3Racing is a fairly well known name in the radio control business. This Hong-Kong based company produces some very interesting after-market parts for the most popular RC rock crawler like the Axial or Tamiya CR01.

I am slowly upgrading my Axial AX10 RTR to be a better all-rounder rock crawler (in a similar way to my Land Rover Discovery off-roader). The standard tyres (Rock Lizards) are quite good, but in a wet country like England, I found them a bit limited in muddy sections. They tend to clog up very quickly.

I was looking for a more aggressive and open threaded tyre that would give me better grip in the mud, but not lose it on dry rocky sections. This is like the real world, a true multi-purpose tyre does not exist, but you can always find something that is as close a possible to what you are looking for.

I discovered the 3Racing 2.2 crawler tyres a bit by chance ("Google" style), the design seemed interesting and are very well priced as a full kit with beadlock wheels. (about $50 from the 3Racing web site or £40 from CMLDistribution in the UK)

Technical Specification

The kit includes:

Plastic Rims with silver "chome"
Memory foams
Aluminum Beadlock rings anodized
Aluminum Centre Nuts
Tyres
M2 x 8&6 Screws
Allen key

Size:

Tyre size: 130mmx58mm

Wheel size: 2.2inx33mm

Look & Feel & built

With the beadlock, the centre cap and the centre wheel nuts, the wheel could almost be amongst the “scale” type rims. It gives the vehicle a very good look and the choice of colours enables you to “colour-code” if you want to. I chose the Beadlock in orange to match the metal links of my AX10 chassis.

I will not be a fan of the tread design of these tyres as they do not look like anything on the real world market, but this is not a scale built and good look does not always mean effective on the terrain.

The rubber feels very soft, but a little too shiny to my taste which should be solved after a little bit of use.

As the kit contains memory foam, I decided to not trim it and run it as it is. I also did not add any weights on the rims to ensure the test be as true as possible.

Building the wheels is very easy, it just takes a lot of time (total of 120 screws to put in!!!)

Initial Test

The garden was wet and a muddy, perfect time to try them. Very quickly it became apparent that the open design of the tyre prevents any clogging up. The side lugs were very good at getting the Axial out of ruts. However, I could wish to have a slightly harder rubber compound to make the thread dig better in the mud.

All in all, this tyre is better than the Axial Lizard in this environment, but I’d like to compare it with an even more aggressive tyres like the MudSlingers (which has a similar pattern to the real life  Boggers – very good in deep bogs, but very average on rocks !)

I had to wait a few days to get a sunny spell and find some dry and rocky sections. Same again, the tyres performed well, and, in this instance, I truly appreciated the softness of the rubber, the grip was very good.

But next time I would trim the foam just a little bit to let the tyre work better on rocks. At the end of the day, this tyre was on par with the Lizard (for a lower price).

I haven’t had these tyres for very long, so I will update this article later in the year and let you know how they wear over time and if they keep their good performance.

Conclusion

For a very reasonable price, you can get yourself a wheels & tyres set that look goods on your crawler but is also very capable.

If you go deep into the RC rock crawling world you will certainly want more specific tyres, with one set for each type of terrain, but if you are like me, and enjoy this hobby on the side on your passion for off-roading and real size 4x4, the 3Racing package just fits the bill and you will not be disappointed.

3Racing also make a scale winch and some transmission components that I will talk about another day.

More information

- 3Racing: http://3racing.hk/main.php

- CMLDistribution: http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk