The Ford Bronco Off-Roadeo is Like Disneyland for Drivers

“You’re going to be blown away by how crazy you can get at a quarter of a kilometre per hour.”

That was one of the first pieces of wisdom imparted upon a class of eager drivers at Ford’s Bronco Off-Roadeo Nevada, a one-day intensive course offered for free (airfare and accommodations not included) to every Canadian who buys a new Bronco or Bronco Sport.

The point of the class is to teach new owners about the capabilities of the Ford Bronco and the fundamentals of off-roading, covering technique, theory, and proper communication between a driver and a spotter. The course even covers simple questions like what even is a spotter? For the record, it’s a second person (often a passenger or the driver of another vehicle) who briefly stands on the trail to help guide a vehicle around large obstacles without suffering dings, scratches, or scrapes — which the instructors refer to as “expensive noises.” 

Fortunately for attendees, they don’t have to risk damaging their own Bronco if they don’t want to, as the Off-Roadeo has a fleet of its own. The lineup varies by location, but all SUVs are factory stock, though they are equipped with Ford’s most extreme off-road packages.

Even at the low speeds our instructors promised, they were right. Things still felt “crazy,” and there were plenty of opportunities to park our Broncos on three wheels and drive at angles that made me feel like I might fall out of my seat and through an open window. For many automotive enthusiasts, the feeling the course elicits will be familiar: The feeling of being given permission to do something you shouldn’t be allowed to do. No wonder off-roading has attracted so many devotees over the years.

There have long been popular off-roading events with heavy manufacturer involvement, such as the Jeepers Jamboree, which started being sponsored by Willys (the Jeep’s original manufacturer) in the 1950s and continues to be sponsored by Jeep today. However, the concept of an automaker offering lessons in how to drive its vehicles properly emerged in 1976 with the launch of BMW M Driving Experience. The course’s syllabus was created by Rauno Aaltonen, a rally driver who was more focused on safe driving than speedy driving at a time before automotive safety technologies such as ABS and traction control had been made mainstream enough to help drivers out of most trouble they might encounter on the road.

Today, drivers of the Ford Bronco might have the opposite problem. Loaded to the brim with driver assistance technology, the Bronco can practically drive itself through an off-road course. Indeed, the utilization of what Ford calls the Bronco Toolkit enables drivers to essentially use a very low-speed cruise control on the trail so that they can crawl up a mountain at around 1 km/h or less (though not a quarter of a km/h) without touching any pedals. As I discovered at the Off-Roadeo, these technologies are highly effective at helping amateurs become comfortable on the trail, though they aren’t always the easiest to find.

Between the drive modes (as many as eight of which are available depending on which combination of trims and packages a buyer opts for), the Hero buttons (which control the hazard lights, the locking differentials, and as many as three other controls, depending on your package), and the buttons on the steering wheel, it can all feel overwhelming without the help of a professional. 

For instance, you can’t just press a button to turn on hill descent mode like in other vehicles. Instead, you must first come to a stop, then press the Bronco button in the center of your drive-mode selector wheel, then set your speed using the cruise control controls on the steering wheel, and finally, just to ensure that the uninitiated are good and confused, you must pull the parking brake. Once you’ve completed this complicated series of steps, the Bronco eases its way down remarkably steep hills with impressive autonomy.

While this can all be a lot to take in, the classroom is conducive to learning because it also happens to be in a fascinating and beautiful location. Five Off-Roadeos are dotted across America. I attended the second to open on the slopes of Mount Potosi in Nevada (the first opened at a ranch near Austin, Tex). The school is located on a 1,200-acre plot of land that Ford leased from the Boy Scouts. In 2021, it was refurbished, and the automaker went to town, putting its fingerprints all over the location and filling the old Boy Scout barracks with Bronco memorabilia and modern amenities.

To design the off-road trails, Ford turned to Bob Burns, who previously designed the retail demonstration courses for Land Rover Centers in North America and created the permanent off-road course at Laguna Seca Raceway, to list just a few of the qualifications on his impressive resume. But his work on Mount Potosi wasn’t easy. In order to get a permit to run an off-roading school, Ford had to agree not to cut any new trails on the land it was using. Beyond the desire to protect the natural environment, the location is also steeped in history.

Described as the first ghost town in Nevada, the town of Potosi was built on the mountain to serve a lead mine founded by the Mormon Church in 1855. The lead was used to produce bullets for the church during a tumultuous time, and a smelter it built in nearby Las Vegas (there wasn’t enough fuel or water on the mountain) was the first to become operational west of the Missouri River. In 1857, tensions between the church and the U.S. government came to a head, leading to the Utah Mormon War, and all of the miners on Potosi were recalled to Utah, leaving the town empty. Later, during the First World War, the mine became a crucial source of lead, zinc, and other materials for the U.S. Army. 

To protect the mountain, the local county demanded that Burns only build trails in natural washes, which form during rains and flash floods. This limitation proved to be one of the area’s strengths, according to the instructors who work there. Since it only rains every few months in the desert where the mountain is located, the trails are relatively stable.

However, since the location gets pummelled by Broncos (the Off-Roadeo runs on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, while on off-days, the area serves as a test track for tire companies and it also welcomes Ford dealership employees from time to time), the trail naturally becomes rutted, the rocks “grow” as the dirt around them is worked away, and the routes through the trails become less puzzle-like as preference paths are carved into them. That means that when the rains do come and the instructors must once again groom the trails, it’s high time for some novelty to be built into them anyway.

The Off-Roadeo is described as Disneyland for off-road enthusiasts by the instructors who work there, and I can certainly see why. However, my time there felt like something else: a video game tutorial level. 

If you’re not familiar with the concept, most video games start with a level designed to help players become comfortable with the game’s controls. It’s a widely followed convention in the video game industry and one that is becoming more popular in the automotive world — in 2020, Jeep launched its own off-road school, the Adventure Academy, which was designed by experts from the Jeep Jamboree (formerly Jeepers Jamboree).

Without spending a day at the Bronco Off-Roadeo, I might never have known that the SUV had trail turn assist, a feature that clamps the brake on the rear inside wheel when you’re going around a tight turn. Like a hand-brake turn in a snowy parking lot, this allows the back end to slide out and helps you make sharper turns. One of a bevy of features hidden away within the controls of the vehicle, it’s easy to miss, but a whole heck of a lot of fun to use. Like a video game tutorial level, the Off-Roadeo helped me become more comfortable with the wide range of power-ups at my fingertips.

Although it’s far away for Canadians and not exactly cheap — owners have to pay for their own hotel rooms and flights to Nevada, Texas, Utah, New Hampshire, or Tennessee, where the other schools are located — taking the time to attend one won’t just help owners become more confident off-roaders, but will help them become more confident Bronco owners. And, like all the best tutorial levels in video games, it’s also a bunch of fun.