Losing grip – The Miller lacks…
By now, no one can have missed the coolest release of the year: RC4WD’s Miller Motorsports 1/10 Pro Rock Racer. In my mind, this is the best thing that has happened in a long time: someone finally taking the 2.2″ rock crawler-racer game to the next level. Amazing scale looks, 2-speed transmission with selectable 2WD or 4WD, selectable front and rear differential lockers. Were it a hamburger in Australia, it would be called The Works.
It’s easy to see people taking this rig in a lot of different directions. Like: lower. Perhaps a slightly lower stance to gear it more towards racing? Heck, with selectable rear wheel drive and a lower stance, it could probably be drifted on loose dirt – I for one would love that! Drifting this one on snow covered ice in winter? Yes please!
Mind that drifting it would probably require a different motor, adjusting the drag brake and a bit of tweaking the shocks, considering chassis roll. I am really curious to see what kind of kV people will be putting into this one, and what it will hold up to. Also, let’s hope for an aluminum trailing arm and axle upgrades coming.
Anyway, our review will go into all the details of what this rig has, so let me instead touch upon what I find really interesting: what it lacks.
Competition.
With a lot of focus on small scale crawlers lately, the 2.2″ rock racer field is pretty much open for taking. Losi offers the Hammer Rey, there’s the Gmade GOM, Cross RC has the Emo X. None of them hitting the sweet spot in between racing and crawling. And Axial? They used to rule this game with their Bomber, Yeti and Wraith, all now discontinued. The Rift? Yes, they’ve got that one, but that’s a different kettle of fish. If I were Axial, I would be tearing my hair out at this stage.
The Miller is pretty much a Bomber with all the frills to be expected from a high end rig in 2023. The Bomber suffers, in my opinion, from a slightly too narrow stance. Now that’s a very easy fix, but just looking at the dimensions the Miller might have gotten that right from the start, with a wheelbase of 354mm and width 299mm, compared to the Bomber’s longer and narrower 375mm and 292mm respectively.
Reviews will tell, but as far as I can see RC4WD has done a very good job exploiting a pretty much empty playing field, getting that goal in while Axial was looking the other way. Good job! But let’s hope that Axial gets into the 2.2″ game again – I’m looking forward to seeing their next take on it.
Read our full review here: RC4WD Rock Racer Review!
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