UTVs in Sturgis | The 1st Annual Full Throttle Off-Road Rally

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that Sturgis, South Dakota is a premier destination for motorcycle enthusiasts. For the last 77 years, during the first week of August, the town of 6,800 attracts bikers and tourists from around the world for a 10 day event known as The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Often known as “Bike Week”, the annual rally has been known to bring in over 700,000 people making it one of the largest motorcycle events in the world.

So you might ask, what would attract UTV enthusiasts like ourselves to Sturgis? There’s another attraction that this area has to offer, just beyond Sturgis is the Black Hills. An isolated mountain range stretching from western South Dakota into Wyoming, the Black Hills feature a vast OHV trail system with an abundance of breathtaking panoramic views. With over 600 miles of off road trails, it seems like what riding we did was just a scratch on the surface; we’d love to go back to the Black Hills and do some more exploring.

For 2018 the Full Throttle Saloon teamed up with Polaris RZR, High Lifter Products and Abernathy’s Cycles to create the 1st ever Full Throttle Off-Road Rally. Held just prior to Bike Week, the Full Throttle Off-Road Rally took place July 25th – July 30th and brought in many off-road enthusiasts from across the country. Since Bike Week follows directly after the Rally there was a good mix of bikers who came by the event as well.

Aside from trail riding in the Black Hills the event boasted plenty of activities for attendees to spectate and participate in, High Lifter Products organized several games like Cornhole and Plinko where participants had the opportunity to walk away with prizes.

High Lifter, known for being mud enthusiasts, also put on a Mud Bog race where ATVs and UTVs would go head to head racing through a mud pit for the fastest time. The Mud Bog race was definitely a crowd pleaser.

Another crowd favorite is the Bad 2 da’ Bone competition. Featuring the biggest and baddest UTV builds at the event, attendees get to vote for their favorite side by side in the competition and the winners take home cash prizes.

High Lifter and MSA Offroad Wheels teamed up to host a poker run in downtown Sturgis, each participant would make stops at several of the hottest bars in town to draw a card. MSA Wheels gave away two sets of UTV wheels to the participants with the best and worst hands. Not only was this a blast, it was neat to be able to check out several of the local establishments in town.

The Full Throttle Saloon organized some great entertainment for the event as well, including the “Rhett Rotten and his Wall of Death” motorcycle stunt show each day, plus erotic entertainment and live music each night. On Friday night, the mainstream rock band Jackyl put on an energetic performance inside the Full Throttle Saloon drawing in quite the crowd. Seeing a major rock band perform in a smaller venue was quite the treat as you could get up very close making it a really personal experience. 

Several vendor booths were set up for attendees to visit each day, aftermarket product companies like MB Quart, Hifonics, MSA Wheels, Fuel Off-Road and High Lifter, were present greeting customers, handing out free shwag and showcasing some of their latest products.

Polaris brought out a fleet of machines for attendees to demo, including the Polaris RZR RS1 and RZR XP Turbo S. We took advantage of this and took the new Turbo S for a spin, what a ton of fun. The Polaris demo team laid out a fast paced grass track with several sweeping turns, hill hops, down hills and even some slow crawling areas. Be on the lookout, we’ll be making another post about our Turbo S ride experience in the near future.

Polaris also gave away a brand new RZR RS1; attendees had the opportunity to register for the prize throughout the event. One lucky winner was randomly chosen on Saturday night, it was great to see her overjoyed with excitement. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to take one of these bad boys home?

As for accommodations, the Full Throttle Saloon and its neighboring campground, the Pappy Hoel Campground and Resort, offered plenty of RV sites and cabins to reserve. Both had well maintained bathhouses and the Pappy Hoel Campground even had a swimming pool and convenience store. We anticipate this event to really grow so be sure to reserve your spot in plenty of time once the 2019 dates are announced.

We’ve often said the RZR is like the Harley of UTVs, so when we heard about a UTV event in Sturgis it seemed fitting that we attend. Being an all new rally we didn’t know what to expect, we had high expectations for this event and everyone did a great job on the delivery. We highly recommend that you put this event down on your list and consider joining us at the 2019 Full Throttle Off-Road Rally.

Lookout for next year’s event date announcement at https://fullthrottlesaloon.com/

or https://www.mudnatevents.com/