We were introduced to Tim Hardy back in 1996, which marked our first trip out to Moab. Back then, being hardcore Samurai guys ourselves, Tim was a bit of an idol for us. Fast forward 16 years, and he’s still one of our idols. His famous red Samurai is virtually unchanged from years past, sporting 35″ tires and a slew of homebrew Hardy inventions like upgraded front axles & birfield drive shafts. While he’s sporting a “few” dents collected over the past 16+ years, there’s still one straight piece of metal on the top vent where the hood meets the firewall. Tim seems pretty determined to change that, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tim’s been with Ultimate Adventure for 11 seasons now. Safe to say he’s a regular with this group.

While the happy faces on the head rests were there to fool you, the red “headlights” should be the dead giveaway. Yes, this is the BACK of the Ultimate Adventure JK, complete with Spider 9 rear steer axle, Warn winch, grill, and hood which serves as a trunk. Lovers and haters will battle this one out for decades, which was exactly what its builder, Fred Williams of Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off-Road, was after. A JK that looks like no other, that turns heads on road and is unstoppable off-road. Watching this JK drive on the highway and then conquer the trails of Idaho with ease we can say with certainty, mission accomplished.

David Chappelle set out to build his Ultimate Adventure machine following the same principles we hold so very close here at Spidertrax. In the end, he built a simple, lightweight, ultra low CG Hilux, marking all the key ingredients that make up an unstoppable machine. We took this shot at the end of Saturday’s run, right before we headed back to town.

Full disclaimer, we cheated. Last Monday, we closed on a new building, a project that was months in the works. Unfortunately, the closing fell right in the middle of this years Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off-Road Ultimate Adventure. Before we go into our cheating confession, we should start with describing what exactly Ultimate Adventure is.

For those new to Ultimate Adventure, think of it as summer camp for die-hard wheelers. Eight days of non stop four wheeling on some of the most impressive, and scenic, trails our country has to offer. There are rules to keep the event more true to the roots of four wheeling, such as having to drive your rig from trail to trail, i.e. no trailers, camping only, and so on. In the end new friends are made, new trails are conquered, and new stories are formed.

Now, about that cheating thing. This year, we were involved with the Ultimate Adventure in a big way. Fred Williams set out to build the Ultimate JK for the Ultimate Adventure (he builds a new vehicle for this event each year), and on that quest he came to Spidertrax for complete front & rear Spider 9 axles. After the fact, we ended up signing on as the official axle for the Ultimate Adventure, really for nothing more than showing our support for such a great event. This gave us a chance to wheel the entire week with the group, but we missed that chance with closing on our new building.

So we flew out for the last day of the adventure, and tagged along. Otherwise known as cheating. The entire group was awesome about it though, and as expected were insanely accommodating and willing to help us catch up on the stories of the week. This all happened yesterday, and we’ll be sure to recant some of the stories of that day throughout this week right here on the blog. For now we’ll start off by saying thanks to Petersen’s and the entire Ultimate Adventure crew, we had a blast.

And glad we found them. Not that there’s any missing this group. Breakfast from 6:30-8:00 am, then time for some wheeling.