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Let me start off this holiday weekend edition of Scalin’ by sending my well wishes to all of you Texas and Louisiana readers. I also wanted to give a big “Hello” to my friend Howard from Houston, TX. He owns a HobbyTown USA and, while it sounds like they were spared from the flooding, I just want to let you [...]
The MST MTX-1 solid axle monster truck has been teased quite a bit over the last month, and enough has now been shown where I think it’s worth having a preliminary discussion. The first thing I should say is that I’m excited for another SA truck to hit the market. I’m not super familiar with the MST brand, but I’ve heard good [...]
Greetings all. Top o’ the weekend to you! As crawling/scaling has reached maturity, it’s always fun to think back and reminisce about what used to be. This week I thought I’d put together a funny list that many of you old timers can hopefully relate to. You may be an OG Scaler and/or crawler if: – You remember the X-Trail chassis. – You’re [...]
A BEC is one of the most important upgrades you can make to your scaler, but it’s also one of the most confusing. While noobs are not surprisingly usually a bit in the dark on what one is, even long time hobbyists can sometimes be aloof. Let’s start with the “what”. A BEC (Battery Eliminator Circuit) is a device that allows [...]
Ever since starting this monster truck column in early 2017, I’ve fielded a number of e-mails from noobies. I was originally going to use today’s MTM as a mailbag, but my longwinded answers made it so I’d be better off splitting these up and answering each in depth over time. So yeah, for today I’ll just start with the question that [...]
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a general “what’s new in scaling” type-post, and I figure we are overdue. First up is the Thunder Tiger Toyota Hilux. The other day TT posted a pretty sweet video of the truck in action. Gotta say, it looks pretty capable. We are hoping to get one of these for review soon, so you can [...]
The monster truck world said goodbye to one of the titans of the sport last weekend; legendary driver Gary Porter. If you’re an extremely casual monster truck fan then you may not know that name, but I bet you’re familiar with his creation- “Carolina Crusher”. The original Carolina Crusher was built in ’85 as a promo vehicle for the family 4 Wheel [...]
The biggest news in the scaling community as of late was Vanquish Products announcing their ultra high-end “Ripper Project” would be available for order to those interested in getting one. Everything on the chassis/body is custom machined out of billet aluminum, save for a few 3D printed accessories. The price? $1,899. You then have to supply additional parts to complete the build. [...]
I’m no sissy when it comes to scaling in the elements. I’ve done G6 competitions in the sweltering heat and long trail runs in zero degree weather with the snow falling. It’s all part of the game. Still, the heat wave that has engulfed the midwest for the last two weeks has me crying uncle. I had been laying low, but last [...]
In Monster Truck Madness #6, which I wrote in February, I went into detail on how best to get started modifying your Axial SMT10. The time has come to talk about juicing one up even further than that. Back in April I made substantial changes to one of my two SMT10’s to bring it up to snuff with the “Pro Modified” category of [...]
R/C trailing can be a wildly different experience depending on what area you’re running in. There could be intense technical rock crawling or none whatsoever. Mud and trees or sun and sand. When exploring a new spot, this sort of mystery is part of the experience. It’s weird how my tastes have changed over the years. I used to be all [...]
It’s been a long time since I’ve discussed batteries which, shame on me, are often the subject of e-mails that I receive from noobs. I’ve neglected the topic for far too long, so here we go. Here are a few tips on selection and safety, as it pertains to r/c trail trucks. Let’s do it scatter-shots style. Battery mAh and C rating – [...]
Hey all, Doug here. My monster truck club wanted to do something special for the 4th of July, so here it is! We thought it would be fun to recreate Dennis Anderson’s infamous 2001 “Wall of Steel” monster truck stunt. We like to call this the “Wall of Plastic”. The 1/10 version of Mr. Destruction belongs to good buddy Habo Gutierrez, and [...]
Man, this summer has been flying by. Can’t believe it’s already the weekend of the 4th! Not sure what it’s been like in your particular neck of the woods, but here in Missouri we’ve had temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s for the better part of two weeks. Normally you can cook an egg on the sidewalk this time of year, [...]
One of the great secrets of hardcore r/c monster truckers; where do our crush cars come from?. It’s by far the number one question that I field from YouTube viewers on my Trigger King channel….well, right after “what do these cost?!”. I also get e-mail from readers on here as well, when they see them in pictures. I’ll answer that in [...]