Rag Tag Raceway??

Today I took a trip up to Canaan, NH to help Matt C. work on the indoor track at his warehouse. Scott, Josh and Mike M. were there too to help put it together. The warehouse is nice, and has a heater which might be useful if things get too cold this year. The whole track is enclosed and has a separate room on the side to work on the trucks and whatnot. The warehouse is 50′ x 100′ total. After you take into account the lose of space on the sides from the concrete ledges, and the 2 boats in the front of the warehouse it’s probably about an 80′ x 30′ area to throw dirt on. Matt and Mike did some work yesterday making a half pipe to drop into a pit from where tractor trailers would unload. It came out nice and after throwing some carpet on it works really well to use the space available.

The warehouse early in the day.

Luckily Matt has a nice John Deere with a bucket to move all the dirt around, which made the job a lot easier for everyone. Matt did most of the work by bringing in the dirt, dumping it, and then flattening and packing it with the bucket. It started out looking like it would be a lot more work to fill the warehouse and build the track, but that tractor made it easier. We did some raking and and filling in while Matt kept the dirt coming. The dirt itself is mostly sand with some clay mixed in, it packs really well, but the light stuff on the top that gets kicked up sticks to everything. The plan is to take some concrete mix and spread it lightly over the surface just to keep it packed a little better on top.

Two big mounds of dirt for the track

Once we got some track surface laid out, Josh helped flatten it out by running his Slash around. With most of the work being done by the tractor, we spent a lot of time breaking up chunks of clay, spreading the dirt around where the tractor missed, and building a couple berms. The track came together nicely, and after a few hours we had most of the dirt in the warehouse, probably 4-6 inches deep through most of it. Once it was dark out, we finished by adding a some jumps, two small ones and a bigger double. Some conduit, 2x4s and whatever other pieces we could find were thrown down to get a general layout of the track, and some “testing” began. The layout is simple and uses the track space well. The straightaway is great and lets you really open up the trucks. There aren’t a lot of jumps, and nothing for big air, but the track is fun to drive on. I timed one of Mike’s laps with his mod truck to get an idea of the lap times, and he did it in 21.2 seconds. It’s quite a bit smaller than the track at 106, but it’s just as fun to drive on.

All the cars we tried, Slash, Mod truck, and Matt’s 1/8 Buggy got around the track really well. The double is a little harsh and you can get stuck in the middle if you don’t clear it, but that will most likely change to something more acceptable to the Slashes. The 1/8 Buggy is a little big for the track, it gets around it very fast, and having a lot of them on the track might be rough, but with the short lap times, running multiple heats for one class would be fine if it came to that.

Mostly finished, the straight away is off the camera on the left

Next weekend the plan is to finish the track itself off with come more conduit to mark the lanes better. The its on to making the driver’s stand, and director’s area. Matt has a nice plan for those and it should work out nicely. So far this is looking like a great track for the winter, for practice and fun, maybe even a real race. Scott joked early in the morning that the track needed a name, and said “Rag Tag Raceway”, hence the post title. So for now I’m calling it that, unless Matt decides to name it something else officially. The drive up isn’t too bad, just at an hour from Concord. So hopefully we’ll see more of the NEAR Club up there this winter. I haven’t put my E-Revo on the track, as it is still in pieces, but it might be a bit big for the track. Luckily the Slash 4×4 will be here next month to run.

I took some other pics through the day, mostly to figure out what settings to use for the indoor shooting. Some of them are blurry, and some are overexposed, but I actually got some nice ones in there too. Some of the ones with Matt’s buggy make it look like the track is mud, trust me it is not, it’s just sandy, and the top gets kicked up. I like the pics of cars with the tires spinning and the dirt flying, so I like it. Take a look at the pics, and hope to see you at the track soon.