The Last Ride...

The last ride...

As I headed off to RRW for Howl at the moon I was having mixed emotions. There was excitement because I'd be seeing my friends and having another opportunity representing my sponsor ScalerFab, and sadness knowing that at the end of the day this may be it for me, my last comp, the last ride. After a not so great showing at TTC I went back to the drawing board and made major suspension, tire and chassis changes to my crawler, with my freshly rebuilt crawler and the possibility of this being it for me I planned on having some goofy fun.

As Saturday morning came and competitors started showing up I was making my rounds talking smack, being silly, and also taking a step back just to take it all in. So we're getting close to the drivers meeting, I run some checks on my ScalerFab crawler and my front differential is locked up!! Are you kidding me this truck is almost new how could the dif be locked up?? They called for the drivers and I have a broke truck, ok I'm freaking out other drivers are trying to help, but my truck was toast. So I do what any other desperate driver would do and that's steal someone's crawler! No I didn't do that just kidding, I happened to have just bought a used Axial Bomber a week before and thank god I brought it with me, so I yank it out and it's bone stock, no upgrades and I'm thinking well I'll use this and try to compete. I missed the drivers meeting so I have no clue what was said...

I get to the starting line and I'm going to just wing it, and we're off I mash the throttle trying to get in front of other trucks before the first gate thank god the bomber is pretty quick out of the box so I'm able to smoke most of the other trucks, eat my dust suckers!! There's 4 different courses and I'm shocked on how well my truck is doing I'm clicking off gates at a quick pace, I'm doing so well with my stock bomber that I'm asking people if I can go around them, I finished course A,B and D without any issues and was well ahead of most other drivers and I'm thinking in the back of my mind ok I'm doing well something's gonna break on the truck or some other gremlin will pop up and I'm done. Much to my surprise I finish the last course with no issues, hand in my score card, and was chilling out while most of the other drivers are still competing.

My teammates Tony Hurayt and Steve Crotts took home first place in 1.9 and endurance class, while I took home second in the 2.2 class. As I'm saying goodbye to everyone and receiving several well wishes I was overwhelmed and emotional, not knowing what my future holds made it hard, as always I end my blogs with this, at the end of the day despite how I was feeling watching the kids win awards and prizes and getting the loudest applause made it a great day, until next time please remember love one another, don't live in the past, live for the moment, it's all good..

-Doug Maytum

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