Building an offroad R/C track. Help, Ideas, Suggestions.

I have recently gotten into offroad r/c cars and want to make a track in my field for myself and friends.

All I have for "heavy equipment" would be [maybe] a small tractor, a couple 2wd utility 4 wheelers, a garden tiller and my truck. I would say at most there would be 6-8 trucks on the track at once, and that's being somewhat generous. Most of the time it'll just be 2-4. I need to look around local for some prices to rent equipment, I just don't know if I wanna lay the money down for a bobcat.

My plan right now is to mow it down super close and spray something to kill the grass and weeds. (Dad drives a spray rig for a living so that shouldn't be a problem). Then use a tiller, hopefully I can get a tractor with a tiller box or plow on it and start a rough outline.

For most of the jumps I'm gonna bury up some old fenceposts and boards. I'm gonna have to get creative for the tabletops because I want them to be a pretty good size. The closest water source is on the backside of the house about 80 yards away, but I've got a good size water tank I can put in the truck and fill up.

The field is pretty rutted up in a few places from a small atv mx track we made a few years back so hopefully I can smooth some of that out by taking extra dirt from there.

I'm really just gonna have to play it by ear. The first step is getting down to the dirt and starting an outline.

This a rough sketch I drew of what I would like to end up with.

 

what are you planning on using to mark the lanes?

 

After it's all said and done I'm going to use some black plastic drain pipe. A friend of mine just finished building his house so I can get about half of what I need free from him.

 

cool

are you gonna keep the surface loamy and not pack it down? If you are gonna do SC racing keep it nice and loamy.

 

I'm aiming for a nice hard pack foundation and a finer/loose/loamy-ish grit on top

 

Take and split it in half using a utility knife (be careful) and now you have twice as much, and you can most likely get over it without getting hung up on it. Go to Lowes, or what ever, and pick up some insulation hangers (precut pieces of wire) bend in a U shape, slide down over the split pipe to hold in place.

 

Sweet

I wish I could build my own track

 

That looks like a solid layout. Would you want a bit more of a straight away on the top for the start/finish lines? And where is your box going to be?

 

The stretch you're seeing right here would be the bottom straight on the drawing I measured it out to be right around 50 feet and I'm doing my best to keep the width right around 8 feet throughout.



Same stretch from a different angle



This further down that stretch. The tire in the right of the picture marks the turn on the bottom right of the drawing



The sort of "Curved straight stretch" that goes along the top of the drawing would be right around where the taller dead looking grass ends. On the drawing I would be standing a little lower than the top right corner hear.



A picture from the bottom right of the drawing



From the bed of the truck





And for a reference of the width of the track, my brother's 1/10th Losi Desert Truck

 

Yea, I'm probably gonna square that top corner off so I've got more of a straightaway there.

I don't really have plans for a box, considering this isn't going to be open to the public or anything. We'll likely let our pit stands double as our "boxes". (tailgates)

 

That means I can get ALL I need for free!

 

Going for an end product similar to this, packed just a little firmer with a lot more/bigger jumps

 

Looking great so far. How does that dirt drain, looks like it might be some sweet ass stuff, (mostly red clay here). Drainage can be a major problem, our track is sitting on top of the ground, (six dump truck loads, one of the guys drives a truck) and the whole thing is slightly angled toward the drivers stand to aid in drainage, the far back straight is higher than the portion in front of the stand. It sucks to have puddles on some parts and a dust bowl in others. Another little tip, just use a can of white, cheap spray paint to mark your borders, then there will be less crap to pick up later... Again looks good.

 

Thanks. I tried to use the highest spot in the field I could find. I know that when it rains really hard there isn't standing water in that area. Of course, that could all change once its finished. The darker soil that the track will be made of is very sponge-like, and there's a lighter orange/red clay under all of that. I think as long as I keep everything slightly slanted so that it drains I shouldn't have any problems.

Also, called around earlier today and it looks like it would cost me $200 a day to rent a bobcat. If I could work things out where I only need it for one day I could almost justify that $200... Maybe I can talk some friends into pitching in and let them use the track whenever they want.

 

If you can operate a loader, you can get a butt load done in a day, even a half day (if that's an option) just have a plan, and get to it. Also with as much land that you have to work with, you can/could scoop up some soil from a different location for your jumps and such. Heck yeah, makes your buds pitch in, we all throw some cash in (to cover power and water bills, we do have lights and a 42 head sprinkler system) again one of the fellows owns a small landscape/sprinkler business, also we have work days and such. I'm not rying to deter you, but it does take a lot of work to keep up a nice track. But, you can slip out and get in a few batteries, and learn the lines when no one else is around...

 

I feel like I'm intelligent enough to figure out a loader pretty quick. I really don't think it's just gonna "scoop up" ground that's been pretty much untouched for 20 or so years, though. What I really need is a tractor with a tiller box thing on the back of it . . . Or just put a plow behind the taco.

 

I thought you had a tractor, so you could break up (in advance) some soil, scoop with the Bobcat and deliver where needed. That kinda was my comment on having a plan. There kinda tricky, my bud owns one and is a ace. He even packs and shapes jumps and such with it. BTW, the pic you posted above, of someones' progress on a track, unless that is some soil that drains like a mofo, thats gonna hold water. Tires do nothing but sling loose stuff to the outside, lowering the insides, begging for water to collect there. Not trying to be a dick, just trying to help. We cut our first track in 1987, just cut it in with a landscape box, nice banked corners and all, turned in to a swamp, or a dust bowl. The posted pic is our eighth track at five different locations. I'm just telling you the problems/sucesses we've had.

 

Progress! Kinda..

I know it looks like a jumbled mess but I've actually got a lot done.

All of this wood you see lying around is eventually gonna become filler for jumps, woops, and berms. I've figured out that I'm probably gonna end up using a tiller and go all the way around the track with it, and there are a couple of spots that I'm going to have to build up for visibility purposes.

 

Made a lot of progress today. Everything is mowed down super close and I changed the layout a lot. The crossover is gone and I changed the width to 10 ft. Much easier to drive one. Should have it done sometime next week... If it doesn't rain too much this weekend.

 

where are you gonna get the dirt from?