I'm not from Michigan, but a quick google search shows a Limitless RC in Millington, near-ish that area. They're website looks decent, typical LHS with race tracks and a small indoor crawling area, but they do have crawlers. If it's local enough, a visit and maybe try out a vehicle or two, chat with the staff etc and you should be able to get a few questions answered.
Once you get your crawler scale sorted (1/10, 1/18, 1/24 etc) then it's what do you want to do with the truck? Many brands work quite well out of the box and anything "hobby grade" can be upgraded to be more capable, more realistic, some happy medium of capable and realistic and a near infinite variety in the middle. Depending on how far you take capability, the scale realism starts to slip a bit, or at least starts to look like a scale version of a purpose built rock crawler vs a street truck with larger tires. Going down the scale rabbit hole reduces the capability a bit, smaller tires, maybe leaf springs, heavier "hard body" (rigid plastic with more detail vs lexan), a driver etc, but has that truly scale realism a comp crawler struggles with.
Any hobby grade brand, Traxxas, Axial, Vanquish, Redcat, Element, FMS etc etc, have replaceable oem parts (making them hobby grade) as well as a pretty wide variety of aftermarket parts from dozens of brands. Electronics have a wide variety of aftermarket support as well. Motors are standard sizes to fit in the various scale chassis sizes. ESC's designed to fit or integrated into the motor. Stronger steering servo's are all mostly interchangeable until you get into the wings of high power/direct power. Transmitters/receivers (Tx/Rx) are branded, ie the radio can only use it's own type of receiver, but the receivers are designed to fit into the trucks and support existing or most aftermarket electrics, servos etc.
There are a lot of options, it can get complicated, but just ask anyone here and they can help guide or at least explain. Welcome to the forum!
