Hawk Pride Off Road Park is a wonderful new addition to the many parks in Alabama. They have well over 30 trails ranging from easy to insane as well as adding and upgrading the camping facilities and trails continuously. Broke Foot is there most famous trail, an obstacle trail for the very well built. During a tour of the park with owner Mark Smith we came to a gnarly rock garden that we detoured around, I ask why and Mark told me the thirty yard section would take us half an hour to cross, we were in a V-8, 6.0L powered YJ with Rockwell’s and 44’s. This park truly has pure crawler trails as well as great trail riding trails with spectacular views of the valleys below. We toured in October and the fall is a great time to visit, with its stunning orange and red colors.

In its second year Hawk Pride became host to the first Free Rock Nationals competition, and did not disappoint with competitors going all out despite a tornado warning during the event. Setting the bar for the rest of the season, wheel stands, role overs, and hard throttle launches were everywhere. In a competition series where impressing the crowd is what gets the win, competitors continually raise the level of competition. We had one “bomber” inter though it only ran the first and third obstacles. A D-50 dodge with no bed and a driver with no fear of heights, Josh Rohling, took this truck and his Yota buggy to first place. The Role Tide truck belonging to simply “Steve” took second and should have taken an award for “most breakage while still finishing and event”. Steve lost his stub shaft and hub on obstacle two, as well as his harmonic balancer and front drive shaft on obstacle three. His response was just to hit the obstacles harder in two wheel drive than he would in four wheel drive. The event went over with great success, the crowd got a great show and the competitors were a part of a whole new kind of off road competition.

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