Human beings are competitive creatures. If there’s a thing to be done well, people will forever vie to be the best at it. We’re certainly not strangers to it in the automotive realm, so it doesn’t surprise us when we come across another niche motorsport. Look no further than NYS FD‘s motorized ladder drill, in which a truck carrying a ladder team races from a dig to reach a gantry, where the ladder team drops from the still-moving truck to erect a ladder which one of its members must then climb to reach the gantry and complete the run.
It’s drag racing meets American Ninja Warrior. Things go wrong about as often as you’d expect, but it’s all in the name of friendly competition, and perhaps keeping sharp in the event of a real emergency. Either way you look at it, it’s spectacular.
But don’t take my word for it. NYSFDRacing posts runs from its ladder competitions (along with its other events) all over the internet. You can see all of the absurdity for yourself:
Quick Shot: Westbury C-Ladder, 2022 NYS Drill
Live on the second floor without an escape ladder? Fear not; they’ve trained for this. Although this approach certainly seems problematic for the driver in a real-world situation—not to mention the structural integrity of the home you’d be hoping to escape were this a real-world scenario. Fine, so the practical applications are limited. Who cares when it’s this objectively awesome?
C-Ladder is just one of many events in a typical competition, and while finding lay descriptions of the events is tough, there’s a published rulebook that would put your regional SCCA inspector into a tizzy. In the organizers’ defense, these people are tossing each other off the back of a truck. It would be no stretch of the imagination to think this could descend into buffoonery.
Obviously, these aren’t anything approaching “stock” ladder trucks. The rulebook requires them to have some of the basic features of an actual vehicle (brakes at all four corners, etc.), but they bear little resemblance to any modern firefighting equipment. There are limitations on vehicle length and tire size (and no duallies), and you can have only one(!) engine up to 440 cubic inches.
And no wheelie bars allowed, so please think of your friends’ dangling appendages when you launch that thing, OK?
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