Purpose built 1/18th off road track?

[James]

How NICE would it be to have a purpose built 1/18th off-road track.

truely scaled to suit these cars... Due to the smaller size the track built, surely you could also put some real quality into it.. maybe something a little different.. etc.

It's nice racing on WC's track, but i still think it's too big for the 1/18th's.

WC has plenty of space up the back for an extra track <grin>

Ryper's track is almost perfect for them. say, minus the back straight or something...

hrmmm.

who has a massive back yard? :)

I know member &quot;willo&quot; has recently set himself up on a 5acre block <grin>

[BALISTC]

Hmmm....I got a yard here at work, with the area approximately twice or 3 times the size of Ryper's indoor track....if we could get a pile of sand dropped off here, we could build something? ;)

[BALISTC]

Okay my mind is fully ticking over now..

The yard needs to be cleared out (lots of empty pallets and crap floating around), but if my dad says its okay, we can get a pile of dirt/clay dropped here, and we'd probably be able to do it in a weekend or so ;)

What do we need to build a track? Dirt?? Something to put under the jumps to keep them from collapsing??

The area can fit 2-3 Hiace vans in comfortably, whilst still leaving room for actually storing stuff for work, so it would be the perfect spot if my dad says I can use it ;)

[James]

crazy! is it fenced off from punk kids with nothing better to do with their lives than trash up someone's hard-work r/c track?

[BALISTC]

Fenced off it is....its in a private yard ;)

its about half the size of a house block, but its got a big shed in there where we store stuff....and pallets and crap everywhere.

now only if I can persuade my dad to let me build a track there :P

I could do this as my &quot;donation&quot; to Team Adrenaline, and we could all chip in a bit to pay for clay, etc??

Any ideas on how to build a tracK!?

[BALISTC]

Not sure if the area is going to be big enough....if we use the space, we might have 10m of straight area???

I'll have to get some photos

[James]

10 mtr is pretty long for a straight... ryper would be lucky to be 5 or 6 mtrs.

can u get a pic next time your out back?

shed sounds cool too! I'm sure we could get help from the more experienced track builders with it.

with the smaller size, we could cover it in some cheap tarp's during the rainy periods, so as to still be able to race regularly hahaha

J

[BALISTC]

The shed is full of pallets of flour and oil, but if anything we'll get the area and put a few pallets out as a drivers stand.

Hey, anything is better than nothing I suppose ;)

[BALISTC]

Well my uncle (my other boss) said its fine as long as I clean the yard out and weed it!

[BALISTC]

There is a special type of &quot;sand&quot; called Road Base...its basically blue metal with dust mixed into it. it is used for roads and path ways and it becomes quite smooth, and packs down VERY hard especially when it becomes wet and dries out.

$36.50 per trailer load.

If this works out suitable, I'll pay for it and this can be my contribution to Team Adrenaline...I'll just need people to help out in building the track. We can have a TA &quot;busy bee&quot; ;)

[James]

i wonder.. if you could make the jumps out of ply/timber, and then do the track in synthetic grass. that also makes it more portable, cleaner, weather resistant. that synth grass would be the bomb for tracktion i would think haha. but we love our MUD!

[James]

road base eh... we should research this. keeping in mind tyre wear, etc.

[BALISTC]

Synth grass = $$$

Will have to be sand, dirt or clay to be cost effective :)

[Bowling Ball]

Road Base = :(

Blue metal will cut the tires and chassis to shit. Need bush clay if possible. I know rypers Mini-T track is small but - there is 4 tonne of clay in that thing (Apparently)!

So maybe looking at 10 tonne of clay????

$90 for delivery, I will see how much a tonne it is for 10 tonne.

This is after Carine gets is fair share of clay first! It needs it.

Joe - Is the area under cover?

James - Really need to build a 1/18th track considering the club tracks are damn good (or getting better)? We've all given our 1/18th's the legs to race a 1/10th track, Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but I don't see the point of another track (especially if its outdoors and uncovered :( )

[BALISTC]

Area is not undercover..

Crap....10 tonnes of clay?? DAMN

[BALISTC]

I'd still like to build it anyway....would I HAVE to use clay, or could i use some sort of sand??

[Bowling Ball]

You can build it with whatever dude.

I say clay as it will hard pack and its what is normally raced on. Being a hard packed surface, it wont break up as much.

I have a mate on a 2 acre property 45 minutes from perth, his track is just in the &quot;yard&quot;. Its sand. After a couple of races with my B4 and the Mini-T the track broke up quite alot. We spent more time patching it than racing it.

BB !amazed

[BALISTC]

True..

What about crushed limestone??

[Bowling Ball]

if you crush it to powder and screen it for the big rocks it should be ok. I think you'd be going to the same expense as clay tho

Might as well go clay! I have access to a compactor too.

BB !amazed

[BALISTC]

Nice..

I still wanna do this...great for practise ;)

Where can I get clay from? I wanna make a few calls..

[James]

clay is the bomb.

bb, I know what your saying about yet another track. i still think WC is took big for 1/18th. if only you could take a portion of the circuit away for the T racing, but you cant really.. due to it's lay out.

there's a couple of area's of WC you cant even SEE your 1/18th.. haha, like when it goes down the table top, your like, where the fck did it go... etc :)

dunno, spose just something new/made for it would be cool.

be nice if ryper would just increase theirs to where the shed ends ... *doh*. need to make a stand!

[Bowling Ball]

I need to speak to a friend about the clay. All I know is its $90 to deliver. But the site has 300+ tonnes

BB !amazed

[BALISTC]

300 tonnes eh?? Thats heaps!

What about brickies sand?? It apparently packs down really well..

[Bowling Ball]

Brickies sand - its still sand, hence course. It wont pack as well - it wont set

It'll break up quick

[BALISTC]

Okay so clay is the go..

Do I REALLY need 10 tonnes????

[James]

*pictures 10 tonnes of clay dumped out the back of the family bakery..*

!lmao nice one...

[James]

I think the first step is to determine a track design based on the amount of sq mtrs avail. then box that area in, with sleepers, or limestone blocks, or something. then you can dump the clay in :)

then get some chicks in bikini's to play with a hose on the clay...

then start to shape the track design out, etc.... im sure some of the more experienced clay-track dudes would help or at least offer advise :)

[BALISTC]

Hahaha yeah, well I dont know the first thing about making a track, so if someone can give me some pointers and where to get the clay from, I'll start working on clearing out the yard.

[BALISTC]

Does it have to be boxed in, or can it just be built on the ground so to speak??

[James]

u at least need walls for bank's and jumps. the rest can be on the ground..

[BALISTC]

I found some info on building tracks on the net. This was particularly interesteing

&quot;Use sandy loam topsoil with six or seven bags of gypsum to help hold in the moisture. You don't want to use to much clay. Too much sand causes the track to break up and make whoop-de-do's; too much clay will make the track overly hard.

If the track's surface doesn't stay wet, coat it with soil penetrator from a garden shop, or laundry detergent mixed with water, or more gypsum. A good mixture is 75% loam, 15% clay, and 10% sand.&quot;

[James]

most stuff you will find on the net is for how the american's build. they have very sandy/loamy tracks.. kinda like what you'd find at a motocross event or something.

ALL our track's here are clay.. hrmmmm, all our tracks suffer badly when it rains.

a new track material or method is required i reckon.

we need track's that dry or are useable after 24hrs from wet, or something!

J

[BALISTC]

What about road base with some clay on top??

[BALISTC]

best thing for me to do would be to head down to Soils aint Soils, and &quot;try out&quot; some of their sand IE see how it packs down, ask them about drainage, etc....we need something that packs fairly nicely, but will not be too hard on the RCs

[Bowling Ball]

Firstly you need to work out a track design. I suggest going on simular lines to Rypers - Using up as much of the real estate as possible for the track without large areas of grass!

You need to think about drainage and drainage slope.

Fencing in the clay is good, will need to section the area off properly.

You need to find people that are interested in building it. Theres alot of people &quot;gunna gunna&quot; and not many people that are &quot;Its Done&quot;

I will help you guys out, once Carine is sorted. Carine has priority as thats where the WAORMA States will be held this year and there is alot of grunt work to be completed.

BB !amazed

[James]

consider:
cost.
hard packing... (but not too hard for tyres)
drainage (can the track be used a day or so after rain?)
ease of working with.
availability.

hrmmm. dont write off any ideas you find on the net.

remember, a track the size that we are thinking, might be possible to cover it with tarp's when not in use.... :)

also need measurements of area (with enough space for a small pit area), maybe a drawing of some kind.. noting entry/exits, where shed is, where power / water is, etc :)

for some reason I'm feeling like the construction of a track is more fun than racing on one! haha.

[BALISTC]

I'll get some photos and start looking for some suitable soil/sand....remember, this track isnt going to be &quot;professional&quot;, but merely somewhere we can practise and muck around locally...it'll be as good as people with limited cash and resources can build it ;)

[James]

you never know. it could turn out fully pro. have a race schedule, etc, bwahaha.

can look at loads of track design's on the net. infact the teamlosi site had a &quot;mini-t track building&quot; competition a while back, all the pics of the tracks that were built should still be online. if u wanna get an idea of design's and soils used, etc!

[James]

found the Losi mini-t track competition, pretty cool haha:

http://www.teamlosi.com/Mini-T/contest.htm

[BALISTC]

Nice find James :)

Okay I went out the back with a tape measure.

The area is 5m x 10m....there is absolutely no way we can go wider than 5m because we need to leave about a metre and a half between the shed and the track so we can walk through to use the rest of the yard, and 10m is about the useable length because we do still need to use part of the yard.

The drivers stand could go in the bit between the shed and the track, and it can be removed and packed up when the track is finished being used.

A straight going diagonally up the track from one corner to the other would be fairly long to build up awesome speed, and we could even have a table top here with a cross over (if we could get a large enough PVC pipe).

Thoughts?

[BALISTC]

I'm thinking this wont be a professional track, but it'll be great for weekend bashing and practice ;)

[James]

it'll be PRO ! hahaha.. esp if clay is involved :)

5x10m aint bad!! about twice as long as ryper's...

hrmmm!

[anson]

Me and some friends started building a track ont he weekend, in the backyard. Hired out a dingo (mini bulldozer type thing with attachments. $150 a day! Cheap!) And levelled the ground out, about 5*10 rectangle, we put in a tabletop yesterday, and are going to work on the rest of the jumps on the weekend, I'll get some pics when we got out to the track. Used for RC18T and miniquakes(selling them to try to buy a 18t so we are even with friend)

[James]

anson, awesome, make sure u get us some pics!!

[anson]

Yep got most of the track done today, we are pretty proud of ourselves, considering only spent about 8hours working on the track. Bought some irrigation tubing today for the lanes and barriers, 60M of the stuff, $45ea 20M. It works well with pegs, gives a little so not so harsh on the little tuckers when they hit. My mates camera was out of battery, so I used my phone to take the pics, but I left it at his house... hehe, pics will be up tomorrow.

[James]

nice! looking forward to them

[anson]

When I said tomorrow I meant today, but when I say today i really mean tonight. hehe didn't get a chance to put the pics up on the net yesterday. Also scored $80 worth of Bunnings Gift Vouchers from an online survey place, so when they arrive we are going to Bunnings to get more gear to improve the track. Gotta love free money.

[anson]

here are the crappy pics, of the track at about halfway, too dark to take any worthwhile photos when we were done for the day.

Heres the piece of fine machinary we used to get the grass out of there. Note the green grass.

e107_files/public/16_image103.jpg

[anson]

Lane crossover jump half completed, with RC18T testing the distance.
You can also see the beginnings of the chicane(sp?) in the back of that shot. (Dirt markings) Thats been completed.

e107_files/public/16_image125.jpg

[anson]

Basic outline of the track. After the chicane the track turns left under the crossover, does a right out of the crossover, then some more right turns to get over the jump then a kind of hairpin into the starting straight

e107_files/public/16_image126.jpg

[anson]

Another angle, without proper shadows you can't really see the Tabletop on the right of this pic.

e107_files/public/16_image122.jpg

[anson]

That's it for now, next time we work ont he track prolly 2 weeks I'll get some photos(good photos) of the track which I estimate with be 95% done.

[opAsx]

looks to be coming along really well :)

[James]

awesome, gotta come have a bash on it! :)

[anson]

Well if you want to make the trip to Sydney I am sure it would be fine to have a go on it when it's done.

[anson]

Here are some photos of our completed track in the backyard.
$350 and 12ish hours work.


e107_files/public/16_img_1823_small.jpg

[anson]

2

e107_files/public/16_img_1824_small.jpg

[anson]

3

e107_files/public/16_img_1826_small.jpg

[anson]

action shot

e107_files/public/16_img_1801_small.jpg

[BAGES]

Anson - that is frickin awesome !!! I live in Canberra - but I just about drive up to Sydney purely just to have a bash!!! :p

[anson]

haha the rustler might fit on it the track, not sure if it would be able to keep up with the brushless 18ts. ;) Actually you would win with the rustler, we suck badly at controlling the car on the dirt. Too much power. Gotta work on gearing and tire combos.

[BAGES]

haha dunno bout winning anson I am new to offroad - but the track looks greats - Congrats !!!!

[anson]

Nah you should see us drive, we are lucky to make it once around the track without a major stack, needing someone to flip the car.

Thanks for comments guys.

Whats happening to the one you guys wanted to make? Its really not that hard, with a few guys doing it. I mean the three of us are just average people with no landscaping knowledge. Spread the costs around yourselves and you will have a very fun place to drive your micros.

[James]

we are starting soon as far as I know. Just waiting for Joe to get his exams out of the way I think...

[anson]

excellent. I am currently in exams, well they start Tuesday, so this was good way to relax on the weekend... ahh who am I kidding, it was a bad way to waste time. heh.