Axialfest 2016 – RC’s Greatest Show on Earth www.competitionx.com /news-feed/axialfest-2016-rcs-greatest-show-on-earth/

Back in 2011 I attended a rock crawling event at the Cisco Grove Campground called the Axial West CoastChallenge (AWCC) (see the picture gallery here). It consisted of a few courses – a rock crawling circuit and acouple G6 trail events. It was a laid back event with roughly 250 people in attendance, a pretty hefty number for abunch of people driving RC cars in the woods. Or so it seemed…

Jump forward to 2016 – Axial’s event retains the same location at the Cisco Grove Campground but has now beenre-labeled as ‘Axialfest‘. The event is even more about fun, family and bringing the RC community together … andboy did Axial do that. They sold the campground out, renting out areas of the campground that haven’t been used inyears. They had approximately 900 registered drivers, however that doesn’t include friends and family members thattagged along to just enjoy the show – we’re looking at another 200-300 drivers for a total closer to 1200 people. Butthat’s not even the amazing part.

Since the name change to Axialfest in 2012, the event has been open to only Axial-based vehicles. So, yeah, that’s1200 potential drivers – all with AXIAL vehicles! It’s an awesome site to see mom, dad, little Johnny, sister Kate andeven grandpa all walking through the campground driving their Axial rigs.

Classes

To keep everyone busy through the 3-day event, Axial set up a number of classes that allowed anyone of any age toparticipate for your $50 entry fee. There was the Adventurist class, Rock Racing and the Ultra Challenge – let’s takea quick look at each of these classes.

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AdventuristThe Adventurist class was all about fun. There were seven trailsto drive on, each sponsored by a manufacturer; AMainHobbies sponsored Trail A, RPP Hobby sponsored Trail B,CKRC Hobbies sponsored Trail C, Pro-Line Racingsponsored Trail D, RC4WD sponsored Trail E, Tower Hobbiessponsored Trail F and Altra Running sponsored Trail G. Thesecourses were available to drive on day or night and could bedriven at whatever pace was comfortable, with Axial providing aprinted score card for you to use. Drivers were not required touse this score card; it was merely a souvenir of your time on the trail. Trail G was a dual-purpose trail, but we’ll talkabout that in a sec.

Rock RacingThe second class for drivers was the Rock Racing course. Itwas a circular course laid out in the center of all the Adventuristcourses and required drivers, in groups of 10, to start from a setpoint and race around the track. It was a motocross start thatled up to a wooden ramp that vaulted cars onto an outside laneof the track; the drivers would have to stay on the inside laneand follow their rigs around the course. The races were 2 lapslong which, in terms of normal racing seems really low, but afterchasing behind your car in the hot sun whilst navigating rocks,weeds, logs and, most importantly, other drivers, 2 laps were plenty! The hardest section of the track was the finalleg of the course that required drivers to crawl through a very technical rock garden. Some drivers were able to pickthe right lines and speed right through (sort of), but since there were so many drivers on course, it became verydifficult to pick a consistent line! This was a make-it-or-break-it part of the track that caught alot of the favored driversout, sending them farther down the finishing lineup.

Altra Ultra 5K Enduro ChallengeRemember when I mentioned Track G? Well, the Ultra coursewas Trail G was one in the same, receiving special coursetreatment for dual purposes and was sponsored by AltraRunning Shoes – which was actually a very appropriatesponsor! Also sponsoring the Altra Ultra 5K Enduro course wasBFGoodrich, Method Race Wheels and Magnaflow exhaust …yes, the actual full-scale companies! This was a very physicalevent; drivers started off in pairs and proceeded to do 8 laps ofthe Ultra Challenge course. Each lap required them to crawlover rocks, up steep hills, down steep hills, over shale, weeds, roots and downed trees. Then there was the man-made bridges and water obstacles – there was even a pass through the staging pavilion that led to a wicked rocksection with a small waterfall. Oh, I forgot to mention – the total distance of the track (8 laps) was a whopping 5KM(or just over 3 miles)! Yes, you read that right – to win this event, you had to drive your rig at speed through all thoseabove obstructions while running along side of it – for 8 laps. You had to avoid other competitors, keep your vehiclefrom breaking AND keep it between the track barriers. I walked the track 2 times taking pictures and one additionaltime doing a ‘One Lap with Charlie Suangka’ (see video below). It was one of the coolest races I’ve seen, reallypushing the drivers (and their trucks) to the limit!

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Daily Schedule

ThursdayMost of the people attending the event showed up eitherThursday or Friday, but for those that wanted to show up earlier,they could attend the Concourse show held in the upperpavilion. There were quite a few vehicles entered in the differentclasses; Best Daily Driver, Best Axial Heritage, Best TrailWeathered, Most Adventurist, Best Adventurist Trailer, BestWork Trailer, Best SCORE International Trophy Truck and Bestof Show. Each class would be judged individually with theoverall winner (Best of Show) being judged last. I had the honorof being a judge in the event and have to say there were some CRAZY good entries! It took a couple hours to filterthrough all the rigs, but the eventual winners really deserved the trophies. Funny story – the Best of Show entrywasn’t even entered in the Concourse event. I happened to notice his truck and trailer off to the side and asked whyhe wasn’t entered. His wife gave me some story about a sponsorship or something like that, but who cares – it wasan awesome setup! The judges had a short meeting, decided he was eligible and forced him to enter, a decision thatwould be one of the best of the weekend. We let the winners of the other Concourse classes pick the Best of Show,and this killer rig won with a unanimous decision!

After the Concourse, the Adventurist courses were unofficially open for drivers to check out what Axial had in storefor them.

FridayFriday started with Tech inspection for the Altra Ultra 5KEnduro, making sure all driver’s rigs were prepared according tothe rules. The National Anthem was sung followed by the pre-race setup for the Ultra Challenge race. As I mentioned before,this was an 8-lap race (just over 3 miles), testing the physicalendurance of the drivers and the durability of the vehicles. Weeven saw Casey Currie, a huge Axial supporter, take his shotat the Ultra Challenge event, taking a very respectable 3rdplace finish! It was quite the grueling event – see the UltraChallenge Picture Gallery below to see for yourself.

The official start of Axialfest and the Opening Ceremonies was on Friday afternoon. Everyone was invited to gatherat the pavilion for a group shot, however it took quite some time to get everyone together and settled in. Theresulting shot was fantastic – kids, parents, friends and staff all gathered together for one purpose – to enjoyAxialfest.

Around noon, Starkey’s Food Truck rolled up to treat everyoneto pizza and sushi. Yes, I know, it’s an odd combination, but thefood was actually amazing! I had pizza multiple times (as did mywife) and we loved it! I didn’t partake in any of the sushi, butthose that did were surprised at how good it was coming from afood truck! Talking to Dave (owner of the food truck), he wasfloored by the amount of people at the event and guaranteed ushe’ll be back next year. That makes for a happy Tony – thatpizza was delicious!

Throughout the day, drivers were flooding the trails to have

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some on-course fun, a time that lead deep into the night. We started heading to bed around 11:30pm and therewere still a ton of vehicle headlights dancing in the woods.

SaturdayThe start of the day had racers lining up over at the Rock Racingcourse for Tech Inspection. Turn out was expected to be a bitlow due to the physical nature of the event, but we were allpretty surprised at the droves of RCers headed our way. TheRR10 Bomber/Wraith class alone had over 60 entrants! Thisextended the time the Rock Racing event was supposed to last,but that didn’t seem to bother any of the participants.

The Adventurist Trails were open all day and drivers had achance to finish off any trails they didn’t complete. By 7:00,attendees were corralled towards the upper pavilion for the Awards and Raffle. It was like the opening to a concert;family and newly-met friends all filtering into the staging area. Everyone was very calm and collected as they pickedtheir spot, set their chairs down and prepared themselves for the awards and one heck of an amazing raffle!

Drivers from the Concourse, Rock Racing and Ultra Challengewere all awarded trophies and prizes for their efforts. Some gotAxial swag while others got amazing prizes from other Axialfestsupporters – Magnaflow, Altra Running Shoes and BFGoodrich!

The Axialfest raffle was, by far, one of the best I’ve been to inmy RC career! There were parts, tires and apparel fromcompanies like RC4WD, Pro-Line, CKRC and Boom Racing aswell as quite a few Axial car kits – including the newly-releasedSCX10 II! Non-RC sponsors also had quite a few things todonate; Altra had several gift certificates for running shoes,Magnaflow was giving out some exhaust systems, a Transition BLT mountain bike valued at over $1200 (John andRodney had a little fun with this one on Axial’s Facebook Live), BFGoodrich donated some full-scale tires sets andthere was even a few gift certificates for sets of Method Racing Wheels! The final prize was one of Axial’s newSCX10 II kits – you can see how happy that kid was – he’s in the picture at the top of this article!

SundayAxialfest is definitely a go-go-go event, even if it’s at your ownpace. The event actually ends on Saturday so you can useSunday as a travel home day or a relaxation day – the choice isyours. Either way, we saw people sleeping in, others hangingout around the early morning fire with their coffee and yet othersworking in one more trail run before they headed home. That’sthe beauty of this event; it’s a thousand friends just hanging out.People are incredibly nice and have no problems striking up aquick conversation. It really is a family event – a real BIG familyevent.

If you haven’t been to an Axialfest event yet, do yourself a favor and go to one … just one. It doesn’t matter if you’reinto RC rock crawling or racing, just go. It’s a whole different side of the industry that I guarantee you’ll enjoy. I’m in.I’m there, and without question I’ll be competing in one (or all) of the events next year.

Editor’s Note: Both Danna and I were invited to Axialfest as Staff members to help out at the event. There is atremendous amount of planning that goes into an event like this, especially when it runs as smoothly as it did. It took

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the entire Axial staff as well as a large amount of volunteers to make Axialfest 2016 happen, so we’d like to officiallythank everyone for making our adventure an absolute honor.

Event Sponsors

Axial, as well as CompetitionX, would like to thank all of the following sponsors for being a part of Axialfest 2016. I’msure we’ll see them next year as well!

Altra Running Shoes, www.altrarunning.comAMain Hobbies, www.amainhobbies.comBFGoodrich Tires, www.bfgoodrichtires.comBoom Racing, www.boomracingrc.comBraven Audio, www.braven.comCKRC Hobbies, www.ckrchobbies.comCompetitionX, www.competitionx.comDSPro, www.dsproonline.comDuratrax, www.duratrax.comFast Eddy Bearings, www.fasteddybearings.comFutaba, www.futaba-rc.comGear Head RC, www.gearheadrc.comGigabit Off-Road, www.gigabitgames.comJConcepts, www.jconcepts.netKnight Customs, www.knight-customs.comMagnaflow Exhaust, www.magnaflow.comMethod Racing Wheels, www.methodracewheels.comMKS Servos, www.mksservosusa.comPhoenix Design Labs, www.phoenixdesignlab.comPro-Line Racing, www.prolineracing.comRC4WD, www.rc4wd.comRCCrawler.com, www.rccrawler.comRivas Concepts, www.rivasconcepts.comRPP Hobby, www.rpphobby.comRugged Radios, www.ruggedradios.comScale Builders Guild, www.scalebuildersguild.comScalerFab, www.scalerfab.comSOR Graphics, www.stuckonracinggraphics.comsPOD, www.4x4spod.comStarkey’s Food Truck, www.starkeys-tahoe.comTekin Racing, www.teamtekin.comTower Hobbies, www.towerhobbies.comTransition Bikes, www.transitionbikes.comTruFab, www.trufab.comTwo Chainz Scalerz, www.facebook.com/twochainzscalerz/

Pictures

Below is a glimpse of each day’s activities. To see the full photo gallery, visit the CompetitionX Photo Gallery page.

Awards Ceremony

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Concourse Cars

Group Photo

Manufacturers

Raffle

Rock Racing

Ultra Race

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