MAXTRAX Mini Recovery Boards

MAXTRAX Mini are full-strength recovery boards in a shorter package. Wedge a pair under the drive tires and you drive yourself out of sand, mud or snow — no winch, no second vehicle. Same reinforced engineering-grade nylon as the MKII and XTREME, made in Australia, lifetime warranty. Sold as a pair in Signature Orange, Black, Olive Drab or Desert Tan.

Mini means shorter, not lesser. At 25 inches each board is a little over half an MKII in the same nylon — length is the only thing that changed. A pair rides in a car trunk, a small SUV, a trailer or a van with no rack. It suits people who get stuck in soft ground rather than on trails — beach access, snowy driveways, muddy field parking, forest roads in a crossover — and anyone who wants recovery capability aboard without building a rig around it. The trade-off is length: expect to reposition more often in deep soft ground.

A short board rewards better placement. Clear more material from in front of each tire than you would with a full-length board — there is less ramp to work with. Seat it so the tread meets the face of the board rather than climbing onto its end, then pull away in your lowest gear with barely any throttle. In deep sand leapfrog the pair forward rather than driving out in one go, and don't stop mid-board. Minis nest with the MKII and XTREME, so they also supplement a full-size pair.

• The honest default. The MKII is enough for most people; the Mini is the answer when your vehicle or your storage will not take one. Step up to the XTREME only if you use boards hard and often.
• Color is preference, with one caveat. Signature Orange is the one you can still spot at 2am or half-buried behind you. Black, Olive Drab and Desert Tan look better on the vehicle but hide in the ground you use them in — Desert Tan in sand.
• Lifetime warranty, and we rarely see one come back. The failure we do see is bridging in very cold weather with a hard impact. MAXTRAX has always taken care of it.
• Two built-in handles and a shovel edge at each end. At this length a Mini is an easy one-hand carry, and it digs as well as it recovers.

Mounting these? One Universal Mounting Pin now fits the whole MAXTRAX range, leaving two choices: thread length — 17 mm for bracket mounting, including every bracket we sell, or 40 mm through a camper panel — and capacity, a two-board pin or a four-board pin if you run two sets.

More recovery gear and traction board mounts.

Not sure the Mini is the one you want? Ask us first. Sizing a board to a vehicle is the question we get most, and it is easier to answer than to guess at. We were MAXTRAX's original U.S. distributor and have stocked the brand since it reached the United States; the range sits in Prescott, Arizona, not a drop-shipper's.