2017 Comp Season is in Full Swing, ScalerFab Team Driver Matt Brauer shares how his year began.

For the love of all things scale, travel up and down the East Coast with Team ScalerFab Driver, Matt Brauer, and family! 

Well the Comp season is upon us and the NWI TTC and Brauer Family started it off with a bang!! Back on Feb 12^th the NWI TTC Event season started with the ScalerFab Presents the Axial NWI TTC Points Series Season Opener at RC Fun Park in Granger Indiana. This was a great event where everyone had a blast, by everyone I mean the 60 people, 80 trucks, and countless spectators that took part in the event. We had 2 trail courses, an RTI ramp, a Pulling Sled, and a U4 track as challenges at the Opener, and with these challenges our participants were able to battle it out to make the top 4 in each of the classes. The classes and rules we run are our own heavily modified SORRCA rules, so modified that we have called them NWI TTC Rules. The classes we run are very hobbyist friendly allowing all rigs from leaf sprung to full blown crawlers to be competitive, the classes are: Pavement Pounder (leaf sprung and 1.55), Mall Crawler (1.55-1.9 scale trucks), Trail Rated (1.9 lightly modified), Weekend Warrior (1.9-2.2 Modified), and Overkill (fully built rigs). We also held a kids class which main purpose is to promote, grow, and introduce the hobby to the future generations, all kids who participate always receive an award that will help them grow in the hobby. 

After all the hard work for the Season Opener part of the NWI TTC and Brauer Family made the trek down from Indiana to Florida for the ScalerFab sponsored King of Florida event held by Florida Scale Trail Runners at the Hard Rock offroad park in Ocala Florida. I got off work on Thursday and went straight home and got a few hours of sleep, woke up at 11pm hooked up to the NWI TTC Trailer and finished loading up everything we needed. Then woke up Baby Girl (my 5 year old Daughter) put her in her car seat, gave Bug (my 7 year old son who had to stay home for school) a kiss goodbye, and the Boss (my beautiful wife) and I hit the road toward Indy! Once in Indy we picked up 2 of our NWI TTC family members Brando and Tito and continued the drive down to Florida! We made it to the park right at 10pm eastern time, set up camp, and got a few hours of zzzzzz’s. In the morning the real fun began!!! We checked our trucks in, I ran both C2 and C3 so did Brando and Tito, the Boss ran C2 only. C2 was ran on Saturday and C3 was ran on Sunday which was followed by the awards, door prizes, and the announcement of The King Of Florida (the title unfortunately for me remained in Florida this year, but watch out guys I’ll be back next year!). For the C2 class they had 2 trail courses, a dead pull, hill climb, and mud bog. We all had a blast on the courses and other challenges as they were all well put together. Personally for my C2, I found that in my rush to get it rebuilt, that there were some flaws. During my first course I had 2 breaks, a screw backed out of my driveshaft and a screw backed out of my beef tubes resulting a loss of steering and control. Thanks to the Friendly people in this hobby I was able to get back up and running for course 2, which I feel I totally rocked! Thanks to my ScalerFab sliders with the plates there were many spots that my C2 Jeep JK Rubicon just glided right over, other spots that the sliders kept my Jeep from tipping unwanted to the side giving me the best of controlled progress that I could ask for! In addition to the sliders I put my ScalerFab HD Hybrid Land Anchor to the true test in both my C2 and C3 course runs! The Boss also put some ScalerFab Trail Armor to the test with her C2 Jeep JK Rubicon rocking the ScalerFab Comp Style Front Bumper and the Rear Bumper!  With the comp style front bumper she was able to achieve some awesome approach angles and clear many obstacles with ease!

The Florida trip was more than just a trip south for a comp, it was also a time to relax and hang out with family and friends! Baby Girl loved her first trip south to Florida, she has her own SCX10 with the G6 JK body (but unfortunately I was unable to finish the rebuild before the trip). She was sad she couldn’t get some wheel time with her truck but was instantly happy after the Boss was done with her runs and gave the controller to Baby Girl! I mean that’s what this lifestyle is all about anyways, right? We love encouraging our kids and others to enjoy these rigs. It teaches them many useful skills but I’ll save that for a future blog. During the trip Brando, Tito, Baby Girl, The Boss and I enjoyed many new memories including seeing the Baby Gators at the Florida Citrus Center.

I have to say that February was a great month with many amazing memories added to the memory bank. It was also great to be able to take 3 people to visit a State they have never been to before (Tito, Baby Girl, and The Boss).

Some final words until next time: Go out and engage someone new in this lifestyle of awesomeness, spend sometime on the trails with your family and friends, and most importantly go and create some awesome memories that will stay with you and keep you going!!!!!!!!