The 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor race truck has been revealed overnight. It will compete in the ‘stock’ class in a series of off-road races in the US.
FORD HAS REVEALED its 2017 Ford F-15 Raptor race truck which will compete in a series of off-road races in the US, the 2016 Best in the Desert off-road racing series… clearly the win on Sunday, sell on Monday philosophy applies here.
According to Ford, “the Raptor race truck will leverage Raptor’s production platform including its all-new high-output 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine and 10-speed transmission, along with torque-on-demand transfer case”.
“The all-new Raptor has the DNA of a Baja race truck, with a purpose-built engine, chassis and suspension that enables it to travel fast over challenging desert landscapes or crawl over rocky terrain,” said Jamal Hameedi, chief engineer, Ford Performance.
Modifications to the F-150 Raptor race truck include:
- Race-optimized three-inch-diameter external-bypass front and rear Fox Racing Shox similar to Raptor’s segment-exclusive internal-bypass Fox Racing Shox;
- Race-optimized front and rear springs raise ride height to gain additional ground clearance and provide increased compression rate to handle extreme terrain;
- Custom-fabricated roll cage;
- MasterCraft seats with five-point harness safety belts and window nets; and
- LED light bars, racing fuel cell, Lowrance GPS, RacePak digital dash and data logger.
Ford’s new F-150 Raptor saw the debut of a new transfer case which “manages power distribution between the front and rear wheels, combines the best attributes of clutch-driven, on-demand all-wheel drive with durable, mechanical-locking four-wheel drive to send power to the wheels in slippery conditions”.
The F-150 Raptor also gets Ford’s new Terrain Management System which is able to tweak elements like throttle and gear shifts, and how drive is shuffled from the front to the back and side to side. There are six modes:
- Normal mode for everyday driving;
- Street mode for higher-performance, on-road driving;
- Weather mode for rain, snow or ice;
- Mud and sand mode for muddy, sandy trails and terrain;
- Baja mode for high-speed desert running; and
- Rock mode for low-speed rock crawling.
If you want to follow its performance, the dates for the events are:
- Parker 425, Parker, Arizona, Feb. 4-7
- Mint 400, Las Vegas, March 10-14
- Laughlin Desert Classic, Laughlin, Nevada, May 5
- Vegas to Reno, Nevada, Aug. 17-20
- Bluewater Challenge, Parker, Arizona, Sept. 10-Oct. 6
- Pahrump Nugget 250, Pahrump, Nevada, Dec. 1-4
