Pretty spot on. I learned many of these things in a different automotive world, Jeeps. Rock crawling is a very similar "track" where learning how to drive comes with many more benefits than dropping thousands on your rig.

Keeping though to my Barracuda, the engine build is very simple. Mild power out of a 5.7L Hemi will be just enough to have decent power on tap, but not too much that I'm constantly chasing the rear end.