October 30, 2001 -- We may have had sore feet after a day's walk through the onslaught of aftermarket vendors for day 1 of this year's SEMA show, but B.F. Goodrich secretly unveiled - exclusively behind closed doors nonetheless - its sure-footed contribution to the world of rock crawling.

One the highlights of our day was Skyjacker's introduction of its coil-over shock, which is shown here mounted on a Jeep TJ Wrangler.

"I will show you something, but you can't talk about it. And no pictures!"

There you have it, we're not talking about it. But with any luck, within the next few days of the SEMA show, we'll slip you a few pages of typed text, describing exactly what we saw, where it comes from, what stages of R&D it's in and when you can expect it to arrive on the showroom floor.

Painless

Painless Performance Products had a few tricks up its sleeve for this year's show. For its efforts in developing a the Painless RF Control center, a system which would allow users to operate an infinite number of accessories on their rig from a remote location, Painless won the 2001 SEMA New Products Award.

The system, as shown to us, could function from the center of a steering wheel or another location of the operator's preference and could control any number of functions of the vehicle, including 4 wheel drive, nitrous, tail lights, fog lights, air conditioning, winch, electric fans and the list goes on. The system will be available to the consumer early 2002.

Fabtech made its mark with a 6-inch Performance Suspension, which is mounted on this 2001 4WD Toyota Tacoma.

For those of you who are planning a Ford 4.7 Liter swap into your Toyota, Jeep or Buggy, and still maintain Electronic Fuel Injection, Painless is on its way to developing a wiring harness for you. But, it won't be until early 2003.

What the Rhino Says!

Why the wait? Well according to Painless, you can blame it on Ford for not giving up giving up the needed goods earlier. Whether that's the case or their isn't enough demand for a 4.7 Liter wiring kit, you'll have to make do with what you've got, and that'll be swapping the entire wiring loom you stole from the Mustang to begin with.

The Patriot

At Ramsey Winch, it was evident the company is in the spirit of patriotism that has blessed this country in recent months.

One look at their winches saw an entire new look. For one, Old Glory's colors are strewn across the faceplate of the flat gray-colored winch. But perhaps the most striking and historical image is of the Minute Man standing tall, with rifle in hand, on the winch motor.

Tomken Machine proudly introduced its version of the Jeep Cherokee 8 inch Suspension, which includes long arms and variable rate springs.

Eaton This!

Ramsey's massive winch, the 15,000, also made its way to the show. It was introduced for those of you with 1 ton trucks in the driveway. Soon to be accompanying the winch will be a out-of-site mounting plate, which will mount behind the bumper. The kit was not on hand for the show, but should be available to the consumer early next year and will be available for your Ford, Dodge and Chevy trucks.

Yokohama

Despite rumors in the racing community, Yokohama has no big plans for full pit support in upcoming SCORE races.

Though they are considering re-releasing and updating their line of off-road buggy tires with the 829 Super Digger 3, they will not be making huge strides with their race truck line.

Flagship Cellport!

Their current truck tire, the Geolander MT, is currently in use by Bob Land on his 7s SCORE truck, utilizing a gnarly set of sidewall ribs, step block grooves for greater tread stability and an impressive 30-day Free Trial Period. But despite that, they haven't gone much further than that. We'll keep our eyes open though, as the "big guys upstairs" have yet to give the word to those within the company who are bartering for more of a presence in the dirt. The answer should arrive sometime this January.

---

The 8.1 Litre "Big Block" Vortec-powered Hummer was looking good, but we'll have to hunt down the new Hummer H1, which also made its debut.

This Jeep Liberty is going back to days when wood trim looked as suburban as it does today.

The Turtle Expedition picked up a new Ford Powerstroke Diesel, which included a whole host of nice goodies. As usual, it was well-outfitted.

This is hereby pronounced the King of the Disco Rigs. If the radio antenna is raised the truck can't make it under freeway overpasses.