It may not be the magnificent setting of Chateau de Versailles at the Paris Games, but sprawling bush properties off the beaten track are hosting their own Olympics of four-wheel driving.

The biggest attraction for competitors is the fearsome ruggedness of the Australian landscape.

From deep gullies to steep hill climbs, raging rivers to seemingly bottomless mud, welcome to the Winch Truck Racing Games.

On race weekends in central Queensland, better known for its beef and barra, it's an epicentre of 4WD royalty.

"The harshest country you could find … that's the type of country we like," chief scrutineer Dan Pickels said.

"It's a pretty close-knit community and we call it the winch truck family.

And don't call them weekend mud racers or bush bashers.

"Some of the winches on these cars are worth around the $10,000 mark, just for the winch," Pickels said.

"Some of these cars [cost] over $150,000 to build."

What is winch truck racing?

Each team is comprised of a driver and navigator in their powerful off-road machines.

The driver controls the winch from inside the cab, while the navigator's job is just that — but also running the synthetic rope to its next point.

"Each stage is set with a tricky obstacle in the way, or sometimes several obstacles per stage, and you drive as far as you can and then winch the rest, basically," Pickels said.

"The driver and navigator then work together as a team to get up, over, or through that obstacle."

Pickels said events could last for three days and up to 10 stages, with some ranging from a few hundred metres to 15 kilometres.

"There can be short stages, long stages, or even GPS stages where teams get given a GPS coordinate and they've got to go out into the scrub to find it," he said.

"You can't describe the feeling. It's one of those things [that] until you've done it and you've experienced it you can't explain it to somebody."

Thirsty work for teams

They're highly skilled motoring enthusiasts who scale around mountains — sometimes near vertically — battling their way through a mix of natural terrain and human-made obstacles.

Driver Kelvin Richardson was first introduced to winch truck racing as a spectator.

"I went down to a big event down south called Cliffhanger and have loved it ever since," he said.

Richardson is well-regarded on the racing scene Down Under courtesy of his real-life monster truck nicknamed Thirsty Camel.

On the course he and navigator Aaron Ellis communicate via Bluetooth headsets in their helmets.

"You get lost in the moment listening to your navigator because when you're in the car a lot of the time you're either seeing the ground or the sky," Richardson said.

"You just have to trust where he is telling you to go … turn left, right, go up or down."

Would they call it the Olympics of four-wheel driving?

"Definitely," Richardson said.

"Some of the stages you're doing 100 [kilometres per hour] down a dirt road and next minute you're crawling through a rock garden or stuck balancing vertically on the spare tyre on the back of the car."

The winch racing capital

Properties not suitable for grazing in the tiny rural towns of Mount Larcom and Lowmead, both near Gladstone, have become popular destinations for winch truck racers from across Australia.

A course designer as well as scrutineer, Pickels said the tough terrain in the region made it an ideal spot.

"There's been teams from New South Wales and Victoria who have travelled to CQ to take on our courses," Pickels said.

"Out of the proper competition vehicles within Queensland I would say 60 per cent of them are from central Queensland."

Behind every great race team is a support and pit crew that is equally as talented.

Richardson said this was especially true when it came to off-road racing.

"Like any motorsport, winch truck racing is just growing and growing."