By: Brandon Wilcox, Thomaston CT
July 24, 2007

Click pictures to open high resolution image in new window. This review featured a video, make sure to check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VBd37ZhUMg

When it comes to RC rock crawling, tire choices are limited, and the foams they come with are not made for crawlers. It is by cutting, adding weight, and heavily modifying stock foams that we are able to get decent performance from these tire setups. For the longest time, we were stuck with using these mediocre foams for our rock crawlers, but not anymore. Kreepy Krawler Designs stepped out of the box and came out with a new tire insert that will change the way our trucks crawl.

Kreepy Krawler tire inserts are made out of memory foam, the same foam that Tempurpedic uses in its award winning mattresses. What makes this material great for rock crawling? Memory foam does not lose its shape. You can place a piece of memory foam under a steam roller all night long, drive the steam roller away, and immediately the foam pops back up. Depending on the density of the foam, you can control the rate at which the foam will bounce back to its original shape.

Kreepy Krawler Designs sent me out a set of their 2.2 size red tire inserts to test in my 2.2 comp truck. My first impression of them was very good. They felt extremely soft, and I liked the rate at which they bounced back to their original shape. Unlike standard foams, memory foams do not wear out, so there will never be a need to replace them. Kreepy Krawler designs has tested these inserts for a long time, and assured me I would not need to cut the inserts in any way to get the best performance out of them. I decided to put them in a set of Pro-Line Moab tires, a very popular crawling tire. After installing the inserts and gluing my rims I headed out to a CT rock crawlers get-together to test them out.

I couldn’t believe how awesome my new setup worked. My off camber ability increased drastically. I was able to tackle some very difficult off camber climbs and my tires didn’t fold one bit. When climbing vertically, my front tires would conform to the rock and pull the truck over the obstacle. The inserts seemed to work very well without any weight in my front tires, but I knew I could get some better performance out of them. I decided to add stick on weights to the inner portion of my front rims. What a difference, the truck seemed to work much better. The tires seemed stickier and they felt like I was driving with my better Pro-Line Masher 2k tires, but now with incredible off camber ability. It was clear to me now why these tire inserts were selling out on rccrawler.com, because they rock.

During my testing I could not find any disadvantage to these tire inserts. However, I do recommended using weight in the front tires to get the best performance out of them. Here are the advantages that these inserts have over conventional foam setups:

- Needs no modifications out of the box
- They will never wear out
- Incredible sidewall support
- Eliminates wheel hop
- Ability to conform to rocks without large gaps

Overall I give this product a perfect 10; they worked extremely well, and are a must for anyone that is serious about RC rock crawling.

To get a set of these tires, message Kreepykrawler