CONVENTION CRASHING: OFF-ROAD IMPACT

Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 | 6:56 a.m.

By Brendan Buhler

Las Vegas Sun

Bill Billington is following his dream, his dream of a supermodified boulder-crawling off-road vehicle shaped like a shark, complete with a tail and bloody teeth.

He was looking to get into rock crawling seven years ago, and then he went on a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and bought the jaws of a mako shark, the jaws that became his muse.

"I bought this mouth and came back and said we need to build this shark," Billington said. "They all said I was crazy - my wife, my partner, everybody."

Well, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus, too. (But not because of the round-Earth thing. Still, you get the point.)

And now, here Billington is, Thursday at the Off-Road Impact convention at the Sands Expo & Convention Center, taking admiring questions about the shark buggy he designed and built. Questions like, "Man, how cool is that?"

"Pretty cool," Billington acknowledges.

A lot of the cool comes from the mouth, gaping bent bars with metal teeth, complete with dabs and drips of red paint - paint that almost wasn't there.

"Two hours before we left Salt Lake," Billington said, "I called my painter and said, 'Man, we gotta get blood on this thing.' "

(Someday he wants to put the real shark jaws on a buggy, but so far he just can't get the mounting right.)

Now Billington's dream has grown and includes not just sponsorships (Budweiser, Who's Your Daddy energy drinks, etc.) but bringing new people into the sport of rock crawling. It's an important task, he says, and he started it at home by getting his wife and kids into off-roading.

"My kids, I put 'em in this car and they climb a wall with a 30- or 50-degree angle, and maybe they don't make it the first time," Billington says, "but when you do, you get this rush of self-confidence from being able to do something that no one else can."

And it's not just for child rearing, he says. It's good for mental health.

"I know so many people who go to a psychologist, but you put 'em in this car and climb something and it's just pure stress relief."

Product No. 1: Crikey, these roos are cranky

Lightforce lighting systems, sturdy off-road lights from Australia. Demo video shows them surviving shotgun blasts fired from 15 yards away. Demo vehicle has miniature stuffed kangaroos stuck all over it.

So if shotgun-wielding midget kangaroos are a worry, as they are in large portions of Australia, then these are the lights for you.

Retail prices start at $249 for standard twin lights and go up to $995 for high-intensity discharge arc lights. www.lightforce.com

Product No. 2: For the kids

Four-hundred pound, half-scale off-road racer trucks with 265-cc engines and a top speed of 50 mph. It's a great way to get kids into off-road racing, salesman Nestor Berardi says. The kids can be as tall as 6 feet and weigh up to 300 pounds.

From Trophykart, www.trophykart.com. Costs $6,500 and comes with a spare tire and can be painted in a color of your choosing (pink is more popular than green).

Overheard

"We get phone calls in the office, a lot of times you just want to tell the guy to sell his Jeep. Just sell your Jeep, it's easier than explaining to you how to install this part."

- Salesman for OMIX-ADA Inc., maker of aftermarket parts and accessories for Jeeps