axial yeti

Exclusive review of the Axial YETI

Posted on Posted in News

I was lucky enough to be invited down to Axial Racing HQ in Irvine, CA to drive Axial’s latest product, the YETI™ a 1/10th Scale Electric 4WD – RTR. After having a little pow wow in the boardroom one of the Axial minions (they all look the same to me wearing skinny jeans and baby T’s that would look like a belly shirt (cropped top, half shirt, midriff shirt, tummy top) on me) brought the YETI in and set it down on the table in front of me. I quickly grabbed the rig off the table and needless to say, I was very happy with what I saw. The best part was the more I looked at it, the more I noticed cool new design features that were not on previous Axial rigs. The first thing that I noticed was the new hinged body mount in the rear. After removing the two front body clips and lifting the front of the body/cage up, you quickly get access to the chassis to make quick battery changes and if you need complete access to the chassis you just have to remove two more body clips in the rear and the entire body/cage comes off. We all love the EXO Terra Buggy but don’t like having to remove 12 screws to get access to the chassis to repair something, Axial not only fixed that problem, they took it to the next level and made it even easier by only having to remove two front body clips to get access to the majority of the chassis on the YETI. The second thing I noticed was the impressive design in the chassis especially where the front clip meets the main chassis “tub”, it looked very strong with an exo skeleton type design building in the strength it will need to take serious abuse from anything you throw at it. And last but not least all the little scale details are what makes Axial well… Axial. It is very obvious the guys at Axial are not only passionate about RC but very passionate about the crawler and products they make.

After taking some studio shots of the YETI, the Axial crew took me to one of their favorite bash spots only a couple miles away from Axial HQ. During the short walk to where we started the bash session I was having a hard time holding back from jumping up and down like a little boy and yelling “GIVE ME THE TRANSMITTER, GIVE ME THE TRANSMITTER!” Finally, YETI transmitter in hand I felt a sense of happiness like a kid on Christmas morning opening presents does. With the locked rear diff this rig was a handful over bumps at full throttle on 3S lipo power, but that’s what I like. It was so much fun and a little challenging to get a full on drift going, and then I started taking it off jumps and really started to use the front shock absorbing bumper trying to get the landing down. I was immediately impressed with how durable the YETI™ was, I was driving the piss out of it and not being easy on it what so ever and it took everything I threw at it. After going to a couple different spots we ended up in a bashers paradise with gap jumps everywhere. I almost started to feel sorry for the poor little YETI for the abuse I was about to give it but then my evil side took over and all I could think about was beating the living piss out of it like I do with all my RC’s, well to be honest and anyone who knows me will say the same, everything I own. I was hitting everything in sight that would make the YETI get some air and at one point I even tried hitting Rodney as he was standing on top of one of the gap jumps shooting video for me (sorry Rodney)! I couldn’t help myself, I wanted more AIR!!!!

After an extremely fun day with the Axial crew in the so-cal desert sun I was exhausted from literally driving and beating on the YETI for several hours with only one issue with the front dog bone popping out of the drive cup a couple times at the very end of the day, I would say that Axial did a excellent job designing an extremely durable rock racer that will definitely see a lot of abuse taking on the competition in rock racing events and bashing sessions. Thanks again to Rodney and the crew at Axial for inviting me down for an early look and awesome day driving the YETI as they were doing all the work taking pics and video! I cannot wait till one arrives on my doorstep so I can take it to my favorite bash spot “shells”. I hope my images and video (coming soon) will do this awesome rig justice and show how much fun I had driving it.

Keep checking back to this page and the thread on RCC as I will be posting more pictures every day. You can also check out the Axial blog for more info and pictures as they post it.

 

axial yeti

axial yeti

 

Update #1 adding additional pics:

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti

axial yeti