Team History
When it was announced that Rockport Off Road bought an old quarry in Hannibal, MO the idea of competing was entertained and discussed by what is now know as Rubberbelly Racing (RBR) . Jake thought that it would be fun to compete in a series which made it logistically possible to attend a majority of the races. Since the RBR team is based in the Kansas City metro area and Rockport/Hannibal were under 5 hours away we figured we could handle the commitment required.
As with many hair brained ideas Jake has, he turned to his good friends Jason Troxel, Brad Jones, and Scott Angell. As friends do, we use each other to bounce ideas around and see if they stick. Everyone said they would be game on and Jason even commited to put up the first ten one dollar bills to get the ball rolling. After a few brainstorming sessions, (mainly with himself!), we contacted Greg Pert of Expert Off Road. Their ever growing abilities as a shop really caught our attention and we knew they would be the ultimate sponsor to have.
At the time Jake was very fond of his daily driver Geo Tracker so after debating the Toyota and Jeep options we felt it would be fun to build a Tracker. Since we all have professional careers outside of the Team RBR responsibilities, driving back and forth to Topeka over several months to build a vehicle was not going to work for us. Then came about the idea of doing in a weekend! We’ve all seen the monster garage episodes where they build something in a week. So we figured with some careful planning and a lot of help from friends we could pull it off.
The excitement from the guys at Expert Off Road really gave the project great momentum to start off. Trail Tough gears has stepped in with a set of their newly revised Transfer case gears, Inland Truck Parts of Kansas City helped with building the axles. To document the build, Muchado productions helped film the process. The build date was in mid-November of 2006 which required a lot of work to find parts and laying out the plans to make it all happen in one weekend.
Team History
When it was announced that Rockport Off Road bought an old quarry in Hannibal, MO the idea of competing was entertained and discussed by what is now know as Rubberbelly Racing (RBR) . Jake thought that it would be fun to compete in a series which made it logistically possible to attend a majority of the races. Since the RBR team is based in the Kansas City metro area and Rockport/Hannibal were under 5 hours away we figured we could handle the commitment required.
As with many hair brained ideas Jake has, he turned to his good friends Jason Troxel, Brad Jones, and Scott Angell. As friends do, we use each other to bounce ideas around and see if they stick. Everyone said they would be game on and Jason even commited to put up the first ten one dollar bills to get the ball rolling. After a few brainstorming sessions, (mainly with himself!), we contacted Greg Pert of Expert Off Road. Their ever growing abilities as a shop really caught our attention and we knew they would be the ultimate sponsor to have.
At the time Jake was very fond of his daily driver Geo Tracker so after debating the Toyota and Jeep options we felt it would be fun to build a Tracker. Since we all have professional careers outside of the Team RBR responsibilities, driving back and forth to Topeka over several months to build a vehicle was not going to work for us. Then came about the idea of doing in a weekend! We’ve all seen the monster garage episodes where they build something in a week. So we figured with some careful planning and a lot of help from friends we could pull it off.
The excitement from the guys at Expert Off Road really gave the project great momentum to start off. Trail Tough gears has stepped in with a set of their newly revised Transfer case gears, Inland Truck Parts of Kansas City helped with building the axles. To document the build, Muchado productions helped film the process. The build date was in mid-November of 2006 which required a lot of work to find parts and laying out the plans to make it all happen in one weekend.