This Explorer has quite the story! It all started as a stock as they always do, but had been rolled over. It still ran great and we could see the potential. My brother bought it from another Explorer fanatic that had plans for it, but just didn't have the time. I had developed a taste for local tuff truck racing in a little 6-7 race series here in Mid-Missouri. My first races were at the end of 2010 in just a beater Ranger for fun after hearing about the event. That got me hooked and for 2011 series I had built a Reg Cab Orange Ranger with a 5.0, 5spd, Duff Longarm kit and built an interior cage my 1st cage work 
The truck was a blast, I raced several races and brought home quite a few trophies and cash. Near the end of the season not even during a race, just out playing on the farm, driving in a flat field running some hot laps I rolled the Ranger in a corner. It still drove and finished out the series, but my frame was getting really tweaked and I was itching for a crawler again. I took the drivetrain from the Ranger and built my previous 97 Explorer Sport which was in the previous FourWheeler Mag article. I'm getting off track LOL but trying to explain how this all happened. So back to really liking tuff truck racing, my brother had bought this explorer and due to time constraints I did not have time to completely build another truck to race for 2012, so he set this up for me to race. The deal was he would haul it to the races, I would show up and drive it as hard as I could! Any winnings, which 1st paid $500 I would just give him the money minus my entry fees. Wow this worked great, cause I just enjoyed doing it. So he got everything ready and I built the cage actually using parts leftover from the cage that was in my Ranger previously. He did all maintance and I got to basically have a sponser to race and do what I enjoyed. It worked out great, I can't rememebr but I pulled in $2000-3000 for him that summer racing the truck. You might ask why he doesn't race, well we always joke around, but his luck just never works out and he is not good with jumps. Also years ago previous back injury so doesn't want to upset his back. The truck was tuff!!! It was pretty much a stock Explorer Sport, with custom longarms home brewed, 2 in lift coils, 3.73 gears, welded rear, front c-clip eliminator and spicer 5-760x Joint fronts with full circlip mod. I had corbeau seat and 5 point harness. The truck never hickuped and ran the entire season with out any failures until the last race. We had the bright idea my brother would drive it also. Well as mentioned before, he just doesn't have the knack for jumping. He came into the jump all wrong and it sent him about 5 ft high in the air, but with the frontend noised dived at the ground and the back completely vertical, he landed on the noise. It kinda sat there, and we thought he was forsure going over forward, but got lucky and it fell back to the wheels. It was puckered moment forsure!!! Well this tweaked the front and broke the dana 35 housing, also the rear 8.8 had been bending worse and worse after each racing. LOL. Well that finsihed it for the season. I still ended up 1st in points and won the entire season. He decided that scared him and he also wanted some more cash and offered it to me for a sweet deal, broken of course, but it had new 31in pro comps, and alot of goodies. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I originally thought I was going to turn it into hardcore crawler and was going to put my Dana 60 under the front and some parts from old White Explorer that I ended up parting out. That change started, but I realized I didn't want to spend that much on it at this time. I also was itching to maybe run Tuff trucks again in 2013. Several things came up, I thought about selling it. Well I didn't and I have it ready to race, but I myself having been having some back problems from ATV riding and now think I'm getting old enough I might need to slow down a little, The current version offroads extremely well!! So pretty sure she will just be my crawler and toy on the farm and stay off the track.
So currently
I rebuilt entire TTB with another 4.56 gears, Aussie locker.
2in lift coils
new longarms home built with Heims
4.0
5spd
rear disk brake 8.8, Artec Truss, New housing 4.56 gears, welded
33s- Saving for new set, hoping pitbulls.
Enjoy the pics.
Before the Explorer:
2nd Tuff truck race- Ironicly the engine in Black Explorer ended up in the Orange Ranger
Some of the inspiration came from this one!!
Which this was a different explorer also. Long gone
All started here
The truck was a blast, I raced several races and brought home quite a few trophies and cash. Near the end of the season not even during a race, just out playing on the farm, driving in a flat field running some hot laps I rolled the Ranger in a corner. It still drove and finished out the series, but my frame was getting really tweaked and I was itching for a crawler again. I took the drivetrain from the Ranger and built my previous 97 Explorer Sport which was in the previous FourWheeler Mag article. I'm getting off track LOL but trying to explain how this all happened. So back to really liking tuff truck racing, my brother had bought this explorer and due to time constraints I did not have time to completely build another truck to race for 2012, so he set this up for me to race. The deal was he would haul it to the races, I would show up and drive it as hard as I could! Any winnings, which 1st paid $500 I would just give him the money minus my entry fees. Wow this worked great, cause I just enjoyed doing it. So he got everything ready and I built the cage actually using parts leftover from the cage that was in my Ranger previously. He did all maintance and I got to basically have a sponser to race and do what I enjoyed. It worked out great, I can't rememebr but I pulled in $2000-3000 for him that summer racing the truck. You might ask why he doesn't race, well we always joke around, but his luck just never works out and he is not good with jumps. Also years ago previous back injury so doesn't want to upset his back. The truck was tuff!!! It was pretty much a stock Explorer Sport, with custom longarms home brewed, 2 in lift coils, 3.73 gears, welded rear, front c-clip eliminator and spicer 5-760x Joint fronts with full circlip mod. I had corbeau seat and 5 point harness. The truck never hickuped and ran the entire season with out any failures until the last race. We had the bright idea my brother would drive it also. Well as mentioned before, he just doesn't have the knack for jumping. He came into the jump all wrong and it sent him about 5 ft high in the air, but with the frontend noised dived at the ground and the back completely vertical, he landed on the noise. It kinda sat there, and we thought he was forsure going over forward, but got lucky and it fell back to the wheels. It was puckered moment forsure!!! Well this tweaked the front and broke the dana 35 housing, also the rear 8.8 had been bending worse and worse after each racing. LOL. Well that finsihed it for the season. I still ended up 1st in points and won the entire season. He decided that scared him and he also wanted some more cash and offered it to me for a sweet deal, broken of course, but it had new 31in pro comps, and alot of goodies. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I originally thought I was going to turn it into hardcore crawler and was going to put my Dana 60 under the front and some parts from old White Explorer that I ended up parting out. That change started, but I realized I didn't want to spend that much on it at this time. I also was itching to maybe run Tuff trucks again in 2013. Several things came up, I thought about selling it. Well I didn't and I have it ready to race, but I myself having been having some back problems from ATV riding and now think I'm getting old enough I might need to slow down a little, The current version offroads extremely well!! So pretty sure she will just be my crawler and toy on the farm and stay off the track.So currently
I rebuilt entire TTB with another 4.56 gears, Aussie locker.
2in lift coils
new longarms home built with Heims
4.0
5spd
rear disk brake 8.8, Artec Truss, New housing
4.56 gears, welded33s- Saving for new set, hoping pitbulls.
Enjoy the pics.
Before the Explorer:
2nd Tuff truck race- Ironicly the engine in Black Explorer ended up in the Orange Ranger
Some of the inspiration came from this one!!
Which this was a different explorer also. Long gone
All started here
