VEGAS TO RENO OFF-ROAD 'NOT RACING'

2023 Chevy Colorado ZR2 Testing

- BRYON DORR

It’s the morning of day three and I’m bombing down a deep sandy gully that follows some power lines across the desert as far as the eye can see. The truck I’m piloting is doing the deep sandy rut dance and I’m staying loose and letting it do its thing. A sharper-than-expected corner comes up quickly and the rear tires come out of the rut as I toss the truck aggressively into the corner and stay on the gas. I’ve got it in 4WD, with all the electronic nannies turned off, and Baja mode engaged. The backend swings out in a controlled four-wheel drift in the deep sandy gully that has me giggling like a schoolgirl and scanning ahead for the next opportunity to do it again.

My confidence has grown in the machinery over the past two-plus days and my right foot has gotten heavier. As I come around another sweeping corner a quick uphill elevation change appears. A mischievous grin imprints itself on my face as I push my right foot to the floor and at takeoff straighten the wheel. Weightlessness lasted much longer than anticipated, but when the truck came back to Terra firm, the landing was so smooth and controlled that the grin on my face just got bigger.

Adventure Testing 

This was the final morning of a three-day adventure driving from Las Vegas to Reno on the Best in the Desert racecourse in the new 2023 Chevy Colorado ZR2. It is also the first media drive of the next-generation truck, with only nine top journalists in attendance. For sure, it is just a media review/content creation drive and not a race, but they did let us pick numbers and put the numbers and our last names on the trucks. That makes them race trucks, right?