People love to do things to test themselves. From hitting the local drag strip to building a race car that turns hard around cones, we have devised a seemingly endless number of competitions designed to test man and machine. Most of those contests are grueling in their own way, but there’s always the ability to just load up and roll home whenever you feel like it. This is not a question about those types of events. This is a question about the types of events that have a real element of risk on multiple levels, can be financially draining, require an attitude and approach that borders on lunacy, and that you can’t just yell, “STOP THE RIDE, I WANNA GET OFF!” when you feel like it.

We’re talking about events like One Lap of America, Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week, Targa Newfoundland, the Jack Pine motorcycle race, and probably a hundred we either don’t know or can’t remember. You can even throw Bonneville into that pile because the place is such an amazingly difficult location to arrive at…from anywhere, that it requires untold dedication just to make the freaking trip in the first place, let along race. One more would be the amateur divisions of off road races like the Baja 1000.

We know the 24 Hours of LeMans is grueling, racing NASCAR when it is 100 outside has to be a total ass-whip, and any number of other things can be downright unpleasant at times, but we want the stuff that has the ability to break a man’s soul, wallet, and will to live.

BangShift Reader Brawl: What’s The Most Harsh, Hardcore, And Awesome Amateur Automotive Competition On Earth?