The best thing about a track extension for your backyard RC track is that it does not cost you anything other than a few hours of “healthy” shoveling and digging in the fresh air. Well the “fresh air” part depends on where you live I guess…
Anyway, we are back in Maui Hawaii from vacation and while doing some yard work (digging up cane-grass) I came across an old concrete patch in the yard. As Rally fan you are probably thinking the same that I was thinking – BRILLIANT now I can have my track be a mixed surface environment -just how it is supposed to be for Rallycross and Rally cars.
The real problem is to get the soil leading to the concrete patch to become hard enough to drive on it. The original track took about 2-3 month to harden and compact. I don’t have any tools or tractor that could help. I thought about driving the family car over the track, but it won’t work due to my wifes potato patch close by. And trust me you don’t mess with a wifes garden -ever!
The extension will add an additional 90 feet / 30 meters to the track. This will bring the track to a total of 220 feet / 67 meter
Looking at it in a 1/10 scale: I am still short by almost 130 feet / 40 meters to have a “true” 1/10 Rallycross track which are usually 0.932 Miles // 1.500 km long.
Here is a picture of the new section under construction.
Racing events held at night under floodlights have captivated me since early childhood. The atmosphere is simply magical. A logical thing to do was of course to install lights for our remote control rally car track in the backyard.
The idea was to build a system that would be 1) cheap 2) easy to setup and take down 3) able to withstand some very light drizzle /rain.
Luckily we had 3 construction lights and Continue Reading »
Finally the wait is over!
Today was the first day the car went on the backyard track.
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Good News:
- Car handles like a champ
- Surprising off-road capabilities even in soft gravel
- Plenty torque and still enough speed using a 7:1 ratio and Brushless Novak motor
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Bad News:
- Track is too narrow in some areas
- My lower chicane is too tight for the steering radius of the Subaru
- Track is a bit short
- Speed Controller and Receiver dust cover still let’s to much dirt in
I wanted a satellite view of my track in order to design and layout various track configurations. Google Earth is what comes to mind first, however the amount of zoom and corresponding resolution was not satisfactorily. Taking pictures from the roof of our house did also not meet my needs.
So I needed to build my own Satellite…
Option A) Buy a RC Helicopter and mount a camera on it.
Option B) Get a long pole and mount a camera on it.
Sad but true, I went for Option Continue Reading »
The Goal:
Create a 1/10 scale RC Rally & Rallycross track with an emphasis on realism.
The average track length of European Rallycross circuits is between 950 and 1200 meters, which equals roughly 3100 to 3900 feet. The math is pretty simple to calculate a 1/10 track – just loose a zero at the end – which would call for a track length of 95 to 120 meters or 310 to 390 feet. The majority of real-world Rallycross tracks feature tarmac sections, which I briefly considered, but decided against it mainly due to the fact that we don’t own the property.
Theoretically our backyard is big enough to go full length in scale, however I decided to go Continue Reading »
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