If you’ve ever wanted to race the Baja 1000 without buying a half-million dollar trophy truck, shipping it to Mexico, flying down there, bringing a whole crew, dozens of spares, and hundreds of gallons of gasoline, now you can! CXC Simulations in Southern California recently introduced a full-motion simulator that is built around a whole-ass race truck chassis. Unlike a traditional full-motion simulation rig, this one has suspension travel and slide effects measured in feet instead of inches. The Motion Pro Truck is a deep-six-figures investment in your off-road racing career. Or it’s just a fun way to spend a whole lot of cash.
“We recently developed a similar product for a commercial client, and we received quite a bit of interest from customers interested in owning a full-size truck simulator,” said Chris Considine, Founder and CEO at CXC Simulations. “For this new product we have gone back to the drawing board and developed a chassis that is better suited for being a simulator and made improvements to the rest of the package as well. There’s simply no other simulation product available like this – the Motion Pro Truck is a turnkey, ready-to-order product.”
As recently as just a few years ago, this kind of thing probably wasn’t possible. To accurately simulate the feeling of high-speed off-road driving, CXC had to figure out fast, high-speed, high-frequency motions. This system incorporates three feet of motion in all directions, so you can get the sensation of jumping, landing, and sliding a big ‘ol truck.
This is basically a full race truck without the actual truck parts. You get the sensation of driving the thing, but you don’t need to actually do the super expensive parts of racing, like hauling a giant truck out into the desert. It has a force-feedback steering wheel for realistic feel, hydraulic pedals for accurate foot pressures, and there are even fans to blow air over you as your speeds increase.
In the video you can see the driver using a VR headset for a full immersive experience. I’ve raced with VR before, and it is totally awesome. But if you’re going to go to the trouble of having a whole ass truck wrapped around you, wouldn’t you want to see it move