Tracks next to each other, issues, work arounds?
 

Hi All,

My club is currently in negotiation with council looking for a permanent venue for an electric onroad track. The onroad track would be catering for both rubber and foam classes – everything from 12th to TC. We already operate an offroad track that is a (about 15%) clay and dirt track. It is used for both electric and nitro. Council are extremely keen for us to pursue a position for the onroad track adjacent to the offroad track. Though there is another position we can pursue the current administrator is less positive about it than the previous one.

I have some reservations about this. Another club in our state has onroad and offroad tracks next to each other, and the dust from the offroad track makes the onroad track unusable outside of race days for meaningful practice, and the offroad track off limits when onroad races are taking place. Our track is in a high wind area, and large amounts of the track surface are blown off regularly and deposited near by.

Do others have this problem? If so, how do you go about combating it?

We could probably place the onroad track up to 100m away, and plant trees in between. If this were to work to cut down the dust then other issues might be created.

Frequency control would be more of a problem in this scenario, and although that is less of a problem nowdays, I wonder what other issues might pop up from having two tracks about 100m apart? How would you deal with these.

Placing two tracks close to each other potentially has benefits in shared pit space and facilities, but how far apart is too far apart to share efficiently? Is sparseness in the pit-space a problem?

There aren't that many offroad and onroad tracks that share a location in Australia. I'm thinking it might be more common in the US where Hobby stores run tracks, so I'm hoping others can provide some insight.

Thanks in advance.

Yes its a huge problem. It creates horrible traction. Don't run on-road and off-road on the same day. Make sure you clean the on-road track and properly clean and apply traction compound. Shared pits are nice but the dust gets on the track for sure. Try to get it where the track isn't in the normal wind pattern.

Thanks. The more feedback on this the better. If it is an insurmountable problem then I need to be able to show this to council. Details of where the tracks are that you've experienced these issues with would be useful. As many details of the procedures necessary to prepare the track as possible too.

If there are work arounds then I need to be able to figure what the ongoing costs are, both monetarily and in labour for club members/council.

Dirt dirt and more dirt. If the dirt track is dry and dusty, the road cars will come off with more dirt on them than the offroad stuff. The only thing I could think that may work is using a water hose (or leaf blower, if no water) to spray off the road track, drying, and then laying down sugar water as much as you can. With enough sugar water, the remaining dust should stay put. If you use the blower, the track will still need to be water cleaned regularly, and every race day is starting over on the tire sauce and groove on the surface.

At the end of the day, you can't run these cars on choking dust. I have done it, and I got really tired of stripping the car and blasting/drying/inspecting/lubing every bearing in the car after a race day.

If possible, a row of trees or shrubs that will grow into a wind block

Capital Model Racers in NZ has adjacent onroad - offroad tracks - we have a small carpark in between the tracks. Never had a problem with dust from the offroad track although the onroad track upwind (prevailing northerly).

Biggest traction problem for onroad is dust from pollen (and rain :ha:) being an uncovered outside track.

At our on road track we have a off road track maybe 50 meters away. Its fairly hard packed and does not have much surface dust and not much will blow over. However we have a dirt, soil and rock company maybe 40 meters from our track but they have massive stacks of dirt blowing onto our track with heavy enough winds. over time the dirt starts to stick to the surface and pretty much becomes apart of the asphalt you can see in our s bend there is actually a unremovable brown patch and has virtually no traction. But it is also good to have the two different tracks as new people get to see what on road is about and what off road is about. and those who have been doing on road for awhile may want to try the other type of racing across the road

When you have a dust/ sand problem, do not apply traction compound like trackmax or sugar water.
Our experience is this will glue the sand onto the surface, the only way to get it off is by blowing it off with high pressured water (dunno the english term ;) )...

Our local club has the same problem (motorcross circuit at 50m) and when the wind is in the wrong direction its impossible to drive. No grip at all, when the wind is blowing the sand away, clean the track with a wind blower and drive (grip isnt immense, but driveable).

Thanks for the responses so far. Please keep them coming. Give your location if you can please, or if you like PM me if you don't want to say your track has no grip on the open net.

Nor-Cal raceway, Union City, California , USA. It's the home of the Onroad Reedy race the last number of years, has a dirt track next to the on road track. It's in Northern California so the climate is not overly hot. I know dirt from the offroad track gets on the on road track but they seem to be lucky as the wind patterns keep the dirt from ruining the traction. They shut down the offroad track for big races and they flush the track with water to clean away the dirt buildup prior to big races. Maybe call the owners there and have a conversation ?
Btw, The traction there is known to be very very good but they still struggle with the proximity of the adjacent dirt track and the partially unpaved driveway and parking area.

If you do a search on YouTube for the reedy race of champions at Norcal you can see the offload track in most of the on-road videos.

Personally , yeah , I assume there needs to be need significant separation. The hotter the climate the bigger the separation. Good luck !

I operated a 2 track facility for nearly 10 years with prevailing winds blowing from the dirt track across the asphalt. I race now at an indoor facility where the tracks are separated by the driver's stand. Dirt will be an ongoing problem. For race days at the outdoor track we used a high powered backpack style blower to remove the dust.It took about 3 hours for our 80 x 160 foot track. Then sprayed with sugar water and had good traction. In between it was undrivable, no grip at all. The indoor track is similar, thorough, repeated vacuuming and lots of running will bring the traction up, but if you're not on it all the time, it goes away fast. Practice days here are less useful because the grip is much lower if the track isn't prepped, which takes a couple of hours. Both tracks are/were in Tucson, Az. USA.