Ford Racing is offering some awesome new beadlock wheels for the Ford Raptor. These wheels have an ingenious design that allows them to have a tire mounted for street use, and then be transformed with a special beadlock ring for off road use. This enables the driver to lower the tire pressure for additional traction off road.

Whether Cro-Magnon Man or four-wheeling fiend, humans have, since the dawn of time searched out adventure to test their fortitude and endurance. Our near constant search for extreme 4x4 based adventure is what inspired Petersen’s 4 Wheel & Off-Road’s yearly summer gathering known as the Ultimate Adventure. This trip of epic proportions has led readers, aftermarket advertisers, a support crew of cronies and the magazine staff to off-road venues around the country for the past 16 years and is the pinnacle of off-road road-trips. This expedition combines long-distance road driving, hard-core wheeling, camping, exploring, comradery, vehicular failure and trailside repair, plus new for 2015, canoeing!?. This year’s UA had a summer camp (for adults) vibe and all campers were happy despite a few late nights and daily heavy rain.(it rained A LOT!) In the past we’ve waited months to show you a limited number of photos of the fun and action we have had on the UA in our monthly publication. Today will start in the beginning with shots of the check in and safety inspection and then our first off-road day of UA 2015 where we tore up the trails at Powerline Park in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

While we joke that Ultimate Adventure 2015 is like summer camp for adults, the trip is not for the faint of heart. This is not the Mediocre Adventure or the Half Baked Adventure. This is a trip for a few hard core off-roaders from within the industry and a few select readers who expect tough trails and long days. The truth is participants know to expect anything from our whistle blowing leader, head camp counselor, Rick Péwé. While road days are all about getting to our next destination a side trip or two to a wheeling destination or ferry crossing are common occurrences. In the end, day two of UA 2015 will go down in history as one of the longest road days, not in overall mileage (although we did cover some ground) but rather a day that would last nearly 21 hours. After a 6:00 drivers meeting followed by a short drive to the muddy and tight trails at Clay Valley Dirt Park near Roseville, Ohio UA 2015’s to play summer campers drove a total of nearly 600 road miles and included a ferry crossing. The days trip meant driving late that night and into the early hours of day three before arriving at our next camp site in Harlan Kentucky. While this road day was long, the wheeling was awesome. We took plenty of photos from the road and trail including 4x4s making tight squeezes between trees, and maybe even a flop or two, followed by a trip on a ferry.

Hit the road Jack (and Jarred)! Day 4 of Ultimate Adventure 2015 was our second road day. We packed up camp in the misty hills of Harlan Kentucky, unlocked hubs (if your rig had them) and started pounding pavement. A few miles down the road we found out what the canoes that (were a requirement for UA 2015) were there for as the group pulled into a parking lot along the edge of Martins Fork Lake just south of Harlan. With that Campers unloaded their vessels and headed for the water. Canoe races were the main point (aside from the cool factor of 24 rigs with canoes on their roof), but things devolved into friendly sea (or is it lake) battles. Several of the watercrafts were capsized in the name of good old soaking wet fun. Once the canoes or other boats were dry and stowed the group headed for the Helms Ferry that crosses the Powell River that leads into Norris Dam Lake in Northern Tennessee. Once across we grabbed some ice cream from a floating store and headed down the road dodging rain storms eventually finding ourselves in Murphy, North Carolina home to the Durthamtown Tellico off-road park. Once we arrived in camp at Durhamtown at about 12:30 we got set up to catch some much needed sleep. Our dreams that night were of canoe based warfare and what tomorrow’s trails would bring. Waking to the sound of a downpour outside our tent cot meant that we may be wet, but at least we were still alive. Despite the huge amounts of rain that fell on our makeshift camp in western North Carolina it turns out we did not drown or wash away, but would live to wheel another day. After a brief and soggy driver’s meeting our rag tag bunch of Canoeligans loaded up in our 4x4s for more trails and adventure. We followed Chuck Davis into the hallowed hills of Durhamtown Tellico. DUrhamtown Tellico is not named for our friend and UA Crony Chris Durham, but it might as well be. The park is named Durhamtown Tellico because the private owners come from the Durhamtown Off-road area in Ge

Waking to the sound of a downpour outside our tent cot meant that we may be wet, but at least we were still alive. Despite the huge amounts of rain that fell on our makeshift camp in western North Carolina it turns out we did not drown or wash away, but would live to wheel another day. After a brief and soggy driver’s meeting our rag tag bunch of Canoeligans loaded up in our 4x4s for more trails and adventure. We followed Chuck Davis into the hallowed hills of Durhamtown Tellico. DUrhamtown Tellico is not named for our friend and UA Crony Chris Durham, but it might as well be. The park is named Durhamtown Tellico because the private owners come from the Durhamtown Off-road area in Georgia, and the name Tellico comes from the now closed public trail system that used to exist in western North Carolina. Those trails will be mourned, but at least we can still play on private land in the area. The trails and area have a definite Tellico feel and are open (for a fee) to anyone with a 4x4. Have fun and enjoy these trails as we did.

Ahh, the last day of Ultimate Adventure 2015! After a successful day on the trails of Durhamtown Tellico in the mountains of Western North Carolina it was time to hit the road to more adventure. Our end point would be South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, but there was no chance that we would get there via the most direct route. Now, if you’ve been paying attention you might expect us to visit an off-road park along the way, or at the very least find some ferry that crosses a lake or river. You would be wrong. Instead somehow the fearless Péwé found a place where a few of us could drive a tank…yep you read that right a tank. Well, maybe it’s not a tank exactly, but hey an armored personnel carrier is pretty close. Did we mention it can be driven in deep water and over junked cars. The adventure is about to come to an end for the group as a whole (although many of us have hundreds if not thousands of miles to travel to get home and more adventures await). This means that all the participants of yet another Ultimate Adventure made it to the end with only a few component fatalities. Course the action is not all over until the sun sets and Adventure Off Road Park near South Pittsburgh Tennessee would provide many a challenge for the experienced and soggy UA ’15 group. Our itinerary for the day would include slick orange clay, limestone rocks that seem to be able to bite, a BBQ lunch for all UAers, and more rocks and mud in an afternoon of dessert. While all rigs made it to the trail head of the last day not all would walk…or drive away unscathed.

On this episode of Dirt Every Day Ride Alongs, Fred Williams takes you back to Dirt Every Day episode 2, and discusses what it was like shooting in the desert with a Ford Raptor!

Watch this episode of Dirt Every Day Ride Alongs, as Fred Williams watches episode 3 of Dirt Every Day, where they went to King of the Hammers back in 2013!

Fred Williams continues his look back at Dirt Every Day season 1! On this episode of Dirt Every Day Ride Alongs, he will watch episode 7, which featured an early Cheap Truck Challenge from 2013!

On this episode of Dirt Every Day Ride Alongs, Fred Williams skips to episode 10 of Dirt Every Day and revisits a trail-built truck!

On this episode of Dirt Every Day Ride Alongs, Fred Williams is changing things a bit and revisits episode 3 of Roadkill!