monday pm seems to be the best meeting day if anyone wants to come down and give me some opinions:thumbsup:
it needs to be easily removed for onroad and use some of the materials we have already too (not sure if we have any "fingers" though:p)

it might help matt if you added your full name to your sig so people know who to ask for ;)

just come down and ask for the MA rally simulator champion:woot:
Matt will do for now as im the only Matt there:drool:

Hi,
Ideally, you would'nt want any tarmac on the off road track.
The best off road tracks in the U.K do not have any tarmac.
It's a tyre killer. :cry:

The interest is alot greater for the off road section, the on road had hardly any advice.

Just convert to whole thing to indoor astro or dirt, it WILL be packed on tuesdays, and racedays.
Just look at PDA, a tiny dirt track no bigger than the rostrum at MA, and it had at least 30 people turn up weekly.


Tel

You are so right, the ideal would be a clay/dirt track but convincing them to dig up all that shiny new tarmac may be a bit difficult :)

Alot of people run personal transponders, ideally you need an amb system.

Surface wise I think Alec has a good idea, so I'll let him discuss that.

we got an amb decoder:)

the offroad track has to be removable or it wont happen:(

try just the tarmac and some jumps first, and lets go from there. You can run any soft compound tyre according to Alec as the grip on the tarmac is really good.

thing is, I'd end up spending all my time on the F1 Simulator!!:woot:

Just a warning to Matt at MA. ;)

This forum is predominately for off-road drivers. Please don't get the impression that there is little interest in on-road touring cars, minis, etc. There are many clubs up and down the country running indoor on-road meetings every week. I would say they are the quiet majority.

By all means have a removable off-road track. If you get the right advice it will be great. You absolutely must get it spot-on though or nobody will be interested.

Don't forget the quiet majority though, will you?

Cheers :)

You are absolutely correct, there are many clubs up and down the country running indoor on road meetings weekly and most of them have seen a steady decline in numbers over the last few years which is why this facility NEEDS BOTH for it to survive.

There are a few clubs that have built some jumps and run all the classes side by side each week, they work quite well and their numbers are up. I used to attend Aylesbury club on a Friday (AORRC) but touring cars with stock motors and tyres with no grip made it uninteresting for me (and others) and they said they weren't interested in running buggies on a regular basis, only as a filler class.

People assume that minipin tyres will ruin the expensive carpets that most club have, it's not buggies that ruin carpets, it's touring cars with screws sticking out the bottom that are run too low that make the holes. Sure, on a permanent track where the corners never change you will get wear with any form of car, not just buggies, but where the carpet is put away each week and re-laid with a different track layout, the corners are never in the same part of the carpet so there's no problem.

Moto Arena I doubt will never dig up the tarmac so that's there to stay, how many they get using it regularly I can't say but up until now it's not a lot. What I can say is that with the right input there can be a very good REMOVABLE off road indoor track that will eventually get a good following. I think the biggest problem at the Moto Arena will be the people in charge doing it half-measures (no insult to anyone intended) and wanting it to be full to the brim from day one. That won't happen, it will take weeks to build a base of people that will come regularly and of course it has to be right from the off (as said in the post above).

As for touring cars/minis etc being the silent majority, yes they are on this forum but ask your BRCA section chairman and he'll give you all the statistics that will tell you that the biggest growth class is off-road.

Clubs beware, make your tracks suitable for ALL classes of racing and you will flourish, stick to the flat stuff and your numbers will continue to fall :(

Please god let them start an indoor off road series over winter....

I cant take much more shopping or visiting in-laws....

Don't worry, we got plenty in store for onroad,
think of the biggest island track system you have ever seen;)
even that has to be removable

The Aylesbury club did have a thriving buggy scene (1/18) at one time, with sometimes 2 heats or more of them. They were great fun. However, all of a sudden, they went out of fashion and everybody stopped racing them. Why?
Through all that though, the touring cars and minis survived.

I totally agree that MA needs to support both on and off-road. They need to be careful though. I remember not too long ago when off-road racing almost died in this country. It's popular at the moment, but don't count on it lasting. Make the tracks flexible to accommodate changing fashions.

BTW, couldn't you have a track which incorporated an on-road circuit with some alternative off-road sections in the infield? Sort of like a rallycross track?

As for falling numbers, I think that's got more to do with the state of the economy than anything else. Don't start me off about banks!;)

Cheers

Tyre wear isn't an issue on Tarmac once you get your head out of the Schumacher Tyre bag..... You would have to start looking at the proline range...

One little suggestion, Matt, try and get a decent driver up there, get a supply of tyres in for them to test, the one that gives decent wear and grip, make it a control tyre, and can be purchased at the track for a discounted price ;)

Might sound daft, but, why not use flat box sections like they do at large stadiums? you can wheel them in, lock the wheels in place and your chosen surface is there already, roll them out when finished and you have you tarmac area all sorted.

The only issue would be the joins between the crates, but I assume there is a big door somewhere, so larger crates would mean less joins.

Or let people run what they want then you could use all your old tyres that are no good for asto or carpet.

Excellent suggestion :thumbsup:

How about a control tire for events and anything goes for practice days / club meetings... best of both!

The fastest tire will come to the fore and everybody will choose it for events anyway but you don't want to force the guys on a budget to buy specific tires just for a bit of "stick time" as they simply won't go!

Personally, I wouldn't even consider putting time and effort into this until I'd got the on-road tracks up to world class level, and got some regular racing going on bringing in money and building interest in the facility.

At this stage, doing anything else is just a distraction. Surely if anyone at MA has any spare time it should be used to sort out the track markings, and get some on-road race events organised?

Ardent have shown this; they spent the first 6 months building up a great reputation as the best indoor track in the area, and as a result they now have 16 heats at their winter series, plus a reserve list. On-road is popular, if it's done well. Only now that the on-road side is well established are they branching out into off-road events as well.

While 90% of the Oople users may be off-roaders (who certainly won't agree with what I've just said), they don't represent 90% of the racing community, where the split is a lot more even.