Posted: 1/28/13
Portland International Auto Show 2013
Thursday January 24th through Sunday January 27, 2013
Words / Photos: Rodney Wills
The Portland International Auto Show started in 1910 and is a family friendly event held annually at the Oregon Convention Center. The four day event is held every January and is visited by approximately 100,000 visitors each year.
Ryan Gerrish, Axial team driver and employee of Tammies Hobbies, and Brett Carlson of Bulu Productions constructed a special demonstration course which showcased the Axial SCX10™ Jeep® Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. This is their third year to construct the popular attraction and many guests came back specifically to see what they created. We learned this from overhearing many saying they looked forward to seeing Ryan and Brett’s creation at the show and made sure to find their location. It was great to see all the smiling faces after driving the vehicles on the radical terrain. The feeling of accomplishment was obvious on the faces of both young and old.
Axial had the only radio controlled vehicles displayed at the show, with the added bonus of getting a chance to drive one! At the show, you could drive a Scion out in the cold, damp Portland weather testing its performance within limits, or conversely, drive the Axial SCX10™ Jeep® Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon inside the show on a specially constructed course that rivals the Rubicon Trail from which Jeep takes their namesake for the special edition Wrangler model.
Jeep themselves were also on hand to display their complete line of vehicles. They gave visitors rides on their indoor obstacle course called Camp Jeep. This is the second year for Camp Jeep; a live demonstration in which professional drivers transport visitors through an obstacle course that showcases the Jeep brand’s technical abilities in ground clearance, traction, stability and articulation. The awesome man-made terrain put passengers eighteen feet in the air on a hill with a thirty-five percent grade up and down! I particularly liked the bed of telephone poles cut to mimic a rock pile as every post was cut at a different height. This was by far the biggest interactive attraction at the Portland International Auto Show and we were stoked to be visited by Jeep personnel who wanted to see what we were doing with the Axial SCX10 donned with Jeep flavor.
From the whole Axial crew, we thank Ryan Gerrish and Brett Carlson for all their passion!
