thedopeshow

iTrader: (52)

no good if it closed down

tommy911t

iTrader: (50)

I feel spoiled with PRCR. It's been awesome. I love dirt indoor!

Im not a well traveled racer. So I can only imagine indoor turf is popular in other wet areas like Europe.

Years ago I raced a few of open "barn style" dirt setups in California. So Cold! Even in the bay area. At least a place to race. Open barn just isnt that fun when you're freezing all day.

Astro indoor would be unique and possibly a destination for non locals to give mid motor or "dirt free" racing a shot. Possibly a niche novelty. Not to mention a lot of climate control. The appeal of less washing is music to my ears. More time for hangin or dialing the car in.

Beggars cant be choosers... but I love indoor. Astro or dirt.

I hope we get input from someone who has been overseas to watch or compete on non dirt indoor.

ChadB.

iTrader: (21)

Well it's looking like nothing is going to happen for offroad racing in the future around here. That is just too bad. I wish someone would post if something is going to happen really soon, otherwise my dirty days are going to be over for quite awhile.

Leadfinger2011

Heya Tom,
Opinions will be all over and rightly so because different people will use the new "dirt off-season" for different things. So speaking for for myself and myself only...................stick time is stick time so I'd be down to run on whatever. I just picked up another 1/12th scale just to stay busy but I'd love to try my buggy on carpet. Plan on making a few rons down to runs to play this winter.

Kevin M

ChadB.

iTrader: (21)

I just saw this. Unfortunately, I am not for running an offroad car on carpet. If I am going to be munching some rug, I would rather get another onroad car. Sorry Tom, I don't want to be a part of it. I am not trying to be negative about it, it's just my opinion.

motomanpat

iTrader: (2)

Bigger is better,dirt or carpet but I will always prefer dirt. Hope the place does not close since I have a chance to run during the week soon.

Rasheed

iTrader: (5)

For me personally I would be happy to try out carpet. I think especially for buggy racing it would be pretty fun, and I think a lot of the hard core racers would have fun with it.

On the other hand I would be concerned that that a lot of the casual basher types (and some portion of the existing regular racers) might be turned off by the carpet and would be less likely to try out racing. Those are the people you need to start racing to have enough racers to have a successful business. Given that our racing population is already on the small side, I would worry about alienating a significant portion of them.

RCracer74

iTrader: (10)

Santiam Hobbies in Lebanon has indoor offroad as well as Rc plus kinda. When i was considering opening my track I was considering indoor carpet offroad. If done correctly you could possibly run onroad a few days a week and offroad the rest just have to protect the carpet from damage from the offroad cars. Wouldnt be difficult with rolls of astroturf its alot like they do in Europe. Build the jumps as moveable units. I stewed on all of this the whole year i was injured, even drove to lebanon to check out there setup but decided against anything because with PRCR running strong I didnt feel the area would support it. Timing blows lol

tomdav

iTrader: (44)

What if he carpet is dirty?

tomdav

iTrader: (44)

Great points. I do think that if anyone would be alienated it would be the current racer who just enjoys dirt. New racers that are first exposed to carpet might not care as much about the surface. Good traction, big jumps and the RTR's hard compound tires are hooked up right out of the box.

Leadfinger2011

5 to 8 cars on any surface is a race and a race is always fun. Like i said before, stick time is stick time and it's all good!!! The idea of flexibility to do on and off-road may be key. if the place was big enough i'd bet even the hard-core dirt guys would buy in on-road just to get more time in. just keeping the conversation going.

Kevin M

microrcdude

iTrader: (70)

I just want to race offroad, beggers can't be choosers! Carpet looks fun, always wanted to race astroturf.

tommy911t

iTrader: (50)

I would advise against on and off road compatibility for one floor space. Do one thing as best you can is my suggestion.

I have a terrible images of "carpet" having kicker jumps and road dots staggered as "bumps". I like to think we are talking astro turf. Fake grass. Think the Finnish worlds how they used astro over dirt and some spots without. Mixed terrain basically. Ours having a foundation of bump free astro. Some sections could be cobble, cement, brick, fast track, plywood, sand... well maybe not sand.
The key would be smoothly built transitions on wooden jumps covered with the green stuff.

There is a lot of wood ramp fabricators in the area. Lumberyard Mountain Bike park is a great example of the construction talent and experience. They took their knowledge of dirt rhythm sections and applied that to ply indoor.

There is a ton of fake field sports arenas in this town. Our racing deserves the best. And other sports have embraced synthetic fields when it's just the best solution. I'd love to see this taken to the limit in our sport and made world class.

The Northwest deserves a first class racing facility. We are one of a few places where they really encourage positive pastimes. Burnside is a city allowed, skateboarder built and funded skatepark that started a revolution and spawned many publicly funded and gorilla style parks across the country. Bicycles have one of the few Velodromes in the WORLD. We even have PIR! And that is owned and maintained by the city.I think The NW are innovators and our public parks are destinations.

Im ranting!!! But I'm stoked and I like all of you as people and racers.

Im trying to Think World Class

But be willing to show up in covered parking lots with chalk and hoses if we have to this winter. Drive time with great competitors is all I ask.

Open, positive minds.

Littlejohn Dsgn

iTrader: (47)

I like dirt, however any track is better then no track. If you are to do carpet I would suggest picking onroad or offroad not a cross between or neither one will be top notch.

There was a 1/18th track that opened up in Gresham, about 5min from my house, I geared up for the track and ran a few times before the guy closed shop overnight It was a fun track with banked corners jumps and bumps.

MarkA

iTrader: (21)

Having actually ran a little bit of carpet OffRoad, a few quick thoughts.

It's way more fun that you guys would expect. Just as long as it's mongrel carpet and not OnRoad style race-prepped stuff. The most absurd thing you will ever see in RC, IMO, is a SC truck on foam tires... Plus the OnRoad guys have the PDX-area book-ended north and south with two tracks and there just doesn't seem to be enough of them to compromise this idea for that.

Even then, it will require, more than likely for most racers, a different car. The Losi 22 will go mid-motor easily for example but if it takes off and racers get into it, I can see a difference emerging between a car that can go mid-motor and one designed to do so for carpet/astroturf/wood type of surfaces while people running something like an RB5 would just chase all day.

Tire wear will be good and it's clean but at the end of the day it's not dirt. It doesn't, as pointed out above, have that wow factor to hook new racers. As a club type of deal to rent some temp space for the winter and do it as cheap as possible, it could work. As a business idea for a track, I think real dirt is a better long-term idea.