By Brian Letendre
It's National 4x4 Day! Well, when I am writing this it is 4/4. I know that it's only a fun marketing campaign promoted by Jeep, but even us Toyota guys can enjoy a good reason to celebrate our sport. However this day, 4/4/2020, is one day when most of us are under 'Stay-at-Home' orders, or some other form of caution and limitation due to the current COVID-19 virus. I'm not going to get into the right or wrong of the precautions we are taking as a nation, but I want to see how you celebrate 4x4 Day. How have you been getting out and enjoying the sun? How have you been experiencing the sport which we all love?

For my family, we still enjoy rock crawling, wheeling, and getting outside. We just have to participate in a bit more scaled down way, to be more precise, about one-tenth scale on average. Let me introduce the family of rigs.

Starting at the smallest rig, but most flexible in our mini-garage is Jessica's ECX Temper 1/18 scale. This tiny crawler packs a huge punch in the world of flex! I don't have a ramp, but I am sure this thing would score well over 1200 if it were scored.

Next up is Kristi, my wonderful wife. She was hesitant to get into the hobby, but she enjoys it with the rest of us. Her ECX Barrage which holds at a 1/12 scale is a great beater for all around exploring and just fun to drive.

Getting slightly larger is my own 1/10 scale Axial SCX 10. This custom setup has been converted from the stock Jeep body to my 2nd generation Toyota 4Runer. I hope to eventually complete an interior on it and have a scale version of one of my past owned crawling rigs. While I may not have the most speed or the best flex, I am building this rig to resemble as real of setup as I can, and having a ton of fun doing it.

The fastest vehicle in our fleet is Kevin's Axial Yeti. Created for speed, this Yeti has been built, beaten, broken, rebuilt, and broken again and again. Kevin lives to jump it and only knows 2 speeds. It is a great truck to bash around our 3 acres of property.

Finally, the largest truck in the barn is Scott's 1/8 scale Axial Wraith. Scott loves to crawl the technical stuff and then turn around and race across the yard, so the Wraith is set up just for this purpose. While its slow speed crawling is not it's strong suit, the big tires and high clearance make it very capable when running with the rest of the family.

So that's our fleet. Over the years we have built it up and learned what we like. What about you? How are you getting out there and enjoying this sport we all love so much even in the midst of 'social distancing'? No matter what you do, just stay safe, stay healthy, and keep your eyes focused on God. No matter how crazy this gets or how long this lasts, He is in control. In the meantime, see you on the trails, virtually.