2021 Fall Off-Road Round-Up

On the weekend of September 10th-12th, 2021 we held our annual TRS Fall Off-Road Round-Up at the Badlands Offroad Park in Attica, Indiana. Although there is still a COVID-19 pandemic, this years gathering saw an increase in participation over last year.

This year we saw 17-vehicles participate which included a side-by-side, Toyota FJ, and a Nissan pickup. The Nissan was owned by a friend of one of our forum members, and we’re always open to new four-wheeling friends.

We also helped identify our base camp this year with a TRS flag.

A few members arrived early enough to hit the trails on Friday, but most arrived, set up camp, and just socialized on Friday. In fact, most of those attending decided to have dinner at Agave Azul Mexican Restaurant Friday night.

I’ve been wanting to get a photo of each generation of the Ford Ranger parked side by side, and we managed to do it this year. The lineup below shows how the Ford Ranger styling has changed from 1983-2019.

The Badlands Offroad Park offers a variety of terrain as well as the ‘Off The Trail Campground’ at the entrance making it the idea place to gather. The park also offers restrooms and a food shack.

Our gatherings are family friendly, and a couple of members brought their kids along.

XionicWaste’s Ranger is a fun rig to watch crawl over obstacles with its rear steering.

Bobby Walter’s son ‘Lil Bob’ was wheeling their Ford Bronco II like a seasoned off-roader. He eventually rolled it over on a tough rock obstacle. The Bronco II features a roll cage, so Lil Bob was not injured. We were able to get the Bronco II back on its tires, and Lil Bob drove it back to the campground.

We were to busy wheeling to take any action photos, but we did manage to get some video that you can find below.

Camp Fire Pizza:

Saturday evening Uncle Gump set up a pizza tent and started cranking out pizzas with the help of a special stainless steel dome created by ericbphoto. Uncle Gump was taking pizza orders and was equipped to make about any kind of pizza that you could want. I was skeptical when I first saw discussion about cooking pizza on a campfire, but this turned out to be the best pizza I have ever eaten.

There’s nothing like good food and beverages around a campfire with good friends!

Door Prizes:

This year each participant received a TRS special event glass and a raffle ticket for a door prize.

Midland USA donated a MXT115 GMRS mobile radio, MXT105 GMRS mobile radio, and a pair of T51VP4 X-Talker portable radios to be given away as door prizes.

Each participant wrote their name on their raffle ticket that was then placed in a box. The box was shaken and a ticket was drawn for each item. The winners were:

‘Uncle Gump’ – Midland X-Talker portable radios
’85_Ranger4x4′ – Midland MXT115 GMRS mobile radio
‘Mrs. Eighty Five’ – Midland MXT105 GMRS Radio

Don’t forget to get your 15% discount at MidlandUSA.com by using ‘RangerStation’ for the discount code by December 31, 2021.

Rock Auto provided a $25.00 gift certificate which was won by ‘fastpakr’. Check out the Rock Auto forum for the latest discount code.

‘Snoranger’ received the $100 long distance cash prize for driving 12-hours from New Jersey.

Conclusion:

All in all I think that the 2021 Fall Off-Road Round-Up was a great success. We just have to figure out how to get Uncle Gump to make pizzas again next year! 😉