3,600 HP Monster Sand Trucks Drag Race Up Hills in UAE

The United Arab Emirates has normal drag racing lanes too, but it has something we don’t - sand trucks designed to climb hills with an almost unnatural speed.

If you’re bored of seeing COPO Camaros and funny cars, then set your eyes on these sand trucks. Don’t get us wrong, we like Santa Pod action as much as the next guy, but this footage has nearly vertical hills and some turbocharged trucks.

It appears that there are two main classes of sand trucks, for vehicles with six or eight cylinders. However, to keep things interesting, nearly everything is allowed. Some trucks have twin-turbo setups, others use NOS and a few use both.

Nissans are extremely popular in the Emirates, even the ugly-looking Infiniti QX80. So it’s not surprising that nearly the whole field is made up of Patrol 4x4s. However, their engines are not Japanese since the 4.6L V8 doesn’t have quite the same tuning potential as the famous LS V8s from General Motors.

The guys of the Al Gharbia Sports Club use such large V8 that they’re almost as tall as the roof of the truck. The exhausts are not muffled or piped together. Instead, each cylinder is piped separately and produces huge jets of fire when running at full throttle.

With the times generally set falling in the region of 7 seconds, we can only presume that this intense form of motorsport is a 1/8-mile uphill drag race. But can you imagine what the most extreme trucks, which are pushing 3600 horsepower, would do in a straight line?