What Are Your Favorite Motorsports Outside The Mainstream?

… Not that there’s anything wrong with the mainstream offerings, of course. But there’s a whole wide world of motorsports excitement outside of NASCAR and F1, and just as there’s much to enjoy when you extend your ice cream experiences beyond chocolate and vanilla, there are all sorts of wild and unusual ways to get down with engines, motors, and wheels (not to mention props and tracks).

One of my favorites is right there in the top GIF, Robby Gordon Stadium SUPER Trucks. I would ordinarily rebel against following the preferred branding with SUPER in all caps, but doggone if these trucks don’t earn those capital letters by taking flight with an effortlessness that rivals the Man of Steel. And when the trucks aren’t defying gravity, they’re hitting the three-wheel motion like Ice Cube cranked up to 1,000. The street courses are tight, the racing is incredibly close, and these trucks put on a show.

Here’s the full Stadium SUPER Trucks video that I sourced the GIF from, it’s wild:

Now, I did mention props, and if you guessed Reno Air Racing and whatever Red Bull calls their air-racing thing – yes, I enjoy those. But what I was actually thinking of was sprint jet-boat racing, which is nuts. And I suppose I should correct props to impellers, as jet boats pump water out of a nozzle to provide thrust, but whatever. The way these guys (and gals, I hope) whip around hairpin turns is astounding, and the action is intense. Watch this, from the New Zealand Jet Sprint Association:

An equally swampy but very different type of mind-boggling motorsport that will absolutely glue me to a screen is swamp buggy racing, wherein some truly fascinating and unique boat-truck hybrid machines chug and churn through water and muck with outlandish action unlike anything else. Cast your peepers upon this insanity from 1320 Video:

Along with wheels and props I mentioned tracks, but not in the racetrack sense. I’m talking about the belts that snowmobiles spin to get sleds moving, and if you’ve never seen Snowcross before, you’re in for a treat. Snowmobiles are probably the last thing any of us thinks of when it comes to vehicles that can race motocross-style complete with big-air jumps, but there they are, doin’ it (via MXGP-TV):