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Mad Ax

UK Scaler Nationals 2022 - Live Updates

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That looks fantastic fun @Mad Ax. It is on my wish list but I'd need a working truck - I haven't even built my SCX10.3! I especially like the idea of a hotel overnight. And a beer.

It must be pretty satisfying to get a truck round, especially when you hare out quite a bit of work into it.

Out of interest how many and what size batteries are you using?

Hope Day 2 goes just as well as today, keep us informed!

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Ok, day 2, here we go! Bit of a bigger turnout today, weather is dry but threatening rain, I drove through some drops on the way here. Raincoat on, let's get on the big 500 gate ale trail! 

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We made it to gate 100! A fifth of the way through

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So we made it to gate 250 with no breakages! We're going to break now while my trail buddy does the comp courses, then back out for the rest of the gates in the afternoon

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17 hours ago, Badcrumble said:

Out of interest how many and what size batteries are you using?

My main rigs use full size 3S 4250mAh packs, and I didn't use 2 packs in 4 courses. I took a spare with me in the rucksack but didn't need it.  The two packs I used topped off at the hotel in an hour.

The class 1 Toyota uses a smaller 3S 2200mAh, I completed a 100 gate course without it going flat and it charged up in 50 mins.  Some people arrive with hundreds of batteries, and some insist on using tiny 2000 packs for reduced weight, but I like the freedom of two big packs and knowing I can run all day without charging.

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Buddy is still on the comp courses, I've just had some lunch so gonna take the BOM out on course 1 for a bit

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Done. Gonna go find my trail buddy and finish the big trail if he's ready

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And we're done!

So that's that, all trails done, some of them twice. Gonna go get myself tidied and ready for the long drive home, should be ready for the raffle at 4pm

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I probably should have posted here when I got in at 8:30 last night, but I was kinda exhausted and forgot all about it.

Anyway, the raffle was huge with some awesome prizes (and a Hulk comic)* but as per usual I came up empty.  For a long time I had a great run in raffles, taking some pretty good prizes every year, but this year my only win was a copy of the April 2022 edition of Cars & Details Magazine, which is written in German.  As mein Deutsche is a little rusty, I haven't had a chance to read it yet.  There again, my total spend on raffle tickets at all events in 2022 is around the price of a good meal out, judging by the wedges of tickets in some people's hands as they collected their prizes yesterday, most people are spending around the price on an NIB kit on raffle tickets.  Each to their own, but I'd rather buy an NIB kit for that money.

Anyway, this post wasn't intended to be a negative about not winning, the whole comp awards and raffle ceremony was a hilarious experience, I'm really glad I stayed on, plus I got to say a proper farewell to Scott (who some of you may know as Ace of Axe), who has been a key member of the UK Scaler Nationals team for a long time and is now returning to his homeland in Indiana.  More on the whole Scott story later when the main event pics are up.

I've still got to sort through hundreds of photos, they'll all be up on TCPhotos later, and I'll probably write up a full event report as well detailing some of the highlights of the weekend.

But for now, it's all over.  What an event, what a weekend!

If you've got a scale truck, it doesn't matter how expensive or detailed or capable it is (or isn't), come along to the next event in May (or one of the other scaler events that take place across the UK), find out how much fun it all is.  If you're worried about not getting around the course, just stick a towing loop on the front and the back and buy or make a tow strap, and there'll always be someone to tug you through the gate.

*unfortunately you had to be there to understand that reference

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I went on Saturday and had a great time! We had a group of 5 of us with various rigs, and just did the 500 gate trail, which was alot easier then last years (in my opinion). My trusty trx4 sport kit was a trooper as always, and just kept plugging away at the trails.

Looking forward to the next one already!

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21 hours ago, Chaosfruitbat said:

I went on Saturday and had a great time! We had a group of 5 of us with various rigs, and just did the 500 gate trail, which was alot easier then last years (in my opinion).

I'd agree with that - I think all the trails were easier.  Trail 3 had some of the toughest sections, and needed the most winching, but the CFX-W got over most stuff without much trouble.

I think things got to a real tough point around 2019 when some of the rocky sections were near impossible if you didn't have a 2.2 comp crawler, although the course organisers had said that everything gate was technically possible with a class 1.  We had to break out the winches even with the class 2 trucks.  I wondered then, with dismay, if scaler events were going to head that way as more people started building LCG rigs with wide axles and narrowed bodies, and needed more of a challenge, when I prefer true scale builds, and even feel a bit queasy running a front overdrive.

I remember a section back in 2018 that took us up through a narrow channel in the rocks, unused this year.  We queued up there for round 45 minutes to get through, but I did it in the end, even with the class 1 Toyota, which was a very basic truck in those days.

There were no queues at all this year, even at some of the harder sections.  In some ways it's nice to get through the course and not be held up, but sometimes it's nice to stop, chat with strangers in the queue, watch different lines, and then breeze through a tricky part with a 6-year-old bone-stock rig that everybody else got stuck on for ages.  Well, sometimes, anyway! :D 

I didn't do the comp courses, but watching the awards ceremony, seems a lot of people didn't.  I guess I didn't really want to stand around in the queue waiting my turn to be timed, only to touch the first gate and be out.  It's nice that the comp sections are better judged now, I felt the "mark your own score cards" thing probably got hard to police after a while (I think one year there were prizes for class winners?)

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I'm much more interested in the scale side of crawling, but am happy to drive down to Bracken Rocks to drive a different place a few times a year. The only bad bit for me, was no cider. The stuff for sale at Funduro was amazing!

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