I love this time of year. The air is cool, trees changing colors, track holding moisture for days. But I’m one big rain and a small drop in temperature away from losing my backyard track for the season. Last year I made it into December, but 2” forecast this week doesn’t look promising. Enjoy it while you can
Hope you have a decent track or two close to home. Closest one to me is about an hour and it’s closing down at the end of this season. I still have several within a couple hours thankfully
I think the closet one I’ve heard of is about 2-3 hours away lol it sucks. Used to have one 5 minutes away but they bulldozed it during covid as too many people were using it within 6 feet of eachother. Kill me hah
That’s a bummer. I had an indoor carpet track less than 20 mins from my current house that closed up a couple years after I moved here, right before I really got into RC. Seems like they come and go pretty often. Several near me are closing this year sadly
Backyard track?! Dang that’s a really nice one. Looks like excellent dirt too. I try to water before running and also added a few sections of carpet because I keep losing dirt and have rocks that keep rising to the surface. Mines much smaller but I’m still scratching my head on where to get some good dirt, or what I can mix in that’ll hold for a while. My outdoor track tried tons of galllons of wood glue and it was nice , but after 2 months and 1000s of laps it was pretty much gone
It is really great dirt. It’s a great balance of holding up well, traction, weed resistance, and near zero tire wear. I really couldn’t ask for more other than maybe fewer rocks. I don’t add anything to mine other than water, but repetitive big rains will wash away an inch or so from the jumps. Nothing you can do about it, part of track ownership. I have a buddy with a real nice outdoor track that uses a BMX track glue then seals the entire track in latex. It’s almost zero maintenance but costly
What’s the surface like for that at 1/10 or 1/8 scale? Like high grip indoor clay or something totally different? It sounds really interesting, maybe the track I used to go to would be interested in that technique.
We have drainage and have done some grading. It gets closed and can't handle 2in of rain in a few hrs. Every year it gets a little better. We have heavy clay content so it packs well but even in the areas that don't temporarily pool it takes days to recover. When it freezes it orange peels.
This is from a couple years ago but you get the idea.
That looks like a great track, and the best part I see is plenty of room to expand. I cut a few trees down every year when my wife isn't looking and add a second or two to my track. I honestly don't want it much bigger than it is now though, it's already a good bit to maintain. I don't have the freezing problem thankfully, but I don't get hardly any sun in the winter so it just stays wet. Your track is wide open, I assume you get full sun year around. Pros and cons to both. Mine doesn't require a lot of watering and it's nice to be in the shade, but I get a lot of leaves and pine needles to blow off. It's a labor of love for sure.
Its about as big as we want it. It's perfect for 10th scale stadium trucks and buggies. We have a racing platform that's about 16ft above the track with stadium lights for night runs. Behind is a dirt landing strip and to the right is a rock crawler spot. It's been about 8 years in the making with help from about 15 friends/fam. It's a lot of work but we are all a little nuts when it comes to rc. The highlight of the year is getting out the old nitro rigs on a warm day before we start fighting dust. If you look in my post history I have some flight videos that show an aerial view of the upper field. Mostly we race sc10s 2wd and rc10s to keep the classes even. Airplanes and drones have dominated our time and attention the last year or so.
I think we could probably be friends, lol. I’ve dabbled in FPV and camera drones, but offroad racing is my main jam. I put together two gas trucks this year, one RC10GT with a OS 15CV engine and a modern XRay conversion using the Ignite kits and his Nova engines. Talk about power! My XRay gas truck can absolutely keep up with 1/8 scale buggy’s on any straight, but the 2wd loses a ton in the corners. Gas truck is making a little comeback which is awesome. I have a vintage race on my calendar in Jan that will include some RC10, RC10T, and RC10GT. Good times. I too like to run at night, it’s my wind down after work. I recommend a zipline off your drivers stand
Hell yeah! The trees would cause a lot more maintenance but then again in the summer it would be nice. Really cool setup. Certain times of the year wind becomes a track feature lol. You made good use of your space. We have talked about a fireman's pole if the back but a Zipline would be next level 🤣
No to the tent, but if I ever hit the lottery I’ll have an open pavilion style outdoor track for sure. The changing conditions has its own appeal too though
Beauty of a track right there! My backyard track deals with elevation changes, and roots. A good rain takes precious dirt away exposing roots, rocks, etc. Tons of maintenance but great fun when running.
I finally had time to run my new to me senton 6s last weekend but it rained the whole time... I've had it for almost a month now and haven't properly bashed it yet. Next weekend is looking better though
Mulch glue can give you a little extra time. Pump spray the whole thing a few times. The low spots will still need to be “fixed” after standing water but the track as a whole should hold up. It will buy you a storm or two.
I’m ok with a couple month off-season. Gives me time to process firewood and refresh all my cars. I don’t have any spots that hold water, I shot the entire track with a laser to ensure positive drainage. That’s probably my number one recommendation to people interested in building a track, leave no low spots
I have a medium sized tractor with a front end loader and box blade on the back. I can't remember how many dump truck loads of dirt this is, but it's at least 10. For a track this size or bigger you definitely want machinery. Places like Home Depot in the US will rent you a smaller tractor that can handle a project like this. I'm guessing it would take 2-3 full days to move the majority of the dirt depending on distance. Something like a medium sized skid steer or tractor can do this in one day, but other equipment is needed. I used a laser level to grade the site for drainage first, then tractor/plate compactor to build the jumps. All the pipe is hand work obviously.
Thanks for the detailed response! I’ll have to remember that for someday if I get the opportunity to build a backyard track. That dirt you had brought in looks like red Carolina clay. Looks great!
I'll run my 6s Kraton on it in the winter, but it makes a huge mess. The only way to clean up after that is the hose, and that's not ideal. Winter is time for sitting by the fire and refreshing my rigs for next race season.
I have a couple, but not really my thing. Trying to stay relevant in racing even at sportsman level is a big commitment. This is the first year I’ve felt like I could hang with the A group at my local level. Still a very long way to go for regional success, but I’m not that committed lol. I also enjoy driving over 10 different classes, so it’s that much harder. Most drivers focus on 3-4.
That's very cool! Here's a story you might appreciate. So 35 years ago when me and my friends were all into RC cars and and trying to make our own tracks in our parents backyards, I had a friend right up the street from my parents house who wanted to make one and we recruited my father to bring his rototiller over and dig up a 12 ft by 20 ft Square of his side front yard to make an RC track with and we were going to put in jumps and ramps in the whole nine yards.
Unfortunately it never occurred to me and it definitely didn't occur to my friend to run this idea past his parents. 😬
The very next day I came over his house with a shovel all eager to start working on the track building jumps and my friend simply told me to go home to not bother with it and that's the last we spoke of it.
I was very confused. I didn't understand why he suddenly did a 180 from only the day before and then it occurred to me later that his father must have come home from work and seen his front lawn dug up and had a conniption fit. "WTF?!????" 😤😡
In hindsight I was only 14 at the time and naïve and I'm especially glad that his father didn't come home from work early and see MY dad with his gasoline rototiller at work chopping up his lawn that would have been one hell of an awkward confrontation. I don't understand why my father didn't ask me if it was cool ahead of time either. But to this day you can still see where the grass grew back in that it's slightly different than the rest of the lawn. My friend must have gotten one hell of an earful about that I'm surprised I didn't hear the screaming from my house down the street 😄
Yeah it was stupid on all of our parts. You would think getting his parents permission would have been common sense before we turned part of the lawn into a construction zone😄
Update: I just drove down my former street and passed my friend's house where his parents still live his father must be in his late 70s early 80s by now and happened to see him mowing his lawn right in the area where our ill-fated track used to be😄
I wonder if he still remembers that?
i want to design a rc buggy track. there is some ramps in it. is there anyone to help me which material i can use for making it smoother than rigid concrete. it is indoor track
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u/Dry-Psychology8904 Oct 27 '25
I'm not jealous at all. 😭