The Frostbite run at Kansas Rocks Recreational Park has been going on for what seems like forever. Not sure when it started but I have shirts from ’07, ’08, and ’09 (that I shamelessly still wear). Life has kept me busy in the meantime and this is the first time I have been back to this particular event in over 10 years.

I’ll be up front and say I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked. Most of the day we were leading a small group and my Wife and I were having a blast.

I didn’t get an official count but there were well over 100 offroad rigs attending the event. We had some EXCELLENT weather with a high of 63 degrees and were in Tshirts all day .

PJ ended up leading a group with three Jeep Rubicons all of which had 33″ tires or bigger. Of the group we led 2 out of 4 of us had to pull winch cable. PJ never got stuck or needed to winch (good thing too because PJ doesn’t have a winch…yet).

PJ got dubbed ‘The minivan’ by the Jeep guys while we were out there showing up them what Suzuki’s were all about.

“How the hell does that minivan make it up and these Jeep Rubicons all struggle with it”

I had a slight advantage though since I have been offroading for over 15 years with three different rigs built from scratch. There is a lot to be said for having practice and seat time behind the wheel. I have some ideas for an offroad how-to series that I am going to post this year, so stay tuned for me to let ALL of my offroad secrets and theories out of the box.

Selecting Trails

Obviously this vehicle isn’t as big as my prior vehicles both of which had 1 ton axles, lockers front/rear, and 38 inch or larger tires, but I gotta say I’m not mad about it. We went in and ran the beginner and intermediate trails and they were loads of fun. There were a lot of people there so we got to stop often and watch other people beat their trucks on the hard obstacles

One of the guys on Pirate4x4 brought up an old quote “It is more fun to drive a slow car fast than to drive a fast car slow”. I think the same applies here. I was able to be challenged and have fun without going straight to the hard obstacles that end up costing $$$$ in broken parts.

Modification report

PJ had a lot of untested mods to try out on this trip so I made a quick list of the observations from having tested them all out. For more details on any one project, just click the title to go to the build post(s).

Fuel Tank Relocation

Totally worth it. The first two times I went to KS Rocks I had stock suspension height and drug the gas tank on every other obstacle putting some pretty big dents in it. After the fuel tank relocation I didn’t drag it at all and still seemed to have enough room in the back for a cooler and my tools.

The only thing that did drag in the rear was my tailpipe which I hadn’t gotten around to relocating yet. The rocks relocated it for me about 4″ above where it was, which also means it cracked the pipe around the rear axle that I will need to fix eventually.

2″ Lift kit

Totally worth it. I think PJ rides just a tad stiffer than it did before, but the added ground clearance made a big difference. My approach and departure angles fared well, but the belly definitely still needs some skid plates. I seemed to drag the frame rail right behind the front tires pretty often.

Roll Cage

Worth it. There is something comforting about having an extra roll bar and level of safety in a vehicle. It is like insurance, it is nice to know you have it but you hope that you never use it.

29″ UTV Tires on 15″ wheels

TOTALLY worth it. These tires were EPIC on the trails. Many of the trucks on all terrain tires were really struggling in the mud, lots of them were just barely getting through the ruts. PJ despite having smaller tires than most gripped like a billygoat. We had a couple of times where we met other groups on the same trail and I was able to turn and pull out of deep ruts off to the side when the oncoming trucks could just barely get through the ruts and almost slid into the trees.

These tires have totally changed my mind about offroad tires in general. If you tow your rig to the trails, I would highly suggest having separate on road and offroad tires and wheels. It doesn’t take that long to swap them out and it is amazing how well the non-DOT offroad tires did on this terrain. Mud terrains are great, but they are nothing like dedicated offroad tires.

Video

Here is a 6 minute compilation of the video, dash cam video, and some of the pictures we took.

Conclusion

Nothing broke!? (weird) Now I just get to clean 20lbs of mud out from underneath PJ and start getting him ready for the next adventure.

We came into frostbite not knowing a lot of people but ended up wheeling with the greatest group and had a blast doing it. Big shout out to Shane and all of his buddies, you guys made it lots of fun. Can’t wait to get out there again.

Hope you enjoyed, now YOU go outside and work on something (or go wheeling)!