reading this topic, I thought of some sort of net, (like criket nets or hall dividers) but i think chicken wire would be fine

If you built a wooden frame, the width of the up and down ramp and long enough to cover the track, then brace it like X or +, it should be plenty strong enough, cars car roll if needed to plus you can see through it!

Perspex is freaking expensive :(

Someone will stand or fall on it, marshals would need to be equiped with a pole to get out any cars under ! What width are we talking about ?

Disclaimer first of all - I wasn't at the race meeting and I didn't see the track.

BUT dismiss the concerns of the people who found the open crossover difficult at your peril!

The real art of building a track is to make it straightforward for a beginner to get around, while also being challenging for a good driver.

It should NEVER be challenging for a good driver, but IMPOSSIBLE for a beginner.

That means half of the racers on the day are not having fun. And if people don't have fun they won't come back.

Rhythm sections, well spaced triples etc are easy to navigate at low speed but can also be taken at high speed by skilled drivers. Things like a crossover can never be taken at low speed. And don't forget that people have to marshal safely too.

Basically, if you couldn't get around the track with a box-stock Tamiya Hornet you have the wrong layout!

Haha completely disagree with you there mate.

A Tamiya Hornet would struggle to get round most of the decent off road tracks! The Cross over had a kicker jump which honestly required hardly any speed to make it at all - i agree the standard speed of a Tamiya Hornet would make it, but whether the suspension would is another point....

Marshalling was not an issue any more then it ever is where there are jumps - you can't help that.

I think 98% of racers enjoyed it as you can tell by comments here including some electric virgins, most people seemed to like it.

First of, I would like Andy, Lee, Nick, Rob & the rest of the Newbury team for making this event happen.
Also I would like to thank all the racers who turned up to race, some traveling for over 3 hours in the morning!!!
My view on the track was that it was coooool, being a 1/8th racer I felt at home with the jumps, the current UK electric tracks are the main reason that I gave up electric racing many years ago, but jumps are the future :D
I take it that this coment is a joke? I would love to see Lee or Nick run a Hornet round, bet it would surpise a few people :eh?: Having raced a Hornet at the Tamiya meeting back in the 80's I recon it would have got round the track fine. I had some customers enter this meeting who were complete newbee's who had never raced before, they enjoyed it & loved the jumps.

Regarding the crossover, you need things to test your skills, yes I agree that if you jumped short you could have wrecked someone's run if you landed on them, but it was very easy to clear as Showtime proved:p but agreed that the run off on this could have been a few feet longer to allow you to overjump & not crash in to the track marker. At the end of the day this was our 1st big meeting & we knew that we would not get it 100% correct the 1st time.

We will take on all the comments for the next track, but big air is the future!!

Marc
MK Racing

This plebby new(ish)bie had a poor day, but still loved the crossover. It reminded me of Dukes of Hazard or those Matchbox car runs you could get when I was younger.

My more sensible point was that I could do the crossover with only a quarter throttle and no run up, in fact a 1/4 throttle gave me a perfect landing on the other side everytime.

I did however come off the side a couple of times.

Elliott.

I broke at least one persons car badly enough to put them out of the race by coming up short ........ after 20 years racing and was an F2 last time I raced 1/10th nationals!!

New car, new type of motor, 5 years away from 2wd of any type ...

I can't remember the last time I drove a 1/10th buggy on a track where you had to lad a down ramp ...... 2001 maybe something like that.

You know I have respect for you carl after all the info you given me for the Exotek but please, chill buddy.

Well yeah, i don't think its fiesable to be honist. It's just going to be too low. I would just say put a bigger run off down and leave it at that. You need practically no power to jump it anyway....

banked corner COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL :D:D:D:D:D:o:wtf::eh?:

I've spent the past 20mins reading all the comments on the track and the dumbed 'dreaded crossover'......
Well I have a few reply's to them.

I only came into racing at the begining to last year and was guided by lee martin. I learnt after a short time with the help of a stock motor that i could go quicker round the tracks than i could with my modified. So, I moved to 19t 15t and 14turn motors and I started achiving the same results and over the two years i have been getting quicker the more i race i.e.practising.

Wat im saying is that no matter how many crossovers or big jumps you have it all boils down to one thing..... 'practice'.
If you cant do them well.... then do them slower untill you get them right.
I saw that people were simply planting the power down so they would over shoot the jump or crossover. For those who did not make it then you simply did not have enough power applied and it didnt take much to get across. Its the same with corners you slw down to go around some and some you dont. we all learn that so with jumps if it is agresive then you slow down so you dont jump as far.

And as for the question of if you fell short and hit a car going underneath on the crossover then you have to think about all the usual everyday what ifs. If i got a corner wrong and went over the piping i might hit some one. when i crash i could enter the wrong end of the main strait and wip out the leaders. theres always wat ifs and risks, but thats racing look at the american tracks. Do we here them complaining?

I understand all the peoples concerns and i enjoy the atmosphere when people are there if you are struggling then there maybe something you are doing wrong.
Dont sit there behind your keyboards and start moaning. Come speak to someone who can manage a certain jump or corner and im sure they will help as the hobby is all about the community that is brought together in that one meeting.



Trish

guys

look i was watching from race control i would say for 95% of the day and i only saw 1 person cause a crash by not making the cross over and he had been hit on the kicker by another car.

the cross over will stay as will the table top possibly a bit bigger next time but guys get used to it we wil give a bit more room to land but i love the cross it looked ace to watch.
and i for 1 want racing at newbury to be memerable and leave you guys wanting more we will be running the cross over on our club nights so COME AND PRACTICE from time to time.

lee nick and tristan designed the best indoor track ive seen in ages.

i mean all the kickers worked they wernt just a flat piece of wood come on we need to get this type of racing in the uk places like cml and stotfold have bigger jumps and a wall of death (cml) and we all mange to do it shit it was hard at first but now we all do it full thottle.

CROSS OVER STAYS

thats it my final work if thats a bit strong then i appologise in advance but guys the offroad section of rc is about fun and pushing our selves and our cars to the limit not talking about how fast they went around a flat track jumps rule ok.

thanks Andy :mad: Bell (glad thats off my chest:))

thanks:)

Dont sit there behind your keyboards and start moaning. Come speak to someone who can manage a certain jump or corner and im sure they will help as the hobby is all about the community that is brought together in that one meeting.
Trish[/quote]

I just said the same to my mate Trish, if you have any probs with anything at a race meeting, don't be afraid to ask someone with more experience, i do!!
Problems with handling, jumps, electrics whatever, i'm sure all would advise and help

the crossover was spot on & like Marc said, even i got over it allright :rolleyes:

all the jumps were do-able with a couple of feet runup & having downramps as well took all of the impact away from your car when you timed them right ;)

i thought the difficulty level of the track was bang on the money
you try a bit harder & you go a bit better ;)
even i got better by the end of the day & i'm about as useless as you can get with a 2wd buggy!
the jumps were no problem at all, for me it was throttle/steering balance on the different surfaces :rolleyes:

another definite YES vote to keep the crossover!

nowadays people seem to want jumps! (i know i do) and you've only got to look at the DXR events to see how popular Supercross style meetings have become in 8th!

people are even throwing tantrums because thet can't get in :o

Ian, a longer section after the down would stop the problems with coming up short due to people trying to land the down ramp on the brakes (to make up for having none) to make the corner.
It however wouldn't solve the problem of having no way out if you couldn't jump it for some reason (haivng to swerve to avoid a car having it's own accident or just given up the ghost for example).



I like the idea of distance jumping giving a bonus in lap times as I've said but still believe that you should be able to roll any feature.



In 2006 at the Great Yarmouth national they had a series of dips which were basically just 3 JCB scoops out of the ground about 0.5m apart. Now there was no problem driving them if you could get a decent entry and carry speed but if you got stuck, most often because somebody had cocked up the entry and ended up on their roof you got stuck in them as you could drive out of them from a standstill.
Marshals got hurt, engines cut, cars got broken and tempers more so. The track was basically good apart from that one feature but it was enough to pee off quite a few people!!!!

Difficult features are cool ..... jumps are cool .... flat tracks are dull agree with all that 100%. Equally features that can't be rolled cause marshalling problems, broken cars, broken spirits and people have crappy days .. some times there last ever day racing!!!


As for the people saying "practice practice practice" they are dead right ..... but where???? Only track I can think of that has the sort of features you can practice jumping on is CML raceway. Lee and Nick seem to be the only people (as far as I know ... maybe wrong ..... actually I am .. just read the Worksop thread ..... why nobody in the west mids though :( ) putting big jumps indoors. It's great to say build jumps at home but that only works if you have a garden to build on in ..... I couldn't even build a decent jump in my garden for my micro ... swing a cat ..... no .. maybe one of it's fleas!!

I suggest those needing the jumping practice badger Lee to open up CML Raceway in the new year for some fun ..... I have ;)
You lads local to CML don't realise how lucky you are .... or indeed how much advantage you have over some of us on these sort of tracks!!!

Most people building temporary tracks think a jump is a bit of flat plywood 6" off the ground ... doesn't really help. I agree this is more than a bit pants....


Lee and Nick have been very understanding and thoughtful about the comments we have all made, they have assured us that the next track will be the best ever (and I believe it) so can we please move on. I would hate to think that my comments, or anybody elses, would stop Lee and Nick building an interesting track .... I know that will never happen so am not really worried. All people have asked is that it is safe for marshals, drivable (if a little slow lapping) for less practiced "feature" drivers .. no matter how much racing experience they have and fun for all. That is what I am sure we'll get next time.

Consider me pre-booked for all future meetings ..... even after the most sh17 days racing in a long long time.

:)

Roger,

I would not say that Nick & Lee have been "cold" about the comments given, they worked very hard on Saturday building the track, they were not paid to do this, they did it for FREE, so giving them a hard time is out of order.

I would say that 95% of the racers who attended the meeting were happy with the layout & will be back for the meetings in 2008.

As in my other post, you can not build a track to suit every one, we wanted this meeting to be differant & that is why we had a track with jumps.

If you just have a jump that you have land hard on a flat surface this will unsettle the car, that is why we had spaced jumps so you could hop/roll or jump both & land on the down of the 2nd.

I feel that the crossover needs to be a feature in the next track & im sure that Lee, Nick or any other top drives will give tips to the lesser drivers if asked on how to jump it.

Marc
MK Racing

Maybe its peoples perceptions of the current flat racing that is the issue here?

Maybe so many people are used to small jumps..and have never had experience of such big jumps?

You'd like to hope that atleast one person went away from the event having never tackled a big jump or crazy cross over before..drooling at the thought of doing it again :)

Embrace new directions..jumps are the way forwards...or upwards in this case :)

I'll edit "cool" as I meant it in a fonzie sort of way not a disinterested sort of way.....

I know what your saying Mark. As for jumping I like you left 1/10th a few years ago to go 1/8th rallycross to get more airtime so know what you mean there too!!! I'm normally pretty good on jumps, didn't miss the lander on the table top at Craig Harris's meeting the week before once .... but if I had there was sufficient space to get the car pointing in the right direction before the corner anyway but you were punished as the following 180deg corner was on slippy stuff.

It's not the juming I object to, not at all ... must not have been very clear in the previous comments .... it's having no choice but to.

Here is a question for you ...... the quickest thing to do would be to have just dropped of the upper left handed and miss out the whole section of the track. Now if anybody had tried that you'd have had to penalise them for corner cutting but they would have a valid argument that they couldn't make the jump with confidence so took the only alternative they had ..... does that make sense????? Does that make my point clearer???

Far from slagging off the crew I've tried to praise them for their efforts, promised to attend the next meetings and contacted both Lee and Andy via PM about getting some jumping practice at their respective venues ..... hardly a vote of no-confidence.

I hope that clears up my point of view a little ..... off to edit that post.

Roger, if you get the 8th out you could practice at Frankley I know they have jumps :) not sure how "electric friendly" frankley is. I suppose I could get my Hongnor out again!

As much as I don't really enjoy the 8th, you have to say one thing the tracks are good and fun with jumps, were supposed to be OFF ROAD racers and the amount of tracks I have been to that are flat is shocking.

Guys it don't matter how good a track you design or make some one will moan and not like it.

Chris ....... your right with the first and second point for sure .... can you imagine those sort of jumps at Gloucester or Dudley?? Your also correct about the third point but don't dismiss the fact there will probalby be a similar number going away thinking "had a crap day .... never going there again" ..... which would be a hell of a shame when you consider how good the rest of the track was.

As for you closing remark ... totally.

BIG jumps, did I miss somthing they were all small, ok the table top was big :)

Now proline thats what I called BIG jumps, ha that was awesome to race on and an experience I enjoyed, hard but again get it right and it was awesome!
Pitty I wont be racing again there, but thats nothing to do with DXR or the track, just a long story.........

JP ... exactly why I went 8th in the first place!!! Main reason I have gone back to electric is that without a pit buddy it's damn hard work and more like a job than a fun days racing!
Jumping a gasser and an electric buggy are different things though, react so diffrently to throttle in the air and snapping the throttle on the kicker!

JP also loved the Harper Adams tracks .... even if the one I raced at put me in hospital for 3 days due to fumes :o


Think of our 1/10th outdoor tracks (please note ... for reference not a dig in any way ....)

Dudley (flat grass),

Worcester (flat grass with a few features),

Telford Hot Tracks (flat grass on a bank),

Telford MMC (anything but flat grass but still not air time),

Kiddy (loads of surface changes and features but if you get more than a couple of inches under your tires you in big doo-doo),

Oswestry (flat grass mainly),

Stoke (flat grass),

Coventry (astro with a pair of doubles usually in the middle of a straight section towards or away from the rostrum at about 90degs) and so on.....

Now that list may be out of date by a couple of years ... you'll no doubt correct me if I'm wrong JP.

And before any of the members of the above clubs linch me I must point out I have had brilliant days at all of them over the years and I also understand the grief building good jumps into temp tracks is ... have helped run an indoor club in the past. Taking all the stuff to and from an event is a nighmare ... even before you consider storing it all between meetings and the fact that only about 2 people ever seem to show up / stay behind to help!!!!



Thinking about all my fav off-road tracks

Batley, Bury Metro, Stotfold (ok Kiddy still makes me smile loads too)

almost enough to make me want to move house to be in a different region!

The boys tup-norf and south mids / south east don't know our pain .... LOL


I have a plan ... why don't we kidnap Pidge and Nick make them build us a track too :o:D:p

roger u made a point of telford hotrax being flat do you have a strange concept of flat i heard it being compared to the surface of the moon and when its hot humid you get chewed up by them midges:wtf:

Roger,

I do get your point about the cross over, In practice I got it wrong & landed to the left of the down ramp missing a whole section of track out, but that is what the practice run is for, to find out how much power to give it on the approach to the jump. The slipery corner coming onto the crossover had no affect on the jump as you only had to roll onto the up ramp & give it a bit of throttle to clear & land on the down ramp. As I said before, I had customers at the meeting who had not raced before, we gave them advice on jumping, they took the advice, went out for there next run & hey presto, made the jump!!!

If you missed the jump & carried on cutting the track that would have been up to you. Crossovers are something differant, you cant have them at national for the reasons you pointed out, but this was not a national, it was a "fun" meeting.

I want to keep the crossover for the next meeting as per my previous post, but it will be in a differant part of the track & not just after the loop & will have a few feet more run off incase you over jump. But if more than 25% of the drivers who enter don't want it, then we may take the desision not to include it.

At the end of the day, it is all about fun & trying something differant :D

Marc

I really enjoyed the track on Sunday very challenging, which is why I have not put a post up before now.
The only input I would like to put forward is maybe give an extra 1-2 foot runoff from the downslope of the double jumps, other than that the track was absolutley fine.

Most of the people who have in more than 1 post, critacised the features of the track are generally the ones who can't be arsed to give up a few hours to help with the layout/building of a track.

I understand why Lee and Nick have started to become more and more defensive over comments, as it really annoyed me when I gave up 2 days to help setup a track for one of the midwest regionals, only for dads who don't even race to start trying to pick faults, and demanding to have the track changed, if thats how they feel where were they when we asked for help.

So I totally agree with Nick and Lee's perspective.

Please see above ammendments

Just to finish off from previous posts...

I thought the track 99% was excellent. I have been to sooo many meetings where the jumps were just chucked in with no thought, this one was NOT like that at all.

Andy and Team - Do another meeting, this was great 9.5/10 I am sure that it will be well attended. My only problem is not racing often enough, and with no tracks with real jumps that test the driver. They are mainly ramps/flat wood at an angle. You guys close to CML are really lucky. I am at least 45 minutes drive from any local 10th electric club, so do not race as often as I could, thus meaning I do not get the practice on tracks like this.

All the jumps at the MKGP could be seen for entry and landing (so you are not driving blind). They were also positioned well enough so that no jumping caused you to land on the start/finish straight (I have seen this too many times). The cross over was excellent in that it was not a 'tunnel' so again you didn't have to drive it blind (again I have seen stupid ideas like this at numerous meetings). 3 out of the 4 jumps you had the option to roll over should you wish to cop out on. No jumps were placed right on a corner (remember the Tivvy National a few years back??) The track markers were good (non-damaging) and the jumps materials themselves did not do any damage to any of the cars that I saw racing. The mix of grip was excellent and the straight was also long enough to open up our cars on.

My only point was that you could not roll the crossover, which caused me and a few others to jump a little too far, to make sure we got over it. We then collided gently with the track marker. This sometimes caused the plastic barrier (in the landing area) to move into the other jump's landing area. I only mentioned these things because they had the 'possibility' to ruin someone elses race! I am sure that the guys will take our comments on board for next time and it will be positioned a little better. For you first real big meeting it was superb. My thanks go out to your efforts on the meeting. Without the jumps, it would have been a flat, boring car track! I will also bring my coat!:o

Thanks guys for an interesting day.
Mark

Best thing I've heard all day!!! :D :D :D

Cheers Brian for setting me straight .... I knew somebody would!!! 3 years is a long time it would seem!!!

Do any of the venues now have jumps with full take off and landing slopes? I do hope they do.

I do hope the comment about not being bothered wasn't aimed at me Brian. I'd really like to get involved with a local club, I wish there was one! I've been looking for some ground to build a track but it is very hard to find anything around this way .... if it's more than 3 foot square they seem to build a house on it!!! I have heard that the Ledbury club is going to build a 1/10th off-road track and would be more than happy to offer them some help as that would be my closest club ..... only about 30 miles away according to route finder!!


Dert ..... I know what you mean, does cut up a little :) ... what I was trying to say was they don't have much in the way of true take off - landing slope type jumps there.

Mark, thanks for the 9.5/10 score mate its much appreciated.;)

Myself and i'm sure most of the organisation team are getting tired now of the constant grizzling on this thread regarding the track layout. :mad:

A lot of people put their time into making this event happen.

Once again I would like to thank all the drivers who have given us positive feedback and i can assure you that the next meeting/s that we host will be bigger and better than the 1st!!

Oh, that means 2 cross-overs probably. LOL :D

Keep looking as details for the next event will be released very soon.

RR.

As Nick (I think it was Nick anyway) suggested why not post up a few track designs, or at least the final one.
That way people could make up their minds before they go or indeed if they want to go at all. Would probably save a similar thread.

Just a suggestion......

As I have said before thanks for running a great meeting ..... for a 1st meeting I think the organisation was really good ..... seen many more experienced organisation teams make a major mush of it all. Shame about the timing issue but you did seem to be working really hard at that all day. Even with that the meeting flowed beautifully, for that you should all be very proud of your efforts.

I'll definately be back for the next ones ..... (With a bag of spares and body armour for marshalling of course .. :) )

Not you personally just in general.

Bloody well hope they've got a 1/10th track, as I heard they have a mid-west regional next year.

I really enjoyed the track and returning back to some electric action. I used to race a Cat XLS and most of the races I did were flat and not what you would call proper offroad, in fact the only offroad action was at Rock Park in Barnstaple on some flat grass!

I have been racing 1/8th RallyCross for the past 3 years and have really enjoyed the racing and the technical jumps especially as I am lucky enough to live close to the Clanfield track. I have never ran my electric cars over such great jumps as I did on Sunday. I thought that I was not going to do well as I tried my old Cat around Clanfield in October and got a great surprise as I did not know how to jump as I was so used to nitro. I can now see how the jumps will help me improve in both 1/10th and 1/8th. I have no electric clubs near me so I drive 1 and a half hours to race at Newbury which has been getting better and better now that more offroaders have joined lateley.

I think that you will find if you do a search for videos on YouTube that you will find many people will get a model car and the first thing they will try to do is the biggest jump that they can to have some fun. Technology in these small cars has moved on so much that they can take alot more these days, my poor old Graupner Garbo, Kyosho Burns, Optima, Optima Mid, PB Maxima certainly would not last very long compared to the latest entry cars that are being sold today so the tracks should move with the times as well. So the more jumps the merrier is what I say. If you want some practise with a jump then go down to Argos and they do a kiddies skate board ramp which is perfect. I put one on my birthday list and my wife kindly got one for me.

At most races there are great people who are so willing to help out others no matter what experience level that it is this that will keep people coming back for more.

Brian, cool ... best get on the phone to Doug and see what I can do to help then!!

GUYS

COME ON THATS ENOUGH

we are going to give people an option if you dont want to jump then dont come.
Roger M i wont be expecting to see an entry next time as you have a big problem with taking a risk and most of us love to

see you all in the new year i hope lets leave this thread alone now we at newbury have had enough of being moaned at.

i raced 1/8th at south end and i hate the track it destroyed my cars many times over the 2 years i went there but i would never have asked them to change a feature because i couldnt do it, my god 3A racway had a double that put you on the straight if you hit in wrong no body asked them to change that.

to be honest we will build an ace track just come and enjoy it there is nothing like this in the south so please take it for what it is a good days racing and stop trying to tell us what needs changing.

if you can do better then please do i will come and race with you and break my car, but that is not the cars fault or the track its mine cos im rubbish i hope i have made my opinion known.


Andy Bell (fed up race controller):wtf:

Dont get fed up champ, we love ya really!!

Cris

(Cya next time :))

keep going with it....i love the banter...makes my work day go quicker!!!!

only because your bored sitting at your desk !!!!! :D:p
will see if i can find some amusment for you .

Andy, please don't get disheartened. I LOVED the track, as did all the hereford guys.

I'd enter again, just to race the same track. There obviously aren't enough jumps in 10th off-road, as there seems to be so many people that aren't used to them. keep them coming, and you can set the standard!


(Cris, Carl (Frogger) etc, I think us micro guys have been spoilt with our jumps in the micro scene!!!)