Maryville, TN – The best tools in the world are useless if you don’t know how to use them. If you have a Ford Bronco Sport, especially with the new-for-2025 Sasquatch package, it’s fitted with a lot of tools to make it a very competent off-road machine, but chances are, you haven’t the faintest idea of how to use them, and don’t even know where to start. It has these modes called Off-Road and Rally and even Rock Crawl, but crawling over rocks in your new car sounds like a recipe for disaster. This is what the Bronco Off-Roadeo is for, and Ford invited us to their newest location in East Tennessee to see what it’s all about.
Ford has been operating the Bronco Off-Roadeo experience program since the launch of the Bronco in 2021, with the specific intention of giving Bronco owners the opportunity to learn how to use their tools their vehicles have in a safe, controlled environment that provides a memorable experience. There are five locations spread fairly evenly across the USA, in Nevada, Utah, Texas, New Hampshire, and this newest location in Tennessee, which has been open since last October.
They’ve since expanded the program to incorporate the Bronco Sport, with the locations at Moab in Utah and this one just outside of Knoxville having trails dedicated just to demonstrate what the little Bronco can do. Anyone with a Bronco, or a ‘24-and-up Bronco Sport can participate in one of these full-day experiences for free. Ford wants you to know what your vehicle is capable of and are confident that financing this is a worthwhile venture. Now having done it myself, I can say wholeheartedly you are seriously missing out if you don’t do this.
The Tennessee facility is a shared 2,200 acre property that’s been owned by the same family for five generations, and its 25-ish kilometers of trails are nestled deep in the rainforest in the majestic Smoky Mountains. The instructors emphasized this can be exceptionally tricky terrain, as it rains a lot, the paths between trees can get real sketchy, there’s roots and ruts all over the place, many a creek to cross, and the rocks that dot the trail are uniquely slick.
“Everyone talks about Moab, but that place is a piece of cake in a lot of ways. It’s wide open, you can see everywhere, it’s always dry, and the rocks there are like sandpaper, so traction is never a problem; you can do things there you wouldn’t be able to pull off anywhere else. Out here, everything is slippery and shifting, you gotta be on your toes at all times.”
That’s a quote from Corey, one of the two incredibly knowledgeable, and more importantly, personable instructors who guided us throughout the day. He and Darren made the experience not only informative, but fun, with infinite patience for trepidatious amateurs and great feedback for those who have a decent grasp on what they’re doing – a lot of participants end up being in both camps both in the same day.
The day begins with a briefing in front of the base camp lodge, going over the rudiments of off-roading, like traction management, spatial awareness, and understanding your vehicle. This is very helpfully carried out with practical demonstrations, plucking volunteers and putting them into a Bronco Sport, showing them how to sight rocks, how to use left-foot braking to manage traction and crawl over them safely, and even putting them into precarious-looking cross-axle scenarios with two wheels off the ground, where the car can be rocked easily with one hand. It’s a fun and often funny primer for what to expect for the rest of the day.
After that you get into a conga line of Bronco Sports and set off into the rainforest, guided by walkie talkies, with charismatic back and forth commentary constantly asking the crowd questions and drilling best practices into them. Exceptionally tricky sections will see the instructors get out and spot you through, with clear commands and hand signals. It is bewildering to be shimmying between trees and over rocky creekbeds that look impassable while locking eyes with the man in front of you for guidance, but it always worked without a hitch.
After lunch, the afternoon trail is one that’s shared with the bigger, brawnier Broncos with inherently more capability, but our parade of lil ‘Sports, piloted mostly by people who had never seen any more than snowy roads before, handled with it relative ease, thanks to our -I cannot stress this enough- fabulous leaders. These Bronco Sport Sasquatches are fitted with underbody bash plates as standard equipment, and no bashing of any kind happened, thanks to what we were taught.
On that note: these guys are purists who were keen on teaching us how to do things right. I’ve been on Ford launch programs before with off-road demonstrations. I know these vehicles are equipped with a lot of tech that makes things quite easy, and usually Ford is quite keen for you to use them and see how well they work. Not so was the case here.
A fundamental skill that was taught and reinforced over and over again was left-foot braking; dragging the brake pedal to varying degrees while using the throttle simultaneously. This helps promote traction by softly locking the differentials, and allows you to steadily crawl over a rock, without falling back off it, and gently climbing down from it without putting the ‘bash’ in bash plates.
The Bronco Sport Sasquatch has a locking differential. It has a trail control mode, effectively a cruise control for off-roading, that allows it to climb up or downhill at a set incrementally adjustable speed with zero input from the pedals. It even has a one pedal driving mode, which effectively mimics the left-foot-braking we were being taught and does it for you. I’ve used these to do very scary things without fear before, their efficacy is very real.
The approach at the Bronco Off-Roadeo is about teaching you to do those scary things with skill and confidence, rather than just relying on technology to be skillful in your stead. Our locking rear diffs were never locked. Trail control and one-pedal drive were used just once, late in the day, after we all had a handle on managing things on our own. I really admire this dedication to doing it right.
This Bronco Off-Roadeo program has gone over so well that they’ve even launched a half-day program for people who aren’t Bronco or Bronco Sport owners, for $795 USD (about $1,100 CAD at the time of writing). A sizable chunk of the people who participated in that paid program ordered a Bronco Sport of their own shortly thereafter, after being wowed at what these vehicles can do and empowered with the knowledge to do it.
There are loose rumblings about plans to bring the program to Canada, but there’s nothing concrete yet. In the meantime, Ford is well aware that promoting travel to the US at the moment is perhaps a tiny bit tone-deaf, but they would like to get the word out about this experience, and I don’t blame them, because… well… I would say it’s worth every penny, but it’s free for Bronco and Bronco Sport owners. It’s well worth the journey, and people from all over the world have made the trek, and if they can put politics aside and make the most of a fantastic experience with wonderful people to get the most out of your vehicle, you can too.
