While most people celebrated 2014, racers were quietly preparing for the storm of 2015.

Well folks, 2014 is now in the books and all the exciting vehicles, products, and race results from 2014 have quickly become history. It’s a sad reality, but in today’s always changing off road market, successful products and results are oftentimes easily forgotten about as companies and consumers look to the future to see what’s around the corner.

2014 was a banner year for the off road industry and was by all accounts, a success. There were many hit products that came out, a lot of new off road platform vehicles introduced (either prototypes or production), and countless new off road enthusiasts that were introduced to the off road industry as it continued to claw its way into the mainstream. With the dawn of a new year, we here at Offroad Xtreme are extremely excited about all of the surprises that are just around the corner and as such, we wanted to make some predictions about what’s to come in 2015.

Racing Predictions:

2015 has all the makings of being a great year in professional off road racing. While 2014 was strong, 2015 will bring with it new entries to various classes consisting of both rookies as well as seasoned veterans which will make the racing very exciting. While we typically don’t like to gamble, when we do, we go for safe bets that have the best odds of winning (so keep that in mind with our predictions and tell us how far off we are in the comments below).

First up is the 2015 Dakar rally that just started a few short days ago. Robby Gordon is essentially taking-on the world with his co-driver Johnny Campbell (the Johnny Campbell that owns 11 Baja 1000 victories on a motorcycle) as they represent an American team that truly has a shot of winning in the HST Gordini. While competition is stiff for the dynamic duo, Gordon’s team has done their homework and has paid their dues – we have to support our fellow Americans and predict that they will bring home Dakar’s first American win. Shortly after writing this, we learned of Gordon’s brake troubles in stage two of the Dakar rally that caused a significant delay and bumped him back to nearly last place – but we’re still holding out hope for America! 

Will anyone be able to stop Kyle Leduc in Pro 4?

We are huge fans of short course racing and for the 2015 Lucas Oil Off Road Racing series, it would be foolish to bet against Brian Deegan’s Pro 2 effort as he seemingly has the class on lockdown in recent history. Deegan will be making his debut in Pro 4 for 2015 with an entirely new truck, and while we believe he will be one of the top dogs in that class too, history does show that the first year with a new truck is tough while the bugs are worked out of it. Because of this, we believe that Kyle Leduc will continue his assault on the LOORRS Pro 4 class again – and pick up right where he left off in 2014. As for Pro Lite, Sheldon Creed was on a tear in 2014 and from what we hear, it’s very likely he will continue that same momentum – our money’s on Creed.

Industry Release Predictions:

Will the Colorado ZR2 concept make its way to production? We sure hope so.

2014 gave us a small glimpse into the immediate future of the off road industry but with what we did learn, a few predictions can be made. First up, with the discontinuation of the F150 Raptor in 2014, we believe there is going to be a next-generation Raptor released sometime in 2015 because the demand is there and Raptor “mules” have been sighted. We also think that GM, Toyota, or Nissan will throw their hat in the ring and release some form of factory-produced Raptor competitor. GM already rumored at the Colorado ZR2, so time will tell if it gets produced or not or who else will join the party. Speaking of the Colorado, and GMC Canyon for that matter, we really hope to see them gain popularity this year in hopes of getting more mid-sized trucks in the North American marketplace. Not all Americans need a full sized truck – Toyota has proved this with the Tacoma and hopefully the remaining truck manufacturers will figure it out this year!

The Jeep JK market continues to be one of the industry-leading segments in off road and we fully anticipate this to continue well into 2015 – JKs are hot right now and they don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Another trend of off road that will continue to be very popular in 2015 are black wheels, especially with the new Deegan 38 lineup of Pro 2 and Pro 4 wheels built by Mickey Thompson – we love these wheels and really think they are going to be a hit in 2015.

Finally, we fully anticipate more and more aftermarket companies to be teaming up with OEMs to create “packages” that can be added to a stock vehicle – be it at the dealership or shortly thereafter. This idea really made its way into SEMA last year with multiple companies offering add-on packages for the redesigned 2015 F150 to make it more Raptor-esq, and we fully anticipate this trend to continue.

Addictive Desert Designs (ADD Off Road) showed off their Baja XTR package available for all 2015 Ford F150s at SEMA 2014.

What trends do you anticipate for 2015 within the off road industry? And what trends would you like to see gain some popularity? Let us know in the comments section below!