1.9″ RTR Scale Crawler Shootout – Trail Driving

1.9″ RTR Scale Crawler Shootout – Trail Driving

While some people will only go hardcore rock crawling with the trucks in the shootout, most people will use them for a wide variety of different driving. Over the last few years trail driving has taken off like crazy. Trail driving is where you drive your truck at a local park on established foot trails, or blaze your own through the wilderness. For a truck to be good at trail driving it has to have good power, generous ground clearance, as well as a fully capable chassis. For our shootout we visited a number of different parks to determine which truck was the most capable on a variety of trails. Our five test drivers we allowed to drive each truck as long as they wanted, or until they felt they could truthfully rank the trucks from most capable to the least. Here is how our drivers ranked the trucks when driving on grass, mud, rocks, logs, leaves, etc.

Chris
1. Traxxas
2. Redcat
3. HPI
4. Vaterra
5. Axial
6. RC4WD

Cubby
1. Traxxas
2. Redcat
3. HPI
4. Vaterra
5. Axial
6. RC4WD

Tim
1. Traxxas
2. Redcat
3. Vaterra
4. Axial
5. HPI
6. RC4WD

Doug
1. Traxxas
2. Axial
3. HPI
4. Redcat
5. Vaterra
6. RC4WD

Mike
1. Traxxas
2. Vaterra
3. Redcat
4. Axial
5. RC4WD
6. HPI

Final Combined Results-

Notes-

How did the Traxxas get to the top of the heap in trail driving? Well, a couple of things really helped it. The Traxxas was the only truck in the shootout with portal style axles. This helped give the Traxxas more ground clearance, a fact that came in extremely handy out on the trail. Instead of getting stuck on a small branch or rock, the portals gave just a bit more ground clearance. This allowed the Traxxas to glide over certain areas that some of the other trucks struggled with. In addition to the portal axles, the Traxxas also had the most speed for getting a run at harder obstacles. While out trail driving, the Traxxas typically lead the pack, and it was one of the few trucks that could get over the hardest obstacles.

Coming in second place was the Redcat. With ample speed, good power, and tires that were well suited to trail driving, the Redcat did an amazing job of getting over obstacles and staying on all four wheels.

In third place was the Vaterra. The Vaterra benefited from a stellar stock set-up and really good tires for trail use. It was held back a bit by its top speed when trying to get over harder hills, but all in all, it did an amazing job.

Tied for fourth place was the Axial and HPI. Both proved extremely capable on the trail. The HPI had a bit more power/speed under the hood which helped it, while the Axial had the best steering and its tires were some of the best for all around traction.

Coming in at sixth spot was the RC4WD. While the Marlin Edition RC4WD is probably the most capable RTR to ever come out of the RC4WD factory, it fell a bit short of the performance of the others. Our test unit felt a bit soft on power compared to the others which hurt it when climbing power-absorbing hills. Also, its leaf spring suspension was awesome for scale factor, but didn’t quite have the performance of the other link style trucks. On the upside, the RC4WD easily sported the best performing tires of the bunch.

Lets keep moving up and head over to Rock Crawling.