Coverage by Kidd Kaos
Photo Credits: Saul Grinberg Kynetic Photos

I had the pleasure of attending the South Florida Scale Crawlers First Annual Spring Jam TTC sponsored by House of Power Hobbies.

While registration began at 8:30, we didn’t head to the park until about 9:15, giving us ample time to set up and register for the 10 am start.

The SFSC crew switched it up a bit for this competition. This time it was a 1.9 team event, 2.2 competitors were welcome with a 5 minute penalty at the starting line and were offered a 5 minute bonus section in the course to make up any time.(Which was a next to impossible rope bridge!) They always keep it simple on the rules, you received penalties for missed/struck gates, out of bounds, and Hand Of God but the main rule always being: Have Fun!

10 am approached. The teams lined up at the trail head for pics, and the drivers meeting, and then the fun began. Each team lined up and waited for the trail boss to give them their queue and then they were off. The trail course consisted of tight lined rock sections, obstacles and bridges that took you and your rig through the trees as well as multiple hairpin turns culminating on a very difficult sand ridge that had nearly unnavigable lines! The teams filed out of the trail section as they finished and headed to their pit areas to do any needed maintenance.

When the last teams were making their way through the trail course pizza was delivered and devoured! Everyone chatted and rested during the lunch break after clambering through the trail course that proved to be hard on both drivers and rigs. Then competitors made their way to the south side of the trail course for the switchback section.

The second leg of the course was the switchback section consisting of a narrow trail that takes your crawler up and down the side of a huge hill. Drivers had to navigate along the full length of the ridge with trail markers on their blind side, drop in on a treacherous hairpin turn, traverse a huge rock that hung out of a washout, and climb back to the top and follow the ridge back to another nearly vertical  drop in to the final approach. With a large percentage of drivers ending this section on their lids it proved to be once again the make it or break it portion of the competition for most teams.

The last leg of the competition was the hill climb. Here drivers lined up at the base of steep hill and went team by team, when the stopwatch started the drivers could choose any line on the hill and go. Whichever teammate made it the highest in one minute would receive a 1 minute/inch bonus up to 15 minutes.

The scores were tallied and the top three teams were announced. Then the top 3 teams faced off on the hillclimb, pitting the teammates against each other to determine the final top 3 finishers. The final standings were:

1st place with a total time of 36:52 Ant Petrone/Mike Lino in which Ant won the hillclimb shootout against Mike.

2nd place with a total time of 48:45 Shaun and Zach Steel in which Shaun took the overall 2nd by beating Zach up the hill.

3rd place with a total time of 50:17 Victor and Soriel with Victor taking 3rd overall in the hillclimb shootout.

4th place Greg and Leo with a total time of 56:10

5th place Jerry and Robert with a total time of 57:31

6th place PJ and Billy with a total time of 58:17

7th place Greg and Devin with a total time of 60:03

8th place Jerry and Cesar with a total time of 62:24

9th place James and Kidd with a total time of 83:51

10th place Nate and Santiago with a total time of 100:57

11th place Olen and Polina with a total time of 138:53

All in attendance had a blast and as the day drew to a close and the park emptied all that was left was the trails and a few hardcore scalers that hadn’t had enough!- KiddKaos