By: Brandon Wilcox, Thomaston CT
December 10, 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=E6vckfL_O2I

Well, crawling for the 2007 season has come to an end, and its time to get ready to build my rig for next year. Since its getting too cold outside to use my trucks, I will be rebuilding and making improvements on them over the winter. I haven't been happy with my 2.2 torsion rig so I decided to go with a different chassis. I use the Crawler Store Stick Chassis on my super class crawler, and it's awesome. Now that they make a 12.5" backbone for the 2.2 size trucks I knew it was something I had to try on my crawler.

As usual, the package from The Crawler Store came very quickly in the mail and I was eager to put the truck together. I was familiar with the Stick, but once again opening the package I saw how complete the kit really is. You get everything you need to hook up to your Clod Buster axles, the full chassis, steering kits, body mounts, and even trays to mount your electronics. Nothing is missing in this kit.

Putting the truck together was very easy, and didn’t require much disassembly of the Clod Buster axles. The only thing I had to remove from my axles was the knuckles to attach the 4 links to them. The build went together very quickly and here is a list of the components I decided to use in my new and improved comp truck.

With this setup I will be legal for the 2.2 class. My wheelbase at the 12.5" limit and my track width was 12 1/8"; just under the maximum width of 12.5". If you want to be really competitive and get your truck even narrower, the new VF Stalker Rims from TCS not only look sweet but really cut down your width.

After getting everything together and working properly I headed up to a local park that's just 15 minutes away from me. The weather seemed good, but when I got to the park the rock was a little wet and very slippery. Never the less I decided I would still test the truck in these conditions, as more then a few comps held in CT were after rain, or with snow still on the ground.

Well the truck seemed to do very well considering the rock conditions. The truck was very light for a clod buster and was able to get up most of the obstacles that I threw at it. In some cases the rock was super slick, but with some wheel speed the custom Pro-line tires hooked up well and got me to the top. The Crawler Store Stick has the perfect amount of flex, and unlike shock less torsion designs, you don't have to weight down your tires to achieve that flex. In the 2.2 class where most of the TLT and Axial based rigs are smaller and lighter then the Clod Buster Rigs, the last thing you want to do is fill your tires up with unwanted weight. The T-MAXX shocks worked well, but I think I will switch the springs out for some softer Team Losi white springs. After going thru 2 battery packs I was extremely happy with how the truck performed and I brought it back home to make some small tweaks.

After a couple days when the weather started to warm up, I finished making some small changes to the truck and headed up to my local dam where there are some great crawling spots. I switched to a 2 cell lipo pack to cut down on some weight, and I mounted the antenna along the backbone of the chassis so when I flip over and antenna is not getting beat up. There were a lot of vertical climbs at the dam and I was eager to try them all. I was able to get up almost all of them, and the rear disconnect or "dig" really helped in that area. I can shut off the rear axle so when my front tires are trying to find traction the rear tires don't pull in and flip over the truck. The Crawler Store Stick has a ton of break over clearance, and I didn't get hung up on the rocks once with it. My lipo packs lasted just under 40 minutes on the truck, and after running thru 2 of them I got a great feel for the truck and packed up for the day.

Well, I was extremely happy with the performance of the 12.5" version of The Stick. The lightweight chassis allowed me to side hill very well, and the break over clearance on the chassis is awesome. The flex worked very good, and I think with some softer shocks I will have the truck dialed in. The only thing I really want to change on the truck is to narrow the track width of the truck, so going through gates in a competition environment gives me no problems. Well, to sum up the article, I would have to say the 2.2 stick performs just like its big brother, just plain awesome.

Where can you get The Stick? Online at http://www.tcscrawlers.com/ for $219.99