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While show cars fight to sit lowest, one scene builds trucks to leave the ground entirely. Prerunners are made to fly across the desert at speed, chasing the wild spirit of off road racing whether or not they ever compete.

Scouting the Course

The name tells the story. In desert racing, teams drive the course before the event to learn it, in a truck built for the job. That truck is the prerunner, and its style became a whole scene.

The look and the engineering come straight from the toughest off road races on the planet, above all the legendary Baja 1000 down in Mexico.

Long Travel Is King

The heart of a prerunner is suspension travel. These trucks run long travel setups that let the wheels move huge distances up and down, soaking up jumps, ruts and rough desert at frightening speed.

That travel lets a prerunner sail over terrain that would destroy a normal truck. Big shocks, reinforced arms and strong mounts handle the punishment. Landing a jump smoothly is the goal.

Light and Tough

Prerunners often wear fibreglass body panels to save weight and shrug off damage. Bracing and cages add strength where it counts. The build focuses on being light, durable and able to take a beating.

Popular bases include midsize and full size pickups, from older Ford Rangers to modern factory desert trucks. Some are home built on a budget, others are professional machines worth a fortune.

The Baja Spirit

Even prerunners that never enter a race carry the racing spirit. Owners build them to blast down desert trails and dirt roads for the pure thrill of speed over rough ground.

That connection to Baja gives the scene its soul. Every long travel truck is a tribute to the drivers who tackle one of the hardest races anywhere, flat out through the desert for hundreds of miles.

Freedom at Speed

Prerunners offer a kind of freedom few scenes match. Wide open desert, a capable truck and the ability to go fast where there are no roads at all. It is off road culture at its most thrilling.

Where other scenes polish and pose, the prerunner exists to be driven hard through dust and air. Built to fly and made to take a hit, it captures the raw joy of racing the desert. Foot down, wheels up.

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Prerunner: Built to Fly Over the Desert