Top of the World
At the top of the hillclimb, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the towns of Hollister and San Juan Bautista. From here, we spent hours exploring the mountainous trails that forced us to lock each and every locking differential available. Off-camber climbs, steep low-range descents, skid-plate-testing ridges, and treacherous rockcrawling washes were like hurdles we had to run in slow motion, one after another. Vehicles like the long-wheelbase Titan were making plenty of noise as the rocks, logs, and debris scraped and banged the undercarriage skidplating. Some of the trails, just fine for a full-size SUV, were barely as wide as the Hummer H1, causing its driver to comment that this was the first time he'd been so far out in the boonies yet felt so claustrophobic, with brush and trees constantly chafing both sides of the vehicle. The vehicle that seemed to have the easiest time was the G55, because of its narrow width, tall stance, good ground clearance, three locking diffs, and a silky smooth five-speed transmission you can use like an automatic or manual. All surviving the trail ride, we took a few last-light photos to close out our day.
Stopwatch Simple--shut off all the power-robbing computer controls (that we could) and see how the vehicles handle a standing start in sand. Old-school horsepower and technology helped a lot. It turned out to be a healthy distance shorter than a quarter-mile and this was the only event the GX 470 couldn't compete in. Not surprisingly, big tires did well here.
Headed for Sand
There are only a handful of places in the U.S. where you can drive on sand dunes or sand areas of any size. One such place, and another excellent spot to test our vehicles' four-wheel-drive systems, is the Oceano Dunes SVRA, about three hours north of Los Angeles, on the central coast of California. The 15,000-acre complex is open for overnight camping, ATV riding, sandrails, motorcycles, and 4x4s. Unfortunately, on the afternoon we arrived, there seemed to be gale-force winds coming off the ocean (almost like the ones we had on the highway canyons two days earlier), forcefully blowing fine particles of sand into every personal and vehicular crevice imaginable. Although it took most of us a little while to figure out that driving on sand was different than rocks or mud or hillclimbs, eventually we all started to keep our eyes open for hard-pack sand, we always parked downhill, didn't use our brakes much, and got out to air down the tires (all except for the H1, where its driver could control his tire pressures from inside). A wider footprint stays on the sand, and doesn't dig a hole. The vehicles with bigger, high-profile tires like the H1, H2, and Nissan Titan did exceptionally well because of their large tire contact patch (especially after taking out about 10 to 15 pounds of tire pressure). Those vehicles with low-profile tires like the Range Rover (255/55R19) and G55 (285/55R19) had to use brute horsepower to keep their tires on top of the sand, because even airing down didn't bring any more tire to the sand.
Scoring Tallies
| No weightings. No consensus. Just numbers. | | First | 10 points | | Second | 9 | | Third | 8 | | Fourth | 7 | | Fifth | 6 | | Sixth | 5 | | Seventh | 4 | | Nobody gets fewer than four points, even if they don't compete. |
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Red Flag Drop
For our final contest, we set up a straight drag run: about 1000 feet long, down one hill and up another. The Hummer H2 did very well at 13.56 seconds, mainly because it has a traction-control switch that allows the driver to select whether or not he wants to allow more or less wheelslip. In "more spin" mode, it will allow the 300 horses to move the wheels and tires quickly without any interference from the throttle control or brake system. In other cases like the Lexus and Range Rover, there is no way to fully defeat the electronics that pull out engine speed or wheelslip when on sand. Even in the G55, when ESP and traction control are turned "off," there's still a program in there working to keep you safe from yourself. Highlights in our Sand Drag run were the Hummer H1 beating the Range Rover by 0.2 second, and the H2 beating the G55 by 0.13 second. But the winner of our sand race, by a healthy margin, was the big-motored/big-tired/basic-tech Nissan Titan (with a "traction-control off" button, which seemed to work) that was able to get the power to the sand-gobbling tires to scoot the truck across the finish line in 12.0 seconds flat--more than a second and a half faster than second place.