Okay. We got a little carried away with our long-term test of the Kumho Venture MT. The 10,000-mile review was blown off and eventually turned into two years of absolute torture. It was the type of torture that even a redheaded step child wearing bifocals, braces and high-water Tough Skin blue jeans couldn't cope with.

We mounted the Kumho Venture MT, one of the most inexpensive tires on the market, on the oldest Jeep in the lot, our '86 CJ-7. THE REASON: It's the cheapest and easiest Jeep to fix, making it prone to cowboy escapades that have deemed brutal to its appearance. What does all this mean? Well, we beat the hell out of it.

The size tire we chose for the Kumho Venture MT experiment was the 33x12.5x15, mounted on the original 8" Enkie wheels the Jeep came with upon purchase some seven years ago. Why did we go with 33s rather than 35s?

Keep in mind, this is just a small section of the overall tire. The cactus needles drove themselves deep into the carcus and sidewall of the tire, but never caused the Kumho Venture to give up any of its precious air.

For Starters

Well, for starters, I'm too cheap to hunt down another set of gears for the old war horse. Secondly, it's got a perfect balance between beautifully-fast highway speeds and acceptable crawling speeds.

It'd be helpful if the crawl speed was lower on the extremely rough stuff. This would save me from having to feather the clutch up an obstacle. But to solve that, I could easily toss a Tera Low 4:1 setup in the Dana 300 transfer case and keep my highway speeds happy. What kind of highway speeds am I getting?

Out Of Control And Utterly Illegal

Once more, the highway speeds are out of control and utterly illegal. You probably won't believe this. But since the CJ's speedometer leaves you guessing after only the 85 MPH mark, it's tough to give you an accurate reading thereafter. To begin with though, I passed my stock Ford Power Stroke F-350 with relative ease, which itself was pulling a steady 90 MPH on cruise control.

Now, to give you an idea of where the CJ's speedometer needle has been, during the second day of action in last year's Nevada 1000, I was chasing down the lead trucks along side the highway about halfway to Ely, Nevada. Shooting across this straight, I was slamming that speedometer needle just a tad over the "brake" light. I'd imagine this was somewhere around 110 MPH. Stay tuned for the death-defying photos that prove it. We'll reveal them at a later date when we do the review on the Holley 300 CFM Carburator and the Jacobs Ignition, major contributors to such insane speeds.

Anyway, the point of discussing speed is to say that I enjoy driving the Jeep on road trips, like the fuel economy and enjoy the capability of reaching the 80 MPH mark without having to red line the tachometer, which is why we're staying with the added stability of 33-inch tires opposed to 35-inch tires.

More Reason To Lay Low

There are other reasons why I have chosen the 33-inch tires over larger ones. We have a set of leaf springs that can clear a set of 35s, but with the shackle inversion kit up in front, the 33s rub the back of the fender well with at full compression. Similarly in the back, I removed the suspension manufacturer's provided bump stops that severely limit travel. Because of this, when hauling ass down the desert at very high rates of speed and I hit a g-out, the tire compresses into the back end of the body. In the future, we'll likely eliminate various portions of the body to overcome this problem and the damage that has resulted.

But again, to go any bigger, I'd loose ground-hugging stability and need a taller suspension, which would make the high-speed handling even worse. Right now, I can go anywhere I've ever wanted to go in the Jeep. It's a Jeep. You read too many of these magazines on the super market shelf and you walk away thinking that you have to spend $5,000 in hop-up parts from their advertisers in order to go out and enjoy yourself on the local trail. WRONG!!!

You'd be amazed at what you can do in a stock Jeep. Go out and enjoy the freedom and solitude that the dirt provides.

Here are just a few of the gouges the desert ripped from the tread of the Kumho. Actually, there are worse, but this will give you an idea of what the Kumhos went through.

Driving The Straight Line

The torture the tires have sustained is a testament not only to how well they are made but also to how impressed I am with their overall performance. Being a brand that you don't always see in the limelight and the guys at the local off-road shop aren't shoving down you're throat, you'd tend to think that this tires aren't up for the challenge. These thoughts are wrong.

The Kumho Venture M/T is ONE of the better tires on the market. And when you got right down to price, you just can't be beat the Kumho Ventures.

What stake do I have in saying this? NONE. I'm not trying to sell you a tire. These guys don't advertise with us. They probably won't advertise with us any time in the near future. And even if they did, I could care less. My reputation is more important to me than keeping an advertiser who can't make the cut.

With that said, Kumho Venture M/Ts are at the top of the list of tires worthy of purchase.

Hitting It Hard

The greatest test these tires encountered was likely the 2001 Best In The Desert Las Vegas 200 prerun. With an invite from our friend Diane of BITD and incorougment from a number of desert racers, we set out to run the 75 mile course. Hilighting the terrain is the usual onslaught of Nevada rocks, cactus, sand washes, hill climbs, washboard road, g-outs and endless whoops.

We weren't navigating through this at Trophy Truck speeds, but we were moving fast for a short wheel base Jeep. In fact, we made the pass on several moderately-built prerunners who couldn't believe their eyes. We were hitting it hard. During the escapade, we snapped the driver's seat in half, blew a two-piece Enkie rim, mangled two Jerry cans attached to the utterly tough Canyon City 4x4 Jerry Can Tire Carrier and sheered the steering box bracket in half. Not to worry, we made it home without a hitch.

It may be tough to see in this photo, but here's a shot of the damage the rim sustained on a recent run to a canyon that required a winch to make it up. The Kumho was severely pinched up against a nasty rock. The rim suffered some damage. The tire sustained a scuff but never failed.

After thoroughly inspecting the tire for leaks, we could find no flaw in its performance. it was the rim that was at fault. It was warped beyond repair. After hammering, bending, pressing and multiple applications of silicon, it does manage to hold a descent amount of air for a period of two days before it must be refilled, but that's best the rim can do. The rims will eventually be replaced with a one-piece forged style set. The Enkies are two-piece and just can't make the APPROVED cut on this Jeep.

The driver's seat has spent the last year being propped up by the ARB Freezer Fridge and a six gallon water bottle. I never would have imagined that a seat would snap like that. But then again, we were doing some pretty amazing things with the Jeep. The seats will soon be replaced by a set of baja-proven Mastercraft Seats from my friend Robbie, owner of Mastercraft. Not only will these seats not fail under such torture that the Jeep commonly endures, but they will be far more comfortable and safer than the stock seats. They're Mastercrafts.

The steering box was fixed by my good friend Jason of Dirt Junkys here in Las Vegas. Since the bolts were ripped from the frame, we performed a quick fix by simply welding it back together. Who needs the bolts? We'll likely replace the stock steering with a hydraulic system, when we get around to it.

With all the miles and smiles the Kumho Venture M/Ts endured, it's amazing we have yet to encounter a flat. When I first mounted the Kumhos onto the Jeep, I had disdain for the Kumhos' unproven existence. I put them on the CJ merely for entertainment purposes, keeping my old standby set of tires close at hand.

Now, I have great respect for Kumho, which is not only inexpesive but also invaluable in its reliabity and performance off-road.

While I did recklessly destroy native foliage, I did so only to foliage that was soon bulldozed by developers who built homes, sewers, gas pipeline, highways, schools and parks and even a place where an Extreme Environmentalists lives. In addition, I also did so in a manner that did not make me out to be a menace to society. Here in in Vegas, nearly everyone is an off-roader, packing dirt bikes, quads, buggies, Jeeps and other off-road vehicles in their stable. Enjoying the dirt is encouraged and simply a way of life.