak time in before the event completed. You do get 1 vehicle for the day you have to sign off on before and after for damage. Of note, and I asked this, to date, had anyone "damaged" a vehicle and the answer was "no". Not in the 2 weeks the event has been running with about 2 groups of ~10 (15 to 20 people as not all attendees are in front of the vehicle at all times) drivers. I was alone as my wife couldnt make the event, but was okay with that. The MGV was softer than I expected, even after being told it was softer than other expected. It felt a lot more like leather than I was thinking, so most will be happy with that. To be honest, I might have preferred a more solid MGV feel, but I am sure they thought about that for longer term hauls. The interior was what I expected, good enough, but not so good I had to worry about the textures and what they would be like in 20 years. They seem durable and that they will last. Something I am more interested in and ease of cleaning then their soft feels. I was more taken by how much smaller it felt inside even compared to my Ford Flex. It was more cramped then I expected, even for a 6 foot tall 300 lb guy, but not so much that it was bad, just not expected. Especially after seeing the outside. The unit appears bigger than it is, I think based on flares, 35 inch tires, etc. I could have used maybe an extra inch of clearance on the left and the right seemed alright. I was also very surprised the doors were very thin, but also expected that based on weight of them and their removal. My Badlands had the Eight inch screen which I can honestly say was not good enough at all in my opinion. Screens looked squished together and not as ideal for reaching than the 12 inch (I got to use the 2nd day). This unit is clearly dirty from all the dust and debris, which they wash the vehicles after every use (COVID spray inside and out for 8 minutes, then a wipe on seating and hand surfaces and occasional vacuum and floor washes, while outside gets a full wash after every group run). Makes complete sense. These vehicles are used quite a bit. My unit had just under 2000 miles on it already and the others were within a few hundred miles of each other it seemed. These units do see quite a bit of abuse even based on 2 days of me in them, I am pleased to see how good they look still. The fuel read 50 miles to emtpy from a full tank, which is laughable, but understand these units almost never see upwards of 20mph and almost never leave 4 low gearing. Both of my test units were the 10 Speed auto and 2.7 liter engines. There are that I noted at least 3 manuals onsite, and it seems 1 or 2 in each group possible, so if you want to try a manual, let them know, but I saw and they mentioned the manual was usually the last to be picked in the lineup. And the ordering shows that autos are largely being ordered. I can totally see why as well. With the way the vehicle is setup, braking, and capability, the auto was so capable I barely missed it at all when the unit crawls forward SOOOOO slowly you can crawl next to it and keep up. The engine always seems to be in the power band for lifting the vehicle up and over that it was hardly a concern. I am very pleased with my auto purchase after owning manuals more times in my life then not, and I thought I would miss it in this even when climbing real rock faces, but I found myself forgetting it was an auto in at least off-roading so far. There are no paved street testing at all on this event as it is strictly off-road play, but you do get a chance to get them up to a little bit of speed in an off-road course at the near end of the event when you have learned everything you have learned.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Just another close view of the MGV seats, starting to make out the textures. Much softer than they seem to the touch.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Warm super humid day as thunderstorms were predicted for the entire 2 days I had scheduled, thankfully, they dont ever cancel they said. Unless it was near hurricane and tornadoes, lol. Eight inch screen is passable, but no camera views is a deal breaker for me, especially after using them. The trail views were phenomenal at hitting a line with the wheels. At several points the rocks are only spaced enough to even fit a 35 inch tire, you gotta hit it just right, which on day 2 using the camera was easy as pie. Not so much with the 8 inch screen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Yeah, these trucks get off the road all day every day. It shows. Good to know they can handle it without breaking a sweat. In fact, after all of this, very little has happened to their test vehicles so far they mentioned. A door mirror was hit on a tree (not by an attendee) and was swapped on one of the non test unit display units so far. But nothing has broken on the trail itself from this roughhousing and the last video shows how much these go through at times.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Badlands with the liner. BTW, the storage netting there, also on the driver side the same, held a 3.5 inch diameter water bottle with room to spare for those wondering what can fit in there. And even while off-roading and tossing it around, it stayed in there.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Close up of the accessory hole. Looks like a standard camera mount screw, easy enough.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Cottonmouth creek iirc, apparently they find a lot of snakes around the water area here from time to time. The ground is very littered with sharp rocks, large rocks, and slippery when wet dirt that coats the rocks. So often the tire can slip on the rocks when a vehicles has gone before you wet. Seems obvious, but particularly changes your line when following so closely like this. Generally you proceed in 4 low for about 1.5 hours the first go, which is about 1.5 hours after the initial start of the event, so not long till you get to drive your own truck. Seen here following a 2 door Wildtrak with the soft top.

The following video was one of our first larger rock obstacles. The vehicle in this video is a Manual transmission vehicle in the group and was the first to go over the obstacles. The entire group is asked to leave their vehicles as we go over concepts of how to climb and as this video is shot go through the mental processes of thinking about the obstacle and what we might want to do to go over it. Most of the vehicles were asked to go over in different spots and the guests were asked to use the spotting techniques we learned earlier to guide the driver up and over.
Learning how to climb rocks
My Specific attempt working with the attendee spotter.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Here we came to a pretty steep climb up the side of a very rocky hill, we are told to let the vehicle in front get halfway up before the next vehicle goes. Waiting my turn, we are told we should try the "trail control" feature if on our model and set to about 4mph. This feature I thought would be kind of silly, but ended up really liking the feature in the end. It was very good at maintaining that speed no matter what and easy to use. I was not as impressed with 1 pedal driving, but I can see why some would like that for certain situations. At the rate the Bronco would crawl, it was really nice to set a speed and leave it for long trails following others. Adjustable from 1mph up in .5 increments. If I remember correctly, this hill was about 45 degrees at the steepest spot I saw or noticed. Might have been more but there was a lot to look at and see when testing it.

All the above was day 1. A lot was covered and why day 1 is about 6 hours long give or take of actual off-road time and training.

Day 2 was a start with some good education about good off-roading and respecting our part to do what we can to preserve our ability to do so. Drive responsibly and with respect to the environment and those around us. Even Jeep guys, just kidding, but it was mentioned. Respect everyone out there, be a good example of what others should do, and do our part to educate others not to disrespect our right to be out there so that others can partake as well for years to come. Jonny knew I was keen to drive a Wildtrak 4 Door since my order is being built in August and was dying to try one out, so he mentioned I should take the white Wildtrak out for a go. I knew this was also the vehicle that Josh (our secondary trainer, but in no way lesser of course) preferred to drive as well. This was a complete awesome thing to have as well. Since I was attending solo, this also gave the opportunity for Josh to ride shotgun with me through the day when he wasnt spotting and pick his brain on some of those questions I had about the development of the Bronco. Josh has been working about 12 years with Ford Performance and key to the engineering on the Bronco platform. His knowledge on how it was developed was vast and mostly because I don't know his thoughts on what I am able to repeat, I will leave that for him to say anywhere he would like to say it. But know that there are a lot of things we hoped and wished for and a lot of what we speculate are those very reasons they are what they are, but many are not. I know he is still working on future development and I would never presume to try to pry that from anyone for obvious reasons, but I can say that I am happy it is people like him making sure companies like Ford get these things right. Thanks to engineers and people like him, I think the Bronco ignoring delays and manufacturing itself, will be a worthwhile product to hopefully brings smiles to many.

I won't put many photos or videos here for day 2 because it was essentially about 3 hours of what we learned yesterday being applied to a good cruise around the various trails on the 350 acres.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

My Wildtrak for the day, YES! Giving it a once over and taking pictures of the outside for insurance purposes. To note, and this isnt fact but what I gathered from attending the event. "Damage" to the vehicle seems to be exactly that, damage to the vehicle. Mild scrapes on underbody protection, skid plates, bash plates, etc were par for the course. In general a smooth operation and paying attention to your surroundings should mean no one has to ever worry about the 75$, but as insurance goes, it is just that. If you are worried, please by all means pay, but I was confident I would listen to my instructors and follow as advised as much as humanely possible and avoid any issues, I did not pay personally.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

The camera views were great, and I had them on basically the entire time. Not perfect clearly, but very very close and much better than nothing by far. Also of quick note, the stereo, absolutely as good as I knew it would be. Perfect, no, but on par with "the upgraded factory stereos" of past from Ford and it didnt disappoint. Could it be better, yeah, especially if it had door speakers, but that adds a whole new can of worms. For me, it was about as good as the Sony upgraded stereo in my Ford Flex, and that was also good enough for me. If you want more, well, I am sure there will be more later.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

At times they will adjust the course to do different things like this water area that shows a bit more of finding a good line into the water, being comfortable with the vehicle hitting tilts to it that are more severe and after this water area there is a large rock/hill climb that we are queueing for, hence the backing up of vehicles. The next area had a big breakover area that tests finding a good line to not scratch the underbody area. I was happy to make it through with no touching by watching my spotter and finding a good line to avoid any even minor scraping or rear bumper taps on the way off the rock by flowing gently off and controlling the throttle.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Short break as I was the last to climb and others have been watching the attempts up the rock obstacles now behind me in this view. Just nice to see a lot of Broncos lined up, something I wont see for probably a while.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Here we all stopped at the top of the hill to go over vehicle rescue techniques and concepts with rescue straps, strap locations, and conceptual education on vehicle rescue. Clearly this is a very large topic, but to undertake this by very knowledgeable trainers and experienced drivers on a picturesque hillside like this with a spectacular view of the course below was fantastic. To the right is a nice area where the property owner shoots sport targets at times, wish we could do that to, lol. It was great to have someone to just have a chat with about what to do and not to do when attempting to rescue another vehicle. And that many new users were learning this as well.

I don't have any video of the "track" course we ran for obvious reasons, I was driving, but we were informed to stay below 25 mph, give about 12 truck lengths of following gap (which was leaving when the truck in front made the first left turn off the straight away) and keep under that speed limit the whole time and not bunch up. It was a twisty winding track course of I would estimate about 1.25 miles of track with lots of turns and places to get the tail a bit loose. I was VERY VERY fortunate to have the white Wildtrak and Josh as my passenger. With his instruction and his guidance, he asked me to give more room in front of the vehicle in front because my guess is he knows I could handle some extra fun after watching me for 2 days and he would be there to help back me off when it was too far. The video below shows more why he does this and he is good at what he does. My experience is mostly with muscle cars around circuit tracks in New Zealand and high speed driving on road courses. Not dirt track running. We put the Wildtrak in Baja mode and set off. All the while he was pushing me and pushing me to give it some more which I did as instructed as much as I could bring myself to do, which as I got more familiar with, was easier to do. Being that I was alone in my group, everyone lined up at the end to give it another go around, and luckily as I said, I was alone. Let's give it another go! Going through the paces again, I was happier to get the tail out far and wide and let the steering overshoot to the inside corner to bring it back to center. So much fun and as I told Josh, this alone was worth the event entirely, just to do that part. Of course, his response was "Wait till what is next!". He let me know to hang back a bit (also being the last truck all day) and U turn around to the middle of the 10 vehicles they were lining up to separate, and in the pouring rain we started to get ready for the fun runs in the video below. I was first to get in a turn since my vehicle was already lined up and Josh was getting in out of the pouring rain.

The following video is the end of the event. It was the last thing we get to do as some "fun time" runs with the lead trainers Jonny and Josh. They had 2 vehicles (a dark blue Badlands and a white Wildtrak) that ran run after run with the 10 groups of people to hold on for dear life and get some real smiles like one of the best rollercoasters. Now, some more context. Normally, they do this run topping out at about 50 mph or sometimes a little higher on a dry course, but about 10 minutes before we started our runs, the heavens finally opened up after threatening all day to rain with rain clouds and weather reports of thunderstorms and hell broke loose. Josh was driving the Wildtrak while Jonny was driving the dark blue Badlands. The camera does not do justice at all to the elevation changes in the track and the slipperiness of the tires in the now soaking mud (was never dry, so the least amount of water saturated it completely). So much mud was on the vehicles that the back doors started getting stuck shut between riders and having to shove them loose due to suction and mud getting into the truck rear compartment due to mud queueing on the fender flares.
Ford Bronco "Hot Lap" with professional driver Josh in the very wet.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

This picture does SOME justice to how much mud was on it, but realize when it was all done, we set off back to the main event center and this is after driving back about 5 minutes in the still pouring rain which was stopping just as we pulled up to the center. Looks really good with mud!

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013




Overall thoughts: I loved the experience despite worrying it would be so basic and not worthwhile. I am no expert as I have said at the onset, but I am a car/truck person and this was a really good way to get some time in the seat of one of the most capable vehicles I have ever had the pleasure to drive. Is it perfect, far from it, but is it worth it, in my humble opinion, very much so. I would highly recommend anyone even considering one of these, to try out the event. Having the concept I had going it, would I travel far for it, I am not sure, but knowing what I know now, yeah, probably would travel far. If you can, bring one guest at minimum so that they can at least see what you see. So many that came with not much enthusiasm were having the biggest smiles. It will convert you if you are on the fence for sure. A huge shout out to the trainers Jonny and Josh for all the hard work they put in day in and day out to give us a chance to see what they see all the time. Also a huge shout out to Ari who was a trainee trainer learning to do what Jonny and Josh are doing. She was a great spotter and very helpful and cheerful about everything. Loved the entire event, great work Ford, the Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo team, and all that went into making this happen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013
Awesome review! Almost feels like I have already been with the amount of detail you gave. I don't know if my memory is even good enough to give that level of insight lol. Can not wait to go in a few weeks!
 

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Thomman

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I just wanted to stop in and give some photos and video of my experience at the recent attendance to the Off-Roadeo event in Horseshoe Bay, TX.

Who am I, an auto enthusiast with no affiliation other than a passion for most things automotive much like many average customers out there. I am by no means an off-road expert and most of my practical experience comes from muscle car ownership and drag racing. My technical knowledge only comes from what I learned from others, posted internet content, and limited off-roading in any capacity that would be even moderately severe. I have no interest in rock crawling, but overlanding and camping are more my desire for this vehicle. I enjoy getting out there with friends and family around a camp fire and just enjoying nature responsibly. If you want a clean approach and no spoilers to the event, I would stop reading now, I will be as thorough as my recollection allows 1 day after the event.

Attending the event is pretty straight forward from the GPS pin location they provide and they have a handy "turn here" indication for you to look out for when finding the location, trust the push pin, it is dead on the spot for the entrance as out there, there are so many ranch entrances you can easily get confused, but the push pin location is dead center on the entrance, stray no further to get there. Parking is adequate as they tend to not have too many planned guests at any one time and shouldnt be an issue if you are driving there directly. The location is iirc roughly a bit more than 350 acres of property, so there will be somewhere to park I can assure you.

Upon arriving and parking, head towards the easily distinguished main building and in through the tinted sliding or opening glass doors, where in the center you will be greeted at the check-in registration desk. There you will sign your forms for the event and given a few details on what it going to happen that day. You will be given a colored bracelet for your group color if you are a driver, but guests and non-drivers are given a different color to indicate they are not the main attendee. In practice, does this mean only the main attendee can drive, absolutely not, but it does designate that you and your guests will share a vehicle and can at times swap drivers through the 2 day event. The main building holds the registration area, relaxing area after and before the event with chairs and fire pits, eating area, restrooms for both men and women kept pretty tidy, a merchandise store area (caps, shirts, Yeti items like mugs/cups/bottles, and some misc Bronco swag gear, and a Bronco Outer Banks models on some rocks in a display. Getting this part out of the way as well, approx. 150 Full sized Broncos were ordered for the event locations starting with the Austin location. There are about 54 Broncos on location at the Austin site including the Bronco Sports. According to the person who ordered the vehicles, he made attempts to order the vehicles in such a way as to get a varied sampling, while not hitting a whole lot of constrained items (as much as he could avoid and still have the course vehicle) as to avoid as much as possible from impacting customer vehicle wait times. This is why at times you may see Broncos with configurations you couldnt get in your own hands because they modified it to limit that impact. In other words, don't base your knowledge completely on how you see these vehicles because they are preproduction, may not have the final versions of those parts, may not be the final colors, and may have already been changed several times since these parts. For instance, the White Wildtrak I drove had the very early tacked on sasquatch bumper winglets that look very tacked on and cheap, while other Wildtrak models had the newer version of the bumpers that included the portion extensions on them that looked a lot more integrated.

Most of what you see is a timeline of when the event took place, but might be very slightly out of order, though I think I got it right. I give my thoughts on what was happening there and what I observed from my perspective. All of the linked items are videos I shot from the attendee perspective.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Registration desk

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Outer banks display unit (pre-production)

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Main Entrance, this shot taken about 50 feet in from the turn in. To my right though out of camera is sitting the sign that indicates to turn into this area. The sign ahead says turn right for the event location area and parking. Parking is just out of view over the ridge here on the right.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

View from just in front of the parking area where there is a roundabout. Event main building on the right here and there is a group preparing to head out after a brief orientation and group introductions from the trainers and attendees. The Broncos seen on the left are staged for after the off-road initial basic orientation and fundamentals of off-road, the basics of vehicle approach/departure angles, etc, and some basic facts about the vehicle capabilities (this stage starts at the Blue Bronco [yes I know their real colors but that is gonna get tedious real fast if I use the real color names every time I reference a Bronco in shot, just go with it] seen directly dead center in this shot slightly pointed in the air on the rocks). There is a canvas covered area there that gives some modest shade. I will point out here, that YES, it will very very likely be hot and very very likely be humid, drink plenty of water with the provided Yeti water bottle and fill it regularly as they have cold water Yeti coolers throughout the event area. Afterwards, you will be heading to the far left of this shot to be introduced to more concepts like seating position, camera views on the dash cameras (with the 12 inch screen), how to locate obstacles in front, trail turn assist feature, sway bar disconnect feature, and overall basic vehicle handling, spotter commands, and the site functions.

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The blue Bronco referenced above where the initial "ORX" orientation, second portion of the journey, took place. Referenced as the "Sluice Box" onsite.

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Getting up in the air with the sway bar disconnected, the vehicle was pushed with a few fingers forward or back on balance and learning how to deal with tires that have traction and the "hero switches". Also, a big note, the camera does not easily convey just how steep or large the obstacles are. The Bronco is showing to be very capable and in person on inclines of as tested even 30 degrees or more with casual users, this is a basic course, but also shows what the vehicle even with a basic understanding of off-road techniques can do. Kudos Ford and Bronco.

All of the following videos are uploaded unedited or changed from their original shooting. This is not a review, only a sample of some of the content seen while in attendance of the Off-roadeo event. All content if property of their respective owners and I am by no means saying any that they say is fact, only that I am representing it here for an idea of what to expect when attending and the kind of testing you might experience.

The following video is just one of the attendees who has absolutely no experience "volunteering" to be one the first to drive within the group. Good sport.
Bronco Basics and Articulation

The following video is a demonstration of one of the attendees trying out the trail turn assist feature just after coming out of the water way for basics of water fording. Of note, the event goes over proper usages of water fording and when and why to do it. I really loved that the event trainers put a lot of emphasis on responsible off-roading and to avoid water at almost all costs because it is very detrimental to the ecosystem when done improperly. It can kill a lot of wildlife with chemicals off the vehicle, destruction of habitat itself, and of course animals. To note, almost all the bodies of water on this entire property are just spill ways created for the course or surveyed by the water ecological surveyors for proper usage of water controls, contamination, and effects on the local wildlife prior to any vehicle usages. I am very happy that they took the time to think it through and not just do things because they can.
Bronco Trail Turn Assist feature

The following video goes over the trail control feature which helps with hill climbs and even reversals which was something I didn't see very many say anything about. The ability to control your reversing off a hill is actually a pretty good feature for safety on say a climb that you ended up not being able to complete.
Bronco Trail Control feature training and usage


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Yes, you can just unscrew the antenna and just take it off, good, because I really didn't like the look of it whipping around. I will never use the radio anyway.

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Marine grade vinyl seats, and the inside of my Badlands for the day. I was very happy to try out a Badlands versus my Wildtrak order, but was super keen to get some Wildtrak time in before the event completed. You do get 1 vehicle for each day you have to sign off on before and after for damage. Of note, and I asked this, to date, had anyone "damaged" a vehicle and the answer was "no". Not in the 2 weeks the event has been running with about 2 groups of ~10 (15 to 20 people as not all attendees are in front of the vehicle at all times) drivers. I was alone as my wife couldn't make the event, but was okay with that. The MGV was softer than I expected, even after being told it was softer than others expected. It felt a lot more like leather than I was thinking, so most will be happy with that. To be honest, I might have preferred a more solid MGV feel, but I am sure they thought about that for longer term hauls and comfort. The interior was what I expected, good enough, but not so good I had to worry about the textures and what they would be like in 20 years. They seem durable and that they will last. Something I am more interested in and ease of cleaning then their soft feels. I was more taken by how much smaller it felt inside even compared to my Ford Flex. It was more cramped then I expected, even for a 6 foot tall 300 lb guy, but not so much that it was bad, just not expected. Especially after seeing the outside. The unit appears bigger than it is, I think based on flares, 35 inch tires, etc. I could have used maybe an extra inch of clearance on the left and the right seemed alright. I was also very surprised the doors were very thin, but also expected that based on weight of them and their removal. My Badlands had the 8 inch screen which I can honestly say was not good enough at all in my opinion. Screens looked squished together and not as ideal for reaching than the 12 inch (I got to use the 2nd day). This unit is clearly dirty from all the dust and debris, which they wash the vehicles after every use (COVID spray inside and out for 8 minutes, then a wipe on seating and hand surfaces and occasional vacuum and floor washes, while outside of the vehicle gets a full wash after every group run). Makes complete sense. These vehicles are used quite a bit. My unit had just under 2000 miles on it already and the others were within a few hundred miles of each other it seemed. These units do see quite a bit of abuse even based on 2 days of me in them, I am pleased to see how good they look still. The fuel read 50 miles to empty from a full tank, which is laughable, but understand these units almost never see upwards of 20mph and almost never leave 4 low gearing. Both of my test units were the 10 speed auto and 2.7 liter engines. There are that I noted at least 3 manuals onsite, and it seems 1 or 2 in each group possible, so if you want to try a manual, let them know, but I saw and they mentioned the manual was usually the last to be picked in the lineup. And the ordering shows that autos are largely being ordered over manuals even with the 2.7 limit on them atm. I can totally see why as well. With the way the vehicle is setup, braking, and capability, the auto was so capable I barely missed it at all. When the vehicle crawls forward SOOOOO slowly you can crawl next to it and keep up. The engine always seems to be in the power band for lifting the vehicle up and over an obstacle that it was hardly a concern. I am very pleased with my auto purchase after owning manuals more times in my life then not, and I thought I would miss it in this even when climbing real rock faces, but I found myself forgetting it was an auto in at least off-roading so far. There are no paved street testing at all on this event as it is strictly off-road play, but you do get a chance to get them up to a little bit of speed in an off-road course at the near end of the event when you have learned everything you have learned.

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Just another close view of the MGV seats, starting to make out the textures. Much softer than they seem to the touch.

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Warm super humid day as thunderstorms were predicted for the entire 2 days I had scheduled, thankfully, they don't ever cancel they said. Unless it was near hurricane and tornadoes, lol. Eight inch screen is passable, but no camera views is a deal breaker for me, especially after using them. The trail views were phenomenal at hitting a line with the wheels. At several points the rocks are only spaced enough to even fit a 35 inch tire, you gotta hit it just right, which on day 2 using the camera was easy as pie. Not so much with the 8 inch screen.

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Yeah, these trucks get off the road all day every day. It shows. Good to know they can handle it without breaking a sweat. In fact, after all of this, very little has happened to their test vehicles so far they mentioned. A door mirror was hit on a tree (not by an attendee) and was swapped on one of the non test unit display units so far. But nothing has broken on the trail itself from this roughhousing and the last video shows how much these go through at times.

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Badlands with the liner. BTW, the storage netting there, also on the driver side the same, held a 3.5 inch diameter water bottle with room to spare for those wondering what can fit in there. And even while off-roading and tossing it around, it stayed in there.

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Close up of the accessory hole. Looks like a standard camera mount screw, easy enough.

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Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Cottonmouth creek iirc, apparently they find a lot of snakes around the water area here from time to time (hence the name). The ground is very littered with sharp rocks, large rocks, and slippery when wet dirt that coats the rocks. So often the tire can slip on the rocks when a vehicles has gone before you wet. Seems obvious, but particularly changes your line when following so closely like this. Generally you proceed in 4 low for about 1.5 hours the first go, which is about 1.5 hours after the initial start of the event, so not long till you get to drive your own truck. Seen here following a 2 door Wildtrak with the soft top.

The following video was one of our first larger rock obstacles. The vehicle in this video is a Manual transmission vehicle in the group and was the first to go over the obstacles. The entire group is asked to leave their vehicles as we go over concepts of how to climb and as this video is shot go through the mental processes of thinking about the obstacle and what we might want to do to go over it. Most of the vehicles were asked to go over in different spots and the guests were asked to use the spotting techniques we learned earlier to guide the driver up and over.
Learning how to climb rocks
My Specific attempt working with the attendee spotter.

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Here we came to a pretty steep climb up the side of a very rocky hill, we are told to let the vehicle in front get halfway up before the next vehicle goes. Waiting my turn, we are told we should try the "trail control" feature if on our model and set to about 4mph. This feature I thought would be kind of silly, but ended up really liking the feature in the end. It was very good at maintaining that speed no matter what and easy to use. I was not as impressed with 1 pedal driving, but I can see why some would like that for certain situations. At the rate the Bronco would crawl, it was really nice to set a speed and leave it for long trails following others. Adjustable from 1mph up in .5 increments. If I remember correctly, this hill was about 45 degrees at the steepest spot I saw or noticed. Might have been more but there was a lot to look at and see when testing it.

All the above was day 1. A lot was covered and why day 1 is about 6 hours long give or take of actual off-road time and training.

Day 2 was a start with some good education about good off-roading and respecting our part to do what we can to preserve our ability to do so. Drive responsibly and with respect to the environment and those around us. Even Jeep guys, just kidding, but it was mentioned. Respect everyone out there, be a good example of what others should do, and do our part to educate others to not disrespect our right to be out there so that others can partake as well for years to come. Jonny (the lead trainer) knew I was keen to drive a Wildtrak 4 Door since my order is being built in August and was dying to try one out, so he mentioned I should take the white Wildtrak out for a go. I knew this was also the vehicle that Josh (our secondary trainer, but in no way lesser of course) preferred to drive as well. This was a complete awesome thing to have as well. Since I was attending solo, this also gave the opportunity for Josh to ride shotgun with me through the day when he wasn't spotting and pick his brain on some of those questions I had about the development of the Bronco. Josh has been working about 12 years with Ford Performance and key to the engineering on the Bronco platform. His knowledge on how it was developed was vast and mostly because I don't know his thoughts on what I am able to repeat, I will leave that for him to say anywhere he would like to say it. But know that there are a lot of things we hoped and wished for and a lot of what we speculate are those very reasons they are what they are, but many are not. I know he is still working on future development and I would never presume to try to pry that from anyone for obvious reasons, but I can say that I am happy it is people like him making sure companies like Ford get these things right. Thanks to engineers and people like him, I think the Bronco (ignoring delays and manufacturing itself) will be a worthwhile product to hopefully brings smiles to many.

I won't put many photos or videos here for day 2 because it was essentially about 3 hours of what we learned yesterday being applied to a good cruise around the various trails on the 350 acres.

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My Wildtrak for the day, YES! Giving it a once over and taking pictures of the outside for insurance purposes. To note, and this isnt fact but what I gathered from attending the event. "Damage" to the vehicle seems to be exactly that, damage to the vehicle. Mild scrapes on underbody protection, skid plates, bash plates, etc were par for the course. In general a smooth operation and paying attention to your surroundings should mean no one has to ever worry about the 75$, but as insurance goes, it is just that. If you are worried, please by all means pay, but I was confident I would listen to my instructors and follow as advised as much as humanely possible and avoid any issues, I did not pay personally.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

The camera views were great, and I had them on basically the entire time. Not perfect clearly, but very very close and much better than nothing by far. Also of quick note, the stereo, absolutely as good as I knew it would be. Perfect, no, but on par with "the upgraded factory stereos" of past from Ford and it didn't disappoint. Could it be better, yeah, especially if it had door speakers, but that adds a whole new can of worms. For me, it was about as good as the Sony upgraded stereo in my Ford Flex, and that was also good enough for me. If you want more, well, I am sure there will be more later.

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At times they will adjust the course paths (go right here instead of left) to do different things like this water area that shows a bit more of finding a good line into the water, being comfortable with the vehicle hitting tilts to it that are more severe and after this water area there is a large rock/hill climb that we are queueing for, hence the backing up of vehicles. The next area had a big breakover area that tests finding a good line to not scratch the underbody area. I was happy to make it through with no touching by watching my spotter and finding a good line to avoid any even minor scraping or rear bumper taps on the way off the rock by flowing gently off and controlling the throttle.

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Short break as I was the last to climb and others have been watching the attempts up the rock obstacles now behind me in this view. Just nice to see a lot of Broncos lined up, something I wont see for probably a while.

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Here we all stopped at the top of the hill to go over vehicle rescue techniques and concepts with rescue straps, strap locations, and conceptual education on vehicle rescue. Clearly this is a very large topic, but to undertake this by very knowledgeable trainers and experienced drivers on a picturesque hillside like this with a spectacular view of the course below was fantastic. To the right is a nice area where the property owner shoots sport targets at times, wish we could do that to, lol. It was great to have someone to just have a chat with about what to do and not to do when attempting to rescue another vehicle and that many new users were learning this as well.

I don't have any video of the "track" course we ran for obvious reasons, I was driving, but we were informed to stay below 25 mph, give about 12 truck lengths of following gap (which was leaving when the truck in front made the first left turn off the straight away) and keep under that speed limit the whole time and not bunch up. It was a twisty winding track course of I would estimate about 1.25 miles of track with lots of turns and places to get the tail a bit loose. I was VERY VERY fortunate to have the white Wildtrak and Josh (trainer) as my passenger. With his instruction and his guidance, he asked me to give more room in front of the vehicle in front before I took off because my guess is he knows I could handle some extra fun after watching me for 2 days and he would be there to help back me off when it was too far. The video below shows more why he does this and he is good at what he does. My experience is mostly with muscle cars around circuit tracks in New Zealand and high speed driving on road courses. Not dirt track running. We put the Wildtrak in Baja mode and set off. All the while he was pushing me and pushing me to give it some more which I did as instructed as much as I could bring myself to do, which as I got more familiar with, was easier to do. I did really start giving it a go and getting the tail happily out fast and loose, honestly reminding me a lot of the solid rear axle SN95 Mustangs and how happy they are to let the tail out controllably. Well, controllably for those that are accustomed to shaking the back end loose happily. Being that I was alone in my group, everyone lined up at the end to give it another go around, and luckily as I said, I was alone. Let's give it another go! Going through the paces again, I was happier to get the tail out far and wide and let the steering overshoot to the inside corner to bring it back to center. So much fun and as I told Josh, this alone was worth the event entirely, just to do that part. Of course, his response was "Wait till what is next!". He let me know to hang back a bit (also being the last truck all day) and U turn around to the middle of the 10 vehicles they were lining up to separate, and in the pouring rain we started to get ready for the fun runs in the video below. I was first to get in a turn since my vehicle was already lined up and Josh was getting in out of the pouring rain.

The following video is the end of the event. It was the last thing we get to do as some "fun time" runs with the lead trainers Jonny and Josh. They had 2 vehicles (a dark blue Badlands and a white Wildtrak) that ran run after run with the 10 groups of people to hold on for dear life and get some real smiles like one of the best rollercoasters. Now, some more context. Normally, they do this run topping out at about 50 mph or sometimes a little higher on a dry course, but about 10 minutes before we started our runs, the heavens finally opened up after threatening all day to rain with rain clouds and weather reports of thunderstorms and hell broke loose. Josh was driving the Wildtrak while Jonny was driving the dark blue Badlands. The camera does not do justice at all to the elevation changes in the track and the slipperiness of the tires in the now soaking mud (was never dry, so the least amount of water saturated it completely). So much mud was on the vehicles that the back doors started getting stuck shut between riders and having to shove them loose due to suction and mud getting into the truck rear compartment due to mud queueing on the fender flares.
Ford Bronco "Hot Lap" with professional driver Josh in the very wet.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

This picture does SOME justice to how much mud was on it, but realize when it was all done, we set off back to the main event center and this is after driving back about 5 minutes in the still pouring rain which was stopping just as we pulled up to the center. Looks really good with mud!

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Overall thoughts: I loved the experience despite worrying it would be so basic and not worthwhile. I am no expert as I have said at the onset, but I am a car/truck person and this was a really good way to get some time in the seat of one of the most capable vehicles I have ever had the pleasure to drive. Is it perfect, far from it, but is it worth it, in my humble opinion, very much so. I would highly recommend anyone even considering one of these, to try out the event. Having the concept I had going into it, would I travel far for it, I am not sure, but knowing what I know now, yeah, probably would travel far. If you can, bring one guest at minimum so that they can at least see what you see. So many that came with not much enthusiasm were having the biggest smiles. It will convert you if you are on the fence for sure. A huge shout out to the trainers Jonny and Josh for all the hard work they put in day in and day out to give us a chance to see what they see all the time. Also a huge shout out to Ari who was a trainee trainer learning to do what Jonny and Josh are doing. She was a great spotter and very helpful and cheerful about everything.

I asked a few times about future plans to allow those that take delivery to come back with their Bronco and indications seem to point to this may be in the cards someday soon. For now, it is only for vehicle owners and those with orders, at least at this location. I am so glad I got to drive both the Badlands (which I worried was what I should have gotten) and the Wildtrak. I don't think either one after driving them both is a deal breaker. And more solidified that both trainers are getting Wildtraks as well as the run in the mud with one. I also saw from the trails that really, ANY of the Bronco models can do all what we did in those 2 days and frankly that is a lot for so little, most times in even just 4 Low and no hero switches enabled at all. A couple of the vehicles were not on 35s either and handled the terrain just fine. I can honestly say if anything, attending made it easier for me to wait (though I was decently patient before), but knowing now after driving it in real life cemented my knowledge that the vehicle is a great decision and I will love it. Oh, while still on my mind, a few of the vehicles had the tube steps and they didnt become an issue in all that we were doing. That was good to know they clear all that we played with on the weekend. If they hit something, you are generally doing something a lot more severe or you may need to gauge a better approach. Loved the entire event, great work Ford, the Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo team, and all that went into making this happen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_20210704_124013

Great post, and thanks!!

I'm signed up for the Off-roadeo in mid-August with my son, and really looking forward to it - more so after your detailed account. I live in Austin and so motorcycled to the ranch last Saturday to see if I could get a glimpse. Was able to get my first sight of a Bronco and was really thrilled when the folks at the desk told me to go ahead and check out couple of the Broncos that were parked outside (even though I wasn't signed up to drive that day) after I'd signed a release form.

I'm a Day 2 reservation - 4DR AMB BL 7MT Non-SAS - and comparing different builds parked side-by-side gave me a good feel for the size, dimensions, and interior. I was able to sit in a squatched Black Big Bend and a non-squatched AMB Badlands. Let me tell ya, I liked what I saw! Strictly my opinion, but I loved the AMB and the 33" tires looked great on the Badlands.

Don't have a build date yet, but hoping it'll be Sep or Oct. Meanwhile looking forward to the actual Off-roadeo drive in mid-August....
 

79BKO

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Great write up! Thanks for all this. We will be attending in a couple of weeks.
 

CarolinaKristi

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I just wanted to stop in and give some photos and video of my experience at the recent attendance to the Off-Roadeo event in Horseshoe Bay, TX.

Who am I, an auto enthusiast with no affiliation other than a passion for most things automotive much like many average customers out there. I am by no means an off-road expert and most of my practical experience comes from muscle car ownership and drag racing. My technical knowledge only comes from what I learned from others, posted internet content, and limited off-roading in any capacity that would be even moderately severe. I have no interest in rock crawling, but overlanding and camping are more my desire for this vehicle. I enjoy getting out there with friends and family around a camp fire and just enjoying nature responsibly. If you want a clean approach and no spoilers to the event, I would stop reading now, I will be as thorough as my recollection allows 1 day after the event.

Attending the event is pretty straight forward from the GPS pin location they provide and they have a handy "turn here" indication for you to look out for when finding the location, trust the push pin, it is dead on the spot for the entrance as out there, there are so many ranch entrances you can easily get confused, but the push pin location is dead center on the entrance, stray no further to get there. Parking is adequate as they tend to not have too many planned guests at any one time and shouldnt be an issue if you are driving there directly. The location is iirc roughly a bit more than 350 acres of property, so there will be somewhere to park I can assure you.

Upon arriving and parking, head towards the easily distinguished main building and in through the tinted sliding or opening glass doors, where in the center you will be greeted at the check-in registration desk. There you will sign your forms for the event and given a few details on what it going to happen that day. You will be given a colored bracelet for your group color if you are a driver, but guests and non-drivers are given a different color to indicate they are not the main attendee. In practice, does this mean only the main attendee can drive, absolutely not, but it does designate that you and your guests will share a vehicle and can at times swap drivers through the 2 day event. The main building holds the registration area, relaxing area after and before the event with chairs and fire pits, eating area, restrooms for both men and women kept pretty tidy, a merchandise store area (caps, shirts, Yeti items like mugs/cups/bottles, and some misc Bronco swag gear, and a Bronco Outer Banks models on some rocks in a display. Getting this part out of the way as well, approx. 150 Full sized Broncos were ordered for the event locations starting with the Austin location. There are about 54 Broncos on location at the Austin site including the Bronco Sports. According to the person who ordered the vehicles, he made attempts to order the vehicles in such a way as to get a varied sampling, while not hitting a whole lot of constrained items (as much as he could avoid and still have the course vehicle) as to avoid as much as possible from impacting customer vehicle wait times. This is why at times you may see Broncos with configurations you couldnt get in your own hands because they modified it to limit that impact. In other words, don't base your knowledge completely on how you see these vehicles because they are preproduction, may not have the final versions of those parts, may not be the final colors, and may have already been changed several times since these parts. For instance, the White Wildtrak I drove had the very early tacked on sasquatch bumper winglets that look very tacked on and cheap, while other Wildtrak models had the newer version of the bumpers that included the portion extensions on them that looked a lot more integrated.

Most of what you see is a timeline of when the event took place, but might be very slightly out of order, though I think I got it right. I give my thoughts on what was happening there and what I observed from my perspective. All of the linked items are videos I shot from the attendee perspective.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Registration desk

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Outer banks display unit (pre-production)

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Main Entrance, this shot taken about 50 feet in from the turn in. To my right though out of camera is sitting the sign that indicates to turn into this area. The sign ahead says turn right for the event location area and parking. Parking is just out of view over the ridge here on the right.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

View from just in front of the parking area where there is a roundabout. Event main building on the right here and there is a group preparing to head out after a brief orientation and group introductions from the trainers and attendees. The Broncos seen on the left are staged for after the off-road initial basic orientation and fundamentals of off-road, the basics of vehicle approach/departure angles, etc, and some basic facts about the vehicle capabilities (this stage starts at the Blue Bronco [yes I know their real colors but that is gonna get tedious real fast if I use the real color names every time I reference a Bronco in shot, just go with it] seen directly dead center in this shot slightly pointed in the air on the rocks). There is a canvas covered area there that gives some modest shade. I will point out here, that YES, it will very very likely be hot and very very likely be humid, drink plenty of water with the provided Yeti water bottle and fill it regularly as they have cold water Yeti coolers throughout the event area. Afterwards, you will be heading to the far left of this shot to be introduced to more concepts like seating position, camera views on the dash cameras (with the 12 inch screen), how to locate obstacles in front, trail turn assist feature, sway bar disconnect feature, and overall basic vehicle handling, spotter commands, and the site functions.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

The blue Bronco referenced above where the initial "ORX" orientation, second portion of the journey, took place. Referenced as the "Sluice Box" onsite.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Getting up in the air with the sway bar disconnected, the vehicle was pushed with a few fingers forward or back on balance and learning how to deal with tires that have traction and the "hero switches". Also, a big note, the camera does not easily convey just how steep or large the obstacles are. The Bronco is showing to be very capable and in person on inclines of as tested even 30 degrees or more with casual users, this is a basic course, but also shows what the vehicle even with a basic understanding of off-road techniques can do. Kudos Ford and Bronco.

All of the following videos are uploaded unedited or changed from their original shooting. This is not a review, only a sample of some of the content seen while in attendance of the Off-roadeo event. All content if property of their respective owners and I am by no means saying any that they say is fact, only that I am representing it here for an idea of what to expect when attending and the kind of testing you might experience.

The following video is just one of the attendees who has absolutely no experience "volunteering" to be one the first to drive within the group. Good sport.
Bronco Basics and Articulation

The following video is a demonstration of one of the attendees trying out the trail turn assist feature just after coming out of the water way for basics of water fording. Of note, the event goes over proper usages of water fording and when and why to do it. I really loved that the event trainers put a lot of emphasis on responsible off-roading and to avoid water at almost all costs because it is very detrimental to the ecosystem when done improperly. It can kill a lot of wildlife with chemicals off the vehicle, destruction of habitat itself, and of course animals. To note, almost all the bodies of water on this entire property are just spill ways created for the course or surveyed by the water ecological surveyors for proper usage of water controls, contamination, and effects on the local wildlife prior to any vehicle usages. I am very happy that they took the time to think it through and not just do things because they can.
Bronco Trail Turn Assist feature

The following video goes over the trail control feature which helps with hill climbs and even reversals which was something I didn't see very many say anything about. The ability to control your reversing off a hill is actually a pretty good feature for safety on say a climb that you ended up not being able to complete.
Bronco Trail Control feature training and usage


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Yes, you can just unscrew the antenna and just take it off, good, because I really didn't like the look of it whipping around. I will never use the radio anyway.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Marine grade vinyl seats, and the inside of my Badlands for the day. I was very happy to try out a Badlands versus my Wildtrak order, but was super keen to get some Wildtrak time in before the event completed. You do get 1 vehicle for each day you have to sign off on before and after for damage. Of note, and I asked this, to date, had anyone "damaged" a vehicle and the answer was "no". Not in the 2 weeks the event has been running with about 2 groups of ~10 (15 to 20 people as not all attendees are in front of the vehicle at all times) drivers. I was alone as my wife couldn't make the event, but was okay with that. The MGV was softer than I expected, even after being told it was softer than others expected. It felt a lot more like leather than I was thinking, so most will be happy with that. To be honest, I might have preferred a more solid MGV feel, but I am sure they thought about that for longer term hauls and comfort. The interior was what I expected, good enough, but not so good I had to worry about the textures and what they would be like in 20 years. They seem durable and that they will last. Something I am more interested in and ease of cleaning then their soft feels. I was more taken by how much smaller it felt inside even compared to my Ford Flex. It was more cramped then I expected, even for a 6 foot tall 300 lb guy, but not so much that it was bad, just not expected. Especially after seeing the outside. The unit appears bigger than it is, I think based on flares, 35 inch tires, etc. I could have used maybe an extra inch of clearance on the left and the right seemed alright. I was also very surprised the doors were very thin, but also expected that based on weight of them and their removal. My Badlands had the 8 inch screen which I can honestly say was not good enough at all in my opinion. Screens looked squished together and not as ideal for reaching than the 12 inch (I got to use the 2nd day). This unit is clearly dirty from all the dust and debris, which they wash the vehicles after every use (COVID spray inside and out for 8 minutes, then a wipe on seating and hand surfaces and occasional vacuum and floor washes, while outside of the vehicle gets a full wash after every group run). Makes complete sense. These vehicles are used quite a bit. My unit had just under 2000 miles on it already and the others were within a few hundred miles of each other it seemed. These units do see quite a bit of abuse even based on 2 days of me in them, I am pleased to see how good they look still. The fuel read 50 miles to empty from a full tank, which is laughable, but understand these units almost never see upwards of 20mph and almost never leave 4 low gearing. Both of my test units were the 10 speed auto and 2.7 liter engines. There are that I noted at least 3 manuals onsite, and it seems 1 or 2 in each group possible, so if you want to try a manual, let them know, but I saw and they mentioned the manual was usually the last to be picked in the lineup. And the ordering shows that autos are largely being ordered over manuals even with the 2.7 limit on them atm. I can totally see why as well. With the way the vehicle is setup, braking, and capability, the auto was so capable I barely missed it at all. When the vehicle crawls forward SOOOOO slowly you can crawl next to it and keep up. The engine always seems to be in the power band for lifting the vehicle up and over an obstacle that it was hardly a concern. I am very pleased with my auto purchase after owning manuals more times in my life then not, and I thought I would miss it in this even when climbing real rock faces, but I found myself forgetting it was an auto in at least off-roading so far. There are no paved street testing at all on this event as it is strictly off-road play, but you do get a chance to get them up to a little bit of speed in an off-road course at the near end of the event when you have learned everything you have learned.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Just another close view of the MGV seats, starting to make out the textures. Much softer than they seem to the touch.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Warm super humid day as thunderstorms were predicted for the entire 2 days I had scheduled, thankfully, they don't ever cancel they said. Unless it was near hurricane and tornadoes, lol. Eight inch screen is passable, but no camera views is a deal breaker for me, especially after using them. The trail views were phenomenal at hitting a line with the wheels. At several points the rocks are only spaced enough to even fit a 35 inch tire, you gotta hit it just right, which on day 2 using the camera was easy as pie. Not so much with the 8 inch screen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Yeah, these trucks get off the road all day every day. It shows. Good to know they can handle it without breaking a sweat. In fact, after all of this, very little has happened to their test vehicles so far they mentioned. A door mirror was hit on a tree (not by an attendee) and was swapped on one of the non test unit display units so far. But nothing has broken on the trail itself from this roughhousing and the last video shows how much these go through at times.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Badlands with the liner. BTW, the storage netting there, also on the driver side the same, held a 3.5 inch diameter water bottle with room to spare for those wondering what can fit in there. And even while off-roading and tossing it around, it stayed in there.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Close up of the accessory hole. Looks like a standard camera mount screw, easy enough.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Cottonmouth creek iirc, apparently they find a lot of snakes around the water area here from time to time (hence the name). The ground is very littered with sharp rocks, large rocks, and slippery when wet dirt that coats the rocks. So often the tire can slip on the rocks when a vehicles has gone before you wet. Seems obvious, but particularly changes your line when following so closely like this. Generally you proceed in 4 low for about 1.5 hours the first go, which is about 1.5 hours after the initial start of the event, so not long till you get to drive your own truck. Seen here following a 2 door Wildtrak with the soft top.

The following video was one of our first larger rock obstacles. The vehicle in this video is a Manual transmission vehicle in the group and was the first to go over the obstacles. The entire group is asked to leave their vehicles as we go over concepts of how to climb and as this video is shot go through the mental processes of thinking about the obstacle and what we might want to do to go over it. Most of the vehicles were asked to go over in different spots and the guests were asked to use the spotting techniques we learned earlier to guide the driver up and over.
Learning how to climb rocks
My Specific attempt working with the attendee spotter.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Here we came to a pretty steep climb up the side of a very rocky hill, we are told to let the vehicle in front get halfway up before the next vehicle goes. Waiting my turn, we are told we should try the "trail control" feature if on our model and set to about 4mph. This feature I thought would be kind of silly, but ended up really liking the feature in the end. It was very good at maintaining that speed no matter what and easy to use. I was not as impressed with 1 pedal driving, but I can see why some would like that for certain situations. At the rate the Bronco would crawl, it was really nice to set a speed and leave it for long trails following others. Adjustable from 1mph up in .5 increments. If I remember correctly, this hill was about 45 degrees at the steepest spot I saw or noticed. Might have been more but there was a lot to look at and see when testing it.

All the above was day 1. A lot was covered and why day 1 is about 6 hours long give or take of actual off-road time and training.

Day 2 was a start with some good education about good off-roading and respecting our part to do what we can to preserve our ability to do so. Drive responsibly and with respect to the environment and those around us. Even Jeep guys, just kidding, but it was mentioned. Respect everyone out there, be a good example of what others should do, and do our part to educate others to not disrespect our right to be out there so that others can partake as well for years to come. Jonny (the lead trainer) knew I was keen to drive a Wildtrak 4 Door since my order is being built in August and was dying to try one out, so he mentioned I should take the white Wildtrak out for a go. I knew this was also the vehicle that Josh (our secondary trainer, but in no way lesser of course) preferred to drive as well. This was a complete awesome thing to have as well. Since I was attending solo, this also gave the opportunity for Josh to ride shotgun with me through the day when he wasn't spotting and pick his brain on some of those questions I had about the development of the Bronco. Josh has been working about 12 years with Ford Performance and key to the engineering on the Bronco platform. His knowledge on how it was developed was vast and mostly because I don't know his thoughts on what I am able to repeat, I will leave that for him to say anywhere he would like to say it. But know that there are a lot of things we hoped and wished for and a lot of what we speculate are those very reasons they are what they are, but many are not. I know he is still working on future development and I would never presume to try to pry that from anyone for obvious reasons, but I can say that I am happy it is people like him making sure companies like Ford get these things right. Thanks to engineers and people like him, I think the Bronco (ignoring delays and manufacturing itself) will be a worthwhile product to hopefully brings smiles to many.

I won't put many photos or videos here for day 2 because it was essentially about 3 hours of what we learned yesterday being applied to a good cruise around the various trails on the 350 acres.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

My Wildtrak for the day, YES! Giving it a once over and taking pictures of the outside for insurance purposes. To note, and this isnt fact but what I gathered from attending the event. "Damage" to the vehicle seems to be exactly that, damage to the vehicle. Mild scrapes on underbody protection, skid plates, bash plates, etc were par for the course. In general a smooth operation and paying attention to your surroundings should mean no one has to ever worry about the 75$, but as insurance goes, it is just that. If you are worried, please by all means pay, but I was confident I would listen to my instructors and follow as advised as much as humanely possible and avoid any issues, I did not pay personally.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

The camera views were great, and I had them on basically the entire time. Not perfect clearly, but very very close and much better than nothing by far. Also of quick note, the stereo, absolutely as good as I knew it would be. Perfect, no, but on par with "the upgraded factory stereos" of past from Ford and it didn't disappoint. Could it be better, yeah, especially if it had door speakers, but that adds a whole new can of worms. For me, it was about as good as the Sony upgraded stereo in my Ford Flex, and that was also good enough for me. If you want more, well, I am sure there will be more later.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

At times they will adjust the course paths (go right here instead of left) to do different things like this water area that shows a bit more of finding a good line into the water, being comfortable with the vehicle hitting tilts to it that are more severe and after this water area there is a large rock/hill climb that we are queueing for, hence the backing up of vehicles. The next area had a big breakover area that tests finding a good line to not scratch the underbody area. I was happy to make it through with no touching by watching my spotter and finding a good line to avoid any even minor scraping or rear bumper taps on the way off the rock by flowing gently off and controlling the throttle.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Short break as I was the last to climb and others have been watching the attempts up the rock obstacles now behind me in this view. Just nice to see a lot of Broncos lined up, something I wont see for probably a while.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

Here we all stopped at the top of the hill to go over vehicle rescue techniques and concepts with rescue straps, strap locations, and conceptual education on vehicle rescue. Clearly this is a very large topic, but to undertake this by very knowledgeable trainers and experienced drivers on a picturesque hillside like this with a spectacular view of the course below was fantastic. To the right is a nice area where the property owner shoots sport targets at times, wish we could do that to, lol. It was great to have someone to just have a chat with about what to do and not to do when attempting to rescue another vehicle and that many new users were learning this as well.

I don't have any video of the "track" course we ran for obvious reasons, I was driving, but we were informed to stay below 25 mph, give about 12 truck lengths of following gap (which was leaving when the truck in front made the first left turn off the straight away) and keep under that speed limit the whole time and not bunch up. It was a twisty winding track course of I would estimate about 1.25 miles of track with lots of turns and places to get the tail a bit loose. I was VERY VERY fortunate to have the white Wildtrak and Josh (trainer) as my passenger. With his instruction and his guidance, he asked me to give more room in front of the vehicle in front before I took off because my guess is he knows I could handle some extra fun after watching me for 2 days and he would be there to help back me off when it was too far. The video below shows more why he does this and he is good at what he does. My experience is mostly with muscle cars around circuit tracks in New Zealand and high speed driving on road courses. Not dirt track running. We put the Wildtrak in Baja mode and set off. All the while he was pushing me and pushing me to give it some more which I did as instructed as much as I could bring myself to do, which as I got more familiar with, was easier to do. I did really start giving it a go and getting the tail happily out fast and loose, honestly reminding me a lot of the solid rear axle SN95 Mustangs and how happy they are to let the tail out controllably. Well, controllably for those that are accustomed to shaking the back end loose happily. Being that I was alone in my group, everyone lined up at the end to give it another go around, and luckily as I said, I was alone. Let's give it another go! Going through the paces again, I was happier to get the tail out far and wide and let the steering overshoot to the inside corner to bring it back to center. So much fun and as I told Josh, this alone was worth the event entirely, just to do that part. Of course, his response was "Wait till what is next!". He let me know to hang back a bit (also being the last truck all day) and U turn around to the middle of the 10 vehicles they were lining up to separate, and in the pouring rain we started to get ready for the fun runs in the video below. I was first to get in a turn since my vehicle was already lined up and Josh was getting in out of the pouring rain.

The following video is the end of the event. It was the last thing we get to do as some "fun time" runs with the lead trainers Jonny and Josh. They had 2 vehicles (a dark blue Badlands and a white Wildtrak) that ran run after run with the 10 groups of people to hold on for dear life and get some real smiles like one of the best rollercoasters. Now, some more context. Normally, they do this run topping out at about 50 mph or sometimes a little higher on a dry course, but about 10 minutes before we started our runs, the heavens finally opened up after threatening all day to rain with rain clouds and weather reports of thunderstorms and hell broke loose. Josh was driving the Wildtrak while Jonny was driving the dark blue Badlands. The camera does not do justice at all to the elevation changes in the track and the slipperiness of the tires in the now soaking mud (was never dry, so the least amount of water saturated it completely). So much mud was on the vehicles that the back doors started getting stuck shut between riders and having to shove them loose due to suction and mud getting into the truck rear compartment due to mud queueing on the fender flares.
Ford Bronco "Hot Lap" with professional driver Josh in the very wet.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG

This picture does SOME justice to how much mud was on it, but realize when it was all done, we set off back to the main event center and this is after driving back about 5 minutes in the still pouring rain which was stopping just as we pulled up to the center. Looks really good with mud!

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG




Overall thoughts: I loved the experience despite worrying it would be so basic and not worthwhile. I am no expert as I have said at the onset, but I am a car/truck person and this was a really good way to get some time in the seat of one of the most capable vehicles I have ever had the pleasure to drive. Is it perfect, far from it, but is it worth it, in my humble opinion, very much so. I would highly recommend anyone even considering one of these, to try out the event. Having the concept I had going into it, would I travel far for it, I am not sure, but knowing what I know now, yeah, probably would travel far. If you can, bring one guest at minimum so that they can at least see what you see. So many that came with not much enthusiasm were having the biggest smiles. It will convert you if you are on the fence for sure. A huge shout out to the trainers Jonny and Josh for all the hard work they put in day in and day out to give us a chance to see what they see all the time. Also a huge shout out to Ari who was a trainee trainer learning to do what Jonny and Josh are doing. She was a great spotter and very helpful and cheerful about everything.

I asked a few times about future plans to allow those that take delivery to come back with their Bronco and indications seem to point to this may be in the cards someday soon. For now, it is only for vehicle owners and those with orders, at least at this location. I am so glad I got to drive both the Badlands (which I worried was what I should have gotten) and the Wildtrak. I don't think either one after driving them both is a deal breaker. And more solidified that both trainers are getting Wildtraks as well as the run in the mud with one. I also saw from the trails that really, ANY of the Bronco models can do all what we did in those 2 days and frankly that is a lot for so little, most times in even just 4 Low and no hero switches enabled at all. A couple of the vehicles were not on 35s either and handled the terrain just fine. I can honestly say if anything, attending made it easier for me to wait (though I was decently patient before), but knowing now after driving it in real life cemented my knowledge that the vehicle is a great decision and I will love it. Oh, while still on my mind, a few of the vehicles had the tube steps and they didnt become an issue in all that we were doing. That was good to know they clear all that we played with on the weekend. If they hit something, you are generally doing something a lot more severe or you may need to gauge a better approach. Loved the entire event, great work Ford, the Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo team, and all that went into making this happen.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us! I'm a total novice and have always been the passenger while we're 4-wheelin. Super excited to learn some basics! My order ia for a Big Bend but you really make me want to upgrade to a Wild track! I'm still waiting on my VIN and build date but these videos help remind me that it's worth the wait!
 

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Mickey21

Mickey21

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Great post, and thanks!!

I'm signed up for the Off-roadeo in mid-August with my son, and really looking forward to it - more so after your detailed account. I live in Austin and so motorcycled to the ranch last Saturday to see if I could get a glimpse. Was able to get my first sight of a Bronco and was really thrilled when the folks at the desk told me to go ahead and check out couple of the Broncos that were parked outside (even though I wasn't signed up to drive that day) after I'd signed a release form.

I'm a Day 2 reservation - 4DR AMB BL 7MT Non-SAS - and comparing different builds parked side-by-side gave me a good feel for the size, dimensions, and interior. I was able to sit in a squatched Black Big Bend and a non-squatched AMB Badlands. Let me tell ya, I liked what I saw! Strictly my opinion, but I loved the AMB and the 33" tires looked great on the Badlands.

Don't have a build date yet, but hoping it'll be Sep or Oct. Meanwhile looking forward to the actual Off-roadeo drive in mid-August....
Absolutely, the people there are so friendly and inviting! Glad you got to take a look, you will love it I am sure!
 
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Mickey21

Mickey21

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Awesome review - I was in your group! - Here are a couple offroad videos -




Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG
Awesome to meet you there, thanks for adding more pictures as well! Such a great couple of days! Hopefully we meet back up again some time when the trucks get here and we can all start going out there in the wild and group events!
 
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Mickey21

Mickey21

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Great post. I attended on 7/4 and 7/5. Here are some photos from my visit.

Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG


Ford Bronco Extensive writeup: My Bronco Off-Roadeo experience with some photos and videos on 7/3-7/4 IMG_3954.JPEG
Lol, yes you did too, I am IN one of your pictures, hahaha! Great experience, can't say enough about the trainers! Great people!
 
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Mickey21

Mickey21

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Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us! I'm a total novice and have always been the passenger while we're 4-wheelin. Super excited to learn some basics! My order ia for a Big Bend but you really make me want to upgrade to a Wild track! I'm still waiting on my VIN and build date but these videos help remind me that it's worth the wait!
You're welcome! I tried to break down what the experience was like and hopefully help someone on the fence of whether they should go and relieve any stress a novice might have on going. At the end of the event, there was an attendee probably very much like yourself who didnt want to get mud on her shoes and rained on and a little nervous about going on the "fun time" run with the trainers. I sat in the truck with her because my Wildtrak was being used for the runs to be out of the rain and urged her to "just do it!" she would regret it if she didnt and what other opportunity she has to do something like this! Well, thankfully as the last run was about to take place, she went for it and she LOVED it so much!

I want to stress to everyone out there, if you are a novice or an expert that just wants a chance to drive the Bronco, do the event. It will reinforce what you know, thought you knew, or just plain put a smile on your face. Something for everyone!
 

The Memedalorian

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Thank you for sharing all of this! It looks like a heckuva good time.

And as an aside, it's nice to finally start to see photos of these Bronco events without people wearing any ridiculous masks.
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