Everybody’s Scalin’ – Mud Tires & Closed Cell Foams

I’ve been meaning to talk about closed cell foams and this week I was sent a great letter that will let me touch on them –

Hey guys,

I jumped on to the scaling bandwagon with an Axial G6 kit – pretty stoked
about it.

Question is… over here it’s primarily forests and building sites I get to
drive in and we get rain…Seattle amounts I suppose. The stock Trepadors
on steel rims just get totally bogged down.

Can you recommend any decent 1.9 tires for my truck that whip mud away from
’em – not interested in tractor treads, yeah I saw BSRC’s cool article on
the Mud Bashers but they be a no-go for me – I’d get those if it was only
mud trailing I was into.

What say ye?

Cheers
Mark-T

While I dig the Mud Bashers primarily because I love the tractor tired mud look, the answer you are looking for is a set of 1.9 Pro-Line TSL Swamper XL’s. They clean-out super easy, are slightly taller than the Trepadors you’re using and are fantastic tires. I’ve logged more time with them than any other scaling tire and love them. Here’s the deal though, you need to get some closed cell foams as well. Being that you are running in mud, you’ll REALLY like them.

The included memory foams are nice, especially if you plan on just doing dry rock crawling and/or have a relatively light rig. If you have a pig (aka a heavy truck) and/or plan on getting in the drink you will love closed cells. They provide much firmer sidewall support so your tires won’t have annoying sideroll when turning at speed or side hilling. They also work just fine wet which you can’t say the same for standard foam. I love the consistency they provide over the full spectrum of surfaces you’ll find when out trailing and they seemingly last forever. They are also more resistant to flat spotting than standard foams.

Crawler Innovations makes a killer Deuce’s Wild closed cell foam specifically for that tire (as well as a few other popular brands) and they are the cat’s meow. I’ve been using them on a variety of trucks for a couple years now and since then I’ve found it very hard to go without.  I met Eddie (owner of CI) a few years ago when G6’ing and he is known as the professor of crawling tires for a reason. He talked me into trying a set and I’ve never looked back.

An awesome tire like the TSL XL mounted with an awesome set of closed cell foams will turn that already capable Axial G6 SCX10 into a trailing animal. They sure did mine! Enjoy and shoot us some pics when you are in the mucky stuff.

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