Brett Dickey: The 17-Year-Old Rock-Crawling Champion Chasing Bigger Lines

At just 17 years old, Brett Dickey is already no stranger to rock crawling. With the kind of résumé that would make plenty of veteran competitors jealous, the 2024 BFGoodrich Tires Trail Breaker champion returned to defend his title at Trail Hero 2026 and finished among the top ranks.

After rapidly clearing stage one as one of the faster drivers with a clear line choice, Brett prevailed through stage two’s challenges as the difficulty escalated, adjusting quickly to two incidents: saving his vehicle during a 180-degree attitude change in a rock crevice and later easing out stuck tires to advance from a tricky angle without touching the boundary line.

Stage three proved to be an insurmountable challenge to all 12 competitors. With determination and grit, Brett took on two nearly 90-degree climbs on rain-slick rock—pushing deeper into the second climb than most other drivers and coming close to cracking a course nobody completed that day.

A grueling four and a half hours of competition later, Brett ultimately finished in an impressive fourth place.

This is the kind of composure that doesn’t usually come with a driver his age. Before he even had a driver’s license, Brett became the youngest person to compete in Trail Breaker 2024 and won the event outright.

Preparation and decision-making were already instinct for him. The best runs can look almost calm from inside the cockpit even when the buggy is balanced at an angle that makes everyone watching hold their breath.

That combination—youth, experience, and an almost casual comfort on terrain that makes seasoned wheelers pause—is what makes his rise so interesting.

Where The Wild Begins

Brett’s earliest defining memory behind the wheel came at Area BFE, the famed off-road playground outside Moab, Utah. He was just nine years old and driving a moon buggy.

“I was hooked on the sport after that day,” he reveals.

Rock crawling rewards patience, spatial awareness, throttle control, vehicle sympathy, and the ability to stay composed when gravity seems to have other plans. Those are hard-earned traits for any driver, and uncommon to be so well developed at Brett’s age.

Now, at 17, the sport has taken him far beyond the rocks close to home.

“Rock crawling allows me to travel the country and explore, it’s really opened my eyes to all of the cool stuff out there.”

Competition is part of the draw, but so is the access—to new places, new terrain, and a community that has become central to his life.

Who And What His Wild Is Made Of

Brett’s story is inseparable from his father, Matt Dickey, also his spotter.

In rock crawling, the driver may be the person strapped into the buggy, but success is rarely a solo act. The spotter reads the terrain from outside the vehicle, communicates tire placement, watches clearances, and often has to make decisions just as quickly as the person holding the steering wheel.

“My dad is the reason I get to do everything that I do, he taught me how to drive and everything I know. We have so much fun out there on the trails and competing.”

Matt is a well-known driver in his own right, and the father-and-son pairing has become a fixture in W.E.ROCK competition. In 2026 alone, Brett and Matt have already won the Unlimited class at the Western Series opener in Bagdad, Arizona, the East vs. West vs. Texas event in Mason, Texas, and the Eastern Series opener at Good Evening Ranch in West Virginia.

Their support system extends beyond immediate family, too. Veteran rock crawler and builder Ben Hanks has described Matt as one of his closest friends and said he regularly helps Brett’s team with pit work, strategy, and driving support.

Then there is the buggy itself.

Every serious competition crawler is shaped by compromises: wheelbase, suspension geometry, visibility, steering, balance, gearing, and how a particular driver wants the chassis to react. Brett’s No. 17 vehicle isn’t just a borrowed platform adapted around him; it is a “one-off custom build made specifically for me and my driving style,” he shares.

It’s this familiarity with his vehicle and lots of practice with pushing through the hardest obstacles that has built his confidence in the sport.

Chasing Fun and Ambition

Professional rock crawling can look brutal from outside the ropes. There are high-dollar custom-built machines, difficult courses, penalties for mistakes, and competitors willing to balance a vehicle on the edge of physics to save a few points.

But Brett doesn’t let these complexities cloud his way forward.

“The core spirit for me is just to have fun.”

That attitude may be one reason he has progressed so quickly. The pressure is real, but the reason for doing it hasn’t disappeared beneath trophies and points standings.

His career ambitions are similarly measured.

“I take it day by day and hope it leads to a full-time career.”

There is good reason to think the opportunity is there. Brett and Matt have continued winning as they’ve moved into the Unlimited ranks, cementing Brett as the youngest driver ever to win a National Championship there. That title, earned very recently in Farmington, NM, is just the latest in a series of breakthroughs.

But at 17, there is also plenty of road left ahead.

Or, more appropriately, plenty of rock.

Fit For Your Wild

Contrary to what it might seem to outsiders, the most telling thing about Brett’s relationship with off-roading may be that competition weekends don’t look radically different from the rest of his life.

“I’m lucky enough to live in the off-road capital of the world, so it honestly doesn’t change much. If I’m not in school, I’m on the trail.”

That line gives real meaning to 3W Auto-life brand’s “Fit For Your Wild” idea—everyone paints a different picture of what their “wild” is.

Brett’s run adds another layer to it: “wild” rarely goes according to plan. A rock crevice doesn’t ask permission before flipping a buggy’s attitude 180 degrees, and rain doesn’t check the schedule before turning a climb to glass. What sets a driver like Brett apart isn’t avoiding those moments—it’s how fast he reads them, adjusts and keeps the buggy moving forward anyway.

That unpredictability is where 3W enters the story. As an on-site sponsor of Trail Hero 2026, 3W brought its custom-fit floor liners into the same demanding off-road environment Brett represents. 

Guided by its “one car, one design” philosophy, the brand combines 3D laser scanning with its pioneering VigorMold™ process to create vehicle-specific liners that provide a precise custom fit, secure placement and fuller coverage. The liners, made with 3W’s proprietary Thorex™ material, are built for durability, all-weather protection and easy cleaning—helping drivers handle the dirt, mud, sand, water and trail debris that naturally come with off-road life.

“I know no matter what terrain I get myself into, 3W Auto-life’s got my back and keeps me protected.”

This protection is the practical side of “Fit For Your Wild.” Liners have to do more than simply fit the floor—they have to stay in place, protect more of the interior, stand up to repeated use and clean up easily when the drive is over.

There is no single definition of off-road adventure. It can be a stock truck on a forest road, an overlander chasing a distant campsite, or a 17-year-old professional driver balancing a purpose-built buggy on a line that barely looks possible. For Brett, that definition isn’t the fourth-place finish on the scoreboard. It’s the four and a half hours before it—a vehicle saved in seconds, a line re-found at an angle that didn’t look driveable, and a kid who kept pushing forward on a stage nobody finished that day.