As much as I love watching supercars pace the Nordschleife, I like watching off-roaders tear up sand dunes and prickly desert trails even more.
It's not because I'm an off-roader myself, but because there's something magical about watching man-made gear battle it out against one of Mother Nature's harshest, most primal environments.
Watching dust, sand and dirt fly everywhere against a dynamic natural landscape just makes for great video.
And when the man-made gear packs a monstrous Nelson Racing engine with 1,800 horsepower, the video is that much better.
As Autoblog points out, Nelson Racing Engines has been in the auto blogosphere lately in conjunction with the TranStar Dagger GT. While we wait to see what--if anything--Transtar Racing does with its 9.4-liter Nelson engine, a Nelson team has made a beyond-suped dune buggy with its 7.0-liter twin-turbo LSX V-8 engine worth 1,800 horsepower. The crew then took the four-seat buggie, built for Bobby Alexander, to the Oceano Dunes Area in Pismo Beach, California.
Blonde in the back seat, 1,800 horsepower engine behind her, and rolling sand in front--that's the recipe for a great afternoon, not to mention wheelies, big air and laughs galore. Fourteen minutes is longer than I typically like to stare at an LCD screen, but this one is well worth the effort.