Has anyone gone to axialfest, more specially axialfest at badlands in Attica IN?

[spoonycoot]

I’m assuming they are having it again in 2023 although I’ve searched and haven’t found anything yet.

My question is regarding having an axial rig. I know they state leave your other rigs at home. I would like to hangout and hit the trails, no specific competitions. How much of a rig has to be axial? Are they supper strict on that? I’m not sure I want to buy an entire axial kit just for this. You could have potentially started with an scx10 and upgraded everything and not have single axial part, would that be allowed.

Would an ssd trail king pass? The quality is superior. Would an element enduro with ar44 axles be sufficient? If I did get an scx10 II, I would end up using an enduro transmission anyway and aftermarket shocks or enduro shocks, links, bumpers anyway.

[ferp420]

they can be pretty strick i dought the trail king will fly the vs410 is a no go too
basicly it has to axial like axial style transmission axial style axles axial style frame rails
the parts can be aftermarket so ssd trail king axles are ok but the complete trail king isent
vanquish axles are good but the vs410 isent
i have squeked a custom redcat in there by passing it off as a ax10 cause it had axial like axles and axial like transmission the custome chassie wouldent pass tech though but i dident tech it lol so it couldent be entered in to any compition but no one sead anything crawling around
they have oked metal wraith and bomber cages and other cages as long as they have axial syle skid trans and axles
i hope that gives you a better idea of whats allowed that sead there not trying to keep anyone from having fun ive seen traxxassess there and other brand rigs but mostly in camp not out on the trails

they used to be alot more strict on what your alowed to run or not run but they laxed off a bit cause of the negitive feedback
personally i still wont buy a new axial because of that but thats another story i do still buy parts though so they still get my money just alot less of it lol

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by spoonycoot

I’m assuming they are having it again in 2023 although I’ve searched and haven’t found anything yet.

My question is regarding having an axial rig. I know they state leave your other rigs at home. I would like to hangout and hit the trails, no specific competitions. How much of a rig has to be axial? Are they supper strict on that? I’m not sure I want to buy an entire axial kit just for this. You could have potentially started with an scx10 and upgraded everything and not have single axial part, would that be allowed.

Would an ssd trail king pass? The quality is superior. Would an element enduro with ar44 axles be sufficient? If I did get an scx10 II, I would end up using an enduro transmission anyway and aftermarket shocks or enduro shocks, links, bumpers anyway.

I attended the Badlands event this year and was not impressed (more on that below).
Ferp, pretty much covered it. At a minimum I would have a rig with Axial axles, chassis rails and an Axial "style" transmission (clones ARE accepted).
I did sneak in my Axial Ford F100 bodied SSD Trail King, but it also had Axial MT45 tires and shocks. The tech spent A LOT of time scrutinizing it and I think it only passed cause from above it looks like a standard SCX10 II, so no one could know otherwise, see below.



Now.... if you're dead set on attending next year, have at it, but I wouldn't if it meant driving more than a couple of hours to attend. I was there with a couple of buddies and we all came away disappointed.

For context, my frame of reference is an annual North Florida event called USTE. USTE hosted almost 1000 people in 2022, there were a ton of vendors (at least 25), Tho primarily for scale crawlers, there were also activities for vintage buggies, scale semi trucks, monster trucks and bashers. You can run ANY 1/10 style rig on the trails, no tech inspection required. All of the 10 trails were carefully prepared and most had great scale features that made for fun challenges and great photo opps. Most of the trails started right off the main "town square" where all the vendors and food trucks are located, which cuts down on needless walking. Oh, and the venue is the Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens, a beautiful nature preserve.

Now for the Badlands....the venue is a 1:1 off-road park which means the trails are pretty rough, rutted and chewed up by full scale vehicles that normally use them. Expect for one, all the other trails started about a 3/4 of a mile from the central square, which made for A LOT of walking. Only one trail had scale challenges, all the others only little flag trail markers. ONLY 4 vendors attended (and that included Horizon's stand). There were no food trucks, so if you didn't pack lunch, you had to leave the venue for food. Attendance was announced as 350 people.

All in all, we expected much more from an event hosted by the nation's premier hobby company Oh, and the event's first day was only for registration and their so-called "tech" inspection - you couldn't run your trucks that day. This was frustrating cause it had not been communicated on the event's web site, so in effect we took an unnecessary day off work.

[JimInMiami]

https://www.ultimatescaletruckexpo.com/2022-1

[cartronicshn]

Originally Posted by JimInMiami

https://www.ultimatescaletruckexpo.com/2022-1

I would definetly go if i am in forida for those dates , i drove from coral gables to tarpon springs back in '08 to attend a comp. , your event is a little farther away, but i wouldn't mind putting the extra time on the drive, since i fly from tegucigalpa, honduras to miami.

[spoonycoot]

Yeah I’ve been there with an 1:1 off-road vehicle a few times. What you describe is definitely annoying. It would make so much more sense and would be much more appealing and consumer friendly if they didn’t require axial rigs. You would get more people out there and expose them to axial stuff and possibly recruit and earn more buyers. This hobby is already small as it is and they are making the pool even smaller. They should embrace the hobby and people will embrace the brand not the other way around.

Screw it, Im gonna get the rig I want and if its not allowed at axialfest so be it.

Originally Posted by JimInMiami

I attended the Badlands event this year and was not impressed (more on that below).
Ferp, pretty much covered it. At a minimum I would have a rig with Axial axles, chassis rails and an Axial "style" transmission (clones ARE accepted).
I did sneak in my Axial Ford F100 bodied SSD Trail King, but it also had Axial MT45 tires and shocks. The tech spent A LOT of time scrutinizing it and I think it only passed cause from above it looks like a standard SCX10 II, so no one could know otherwise, see below.



Now.... if you're dead set on attending next year, have at it, but I wouldn't if it meant driving more than a couple of hours to attend. I was there with a couple of buddies and we all came away disappointed.

For context, my frame of reference is an annual North Florida event called USTE. USTE hosted almost 1000 people in 2022, there were a ton of vendors (at least 25), Tho primarily for scale crawlers, there were also activities for vintage buggies, scale semi trucks, monster trucks and bashers. You can run ANY 1/10 style rig on the trails, no tech inspection required. All of the 10 trails were carefully prepared and most had great scale features that made for fun challenges and great photo opps. Most of the trails started right off the main "town square" where all the vendors and food trucks are located, which cuts down on needless walking. Oh, and the venue is the Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens, a beautiful nature preserve.

Now for the Badlands....the venue is a 1:1 off-road park which means the trails are pretty rough, rutted and chewed up by full scale vehicles that normally use them. Expect for one, all the other trails started about a 3/4 of a mile from the central square, which made for A LOT of walking. Only one trail had scale challenges, all the others only little flag trail markers. ONLY 4 vendors attended (and that included Horizon's stand). There were no food trucks, so if you didn't pack lunch, you had to leave the venue for food. Attendance was announced as 350 people.

All in all, we expected much more from an event hosted by the nation's premier hobby company Oh, and the event's first day was only for registration and their so-called "tech" inspection - you couldn't run your trucks that day. This was frustrating cause it had not been communicated on the event's web site, so in effect we took an unnecessary day off work.

[Greatscott]

I almost went to an Axialfest...
But, to be fair, when I signed up, it was call the West Coast Nationals. I was slated to compete in the 2.2 Pro and 1.9 classes. Then, two or three weeks before the comp, most of the backers pulled out, leaving Axial as the main sponsor. Bingo-bango-boingo!!!! Axialfest was born!!! Two things they did right out of the gate was to only allow Axial RCs compete, and they restricted media access to "official" media, which locked out many, of not all, of the small mom-and-pop media people that had done a lot of work for Axial in exchange for exposure. Now, those of us with XR10s and AX-10s could still compete (2.2 pro and sportsman classes), but everyone running a non-Axial 2.2 were out. Given that there were no Axial 1.9 rigs, those we all Losi, and no Axial super classes rigs, those were mainly Bergs, those two classes were axed. There were a good number of people signed up to compete in various classes with no Axial rigs, and who had paid air and hotel reservations that were hung out to dry. For me, I had family in that area, so changing my plans from playing with tiny trucks to spending time with family was a disappointment to say the least, but not a total waste.

Would I go now? Meh, hard to say... Communing with a large group of scaler/crawler geeks is a sublime experience that is hard to pass up, Axial restrictions not withstanding... I have a couple of Axial rigs, but the one ones I would want to complete with, and the ones I enjoy running are not Axials... If the opportunity presents its self, I would much rather go to a Proline By the Fire...

[tigris99]

Actually glad this thread came to be. The drive to Badlands isn't bad at all for me. Thought crossed my mine but not gonna waste my time on an event that is ran like that, it's a hobby for fun. I get the wanting Axial rigs only but beyond that let people have fun. The name "Axial Fest" means a festival, not a overly tightly wound panty competition only IMHO.

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[chevyjlewis]

Uste looks amazing

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[Jbrick]

That f150 looks amazing.

[smog]

Originally Posted by Jbrick

That f150 looks amazing.

I think its meant to be an F100, but yeah I agree. Its a great body

[JimInMiami]

Originally Posted by Jbrick

That f150 looks amazing.

Thanks, pity Axial put an ugly paint job on the RTR's or I think it would've sold better. Here's some more pics

[Col_Sanders]

I have only been to one Axialfest back in 2017. The rigs had to be Axial based at least, which meant Axial style axles and transmission. Didnt have to be stock Axial, just based on their design. Vanquish axles, Toyzuki chassis, etc were fine.

2017 was when the TRX-4 came out so they were still new. A buddy of mine was just driving his stock TRX-4 around the vendor area. They yelled at him to go put it up and made a scene. John chased us back to the camper. Asked to see all our papers and all our rigs and everything. Camper was on vendor row so no way we would have even gotten that without event registration...We had 6 Axial trucks in the camper with Tech stickers on them. He was an ass about it. He could have just said "Dont drive those here at Axialfest", but instead he gave us a bunch of shit. Funny thing was I had a stock SCX10 II body on a TRX-4 sitting by the picnic table and nobody noticed. Thats what I was driving when they were yelling at my buddy. I ended up driving that thing around a lot of the weekend out of spite.

I was considering doing the Badlands event this year but I'm not sure if I will just yet.

[ferp420]

Originally Posted by Col_Sanders

I have only been to one Axialfest back in 2017. The rigs had to be Axial based at least, which meant Axial style axles and transmission. Didnt have to be stock Axial, just based on their design. Vanquish axles, Toyzuki chassis, etc were fine.

2017 was when the TRX-4 came out so they were still new. A buddy of mine was just driving his stock TRX-4 around the vendor area. They yelled at him to go put it up and made a scene. John chased us back to the camper. Asked to see all our papers and all our rigs and everything. Camper was on vendor row so no way we would have even gotten that without event registration...We had 6 Axial trucks in the camper with Tech stickers on them. He was an ass about it. He could have just said "Dont drive those here at Axialfest", but instead he gave us a bunch of shit. Funny thing was I had a stock SCX10 II body on a TRX-4 sitting by the picnic table and nobody noticed. Thats what I was driving when they were yelling at my buddy. I ended up driving that thing around a lot of the weekend out of spite.

I was considering doing the Badlands event this year but I'm not sure if I will just yet.

it that were me it would have raised holy hell

[Col_Sanders]

Originally Posted by ferp420

it that were me it would have raised holy hell

I was surprised he let it go as easy as he did. I had a few hundred bucks worth of diesel on top of all the registration, etc so I wasnt about to get kicked out over it. I did try to get my buddy to let me throw that Defender body on my SCX10 II though just to be an ass, but he wouldnt let me.

He only lived a couple hours away and never attended another Axialfest because of it. I haven't either. I figure most of the offending people are probably gone so I might be willing to give it another try at some point.

[Shinook]

It's worth remembering that running events of this nature can be really stressful and exhausting, it turns otherwise reasonable people into authoritative jerks at times because they have to deal with so much nonsense over and over, so some small things they may blow out of proportion. It's also not worth picking fights with them over things because they will always win. You can get into a shouting match all day with them, but when the police are called, guess who is getting escorted out?

I'm not trying to excuse behavior like that necessarily, but sometimes it's better to just roll with it and say sorry then move on, poking the bear is only going to go worse on you than on them and it's not worth aggravating tensions further. Management of events on that scale is really stressful, exhausting, and you deal with a lot of BS leading up to it and during it, it's not worth making their life worse and you will lose anyway. If you don't like something that happened, reach out after and discuss it with them so it changes the following year, arguing or debating there is not going to go your way.

I do agree it's silly they are so strict on the rig requirements though, I'd have less of an issue if they had box stock competitions, but not allowing anything is a little excessive. They aren't going to change that in the middle of the event, though.

[ferp420]

Originally Posted by Shinook

It's also not worth picking fights with them over things because they will always win. You can get into a shouting match all day with them, but when the police are called, guess who is getting escorted out?

poking the bear is only going to go worse on you than on them and it's not worth aggravating tensions further. .

that has never been my exsperiance i always get my point accross and theres nothing they can say about it cause im right there athority stops at the door end of story

im just a asshole like that

i also wouldent have driven a trx4 in venders row




other than that i completely agree and for the most part they did a great job personaly i dident have any issues had a great time i might go again if they held it in a decent location again

[JimInMiami]

I attended USTE again this year with a bunch of guys from my South Florida crawling group and maaaan, we had a good time. The event keeps growing, this year there were 50+ vendors and over 1000 attendees. Main focus remains scale trail rigs, but there were activities for vintage buggies, 1/14 semi rigs, monster trucks and a large basher area.

The trails continue to be exquisitely prepared with a TON of photo opportunities. Below is a small selection of our pics from this year and last.

Oh, Axial had a stand there, and while I salut them for showing up, their stand was small, half the size of FMS's or Redcat's, the canopy was dirty, faded and crooked (I'm not kidding) and there was only one table with four rigs displayed.

IMO someone has to take a look at their marketing strategy, becuase it's an embarrassment for a brand belonging to Horizon to put on such shoddy displays. I for one, won't attend another Axial event, but I'll continue going to USTE year after year.