2011 1/8 On-Road IFMAR World Championships, Miami
 

After traveling all over the world to cover off-road and on-road IFMAR World Championships, there's one coming up almost in my backyard. Homestead Miami Speedway has been selected to host the 2011 1/8 On-Road Worlds, a short 45 minute drive from my home.

From the website: "Homestead RC Raceway is the location for the 2011 IFMAR 1/8 I.C. On-Road World Championship. Homestead RC Raceway is located in Homestead, Florida on the grounds of the world famous Homestead Miami Speedway. This area provides easy connections for travelers flying or driving with Miami only being 30 minutes to the North. Homestead RC Raceway will have major renovations taking place to insure that all of the facility will meet the racers demands. The race track will be extended to provide a longer racing line with a new driver’s stand that is higher, longer and able to accommodate up to 15 drivers."

I went to the track today with Art Carbonell to check out what's going on, and take a few photos. I might be able to do this every month or so. Gee, if things work out the way I hope they will, I'll be able to cover this year's 1/8 Worlds in Thailand, and next year's 1/8 Worlds right close to home!

Here's a few photos from today...

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/june/Image00001.jpg

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/june/Image00004.jpg

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/june/Image00007.jpg

The rest of the images can be found at http://www.sgrid.com/cgi-bin/backtal...l=new&noskip=1

(Starting Grid is now open for anyone to read things for free, so you don't need an account to access that page.)

2010???
 

Uuumm....... isn't it for 2011??

Yep - I did it correctly on SGrid, then my fingers got ahead of my mind when entering it here. I guess I shouldn't be posting stuff at 2am.

How do I correct it? Is there a tool here to re-title an item once you've already entered it? Or, do I need to write someone (and if so, who??) to fix it?

I see I also forgot to post the website for the Homestead track:

http://www.homesteadrcraceway.com/

Do we know when the dates for the worlds will be yet?

Sometime in April from what I hear.

Mike, to get the year changed on the title of this thread you will need to contact one of the 4 moderators for Nitro On-Road. They can be found at the bottom of the page when you click on Nitro On-Road. Then you can send them a PM explaining what needs to be done.

Doug, I sent a message to each of the people listed, but nothing has been changed. I'm not sure what else to do.

I will try to help this get done for you guys.

DJ Apolaro

Mike, keep some beds free for us ? ;)

We are not sure if there is a budget by then....

I wasn't able to get the title of this thread changed, so it forever will say 2010,
not 2011, until I can find someone who knows how to do this.

I went back to the track yesterday - photos can be found at this link:
http://www.sgrid.com/cgi-bin/backtal...road2008,15,27

------------------------------------------------------------------------
A group of us went back to the track today (Saturday). Art Carbonell
and a few other racers were going to test the new track layout that was
prepared using a few boards and white chalk marks to mark the layout.

The track is really starting to take shape. The asphalt is perfectly
flat, and Art and the other guys feel it will work out very well.
Meanwhile, Johnny Wong had completed the upper part of the driver's
stand, and was working today at welding the steel supports for the hot
pits in place.

After a short testing session, the racers and Doug McNeely went around
the track making some adjustments to the layout.

The asphalt, all 30,000 square feet of it, is in great shape. The track
design, at least as of today, will have a 275-foot straight, and a
950-foot driving line.

The more I walked around the track, the more work I saw that will need
to be done. The guys putting this place together have a pretty good
start! They're hoping to have boards put in place by August.

Check the photos of the driver's stand - the wire mesh in front of the
driver's feet is designed to give the racers a good view of their car as
it is being worked on in the hot pits! A nice innovative idea...

Here's one of the photos:

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/july/homes...tead%20019.jpg

For more photos, (http://sgrid)

Latest news:

The dates for next years 1/8th IC Track WC at Homestead Club (Miami) are April 7-17 2011.

Pre-Worlds: 9-12th of December 2010

location looks great!! i can just imagine wut the trophy girls will look like down there:nod:

KooL I need to find out where to get a car from.

http://www.kamikazercracing.com/prod...prod=SER903009

I would start there:nod:

Try one of these places:

http://ashfordhobby.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=2
http://www.winnerscirclerc.com/index...b7530a2a2a0ade

Do you still have to qualify to get into the worlds? How are the USA drivers going to be selected?

The top 30 from this (2010) year's nationals get an automatic invite.

is there a list of the top 30 from the 2010 nats listed some place ?

1. Toso
2. Kimbrow
3. Swauger (I think)

Throw in (in no particular order)

Morganti
Burch
Hammer
Cyrul
Thomas
DeSoto (I think)
and a bunch of other people :D

ROAR should post a list of the top 30 so we know if we need to send a resume in to Fred to get in the race.

If you made the cut based on your performance at the Nationals, you will get a letter in the mail sooner or later, from ROAR, letting you know you qualified to compete at the Worlds.

Listed on www.roarracing.com
INVITATIONS TO QUALIFIED DRIVERS AND THOSE REQUESTING ALTERNATE STATUS FOR THE 2011 IFMAR EVENT TO BE HELD IN HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA, WILL BE SENT VIA POSTAL SERVICE MAIL THE WEEK AFTER LABOR DAY, 2010. ALL INTERESTED IN REQUESTING ALTERNATE STATUS, PLEASE SEE ABOVE POSTINGS REGARDING PROCEDURE OR SEE ROAR RULE BOOK, 11.2.8.

2011
 

Thanks for correcting the year on this thread Marcos :)

Photo Credentials
 

Who is in charge of Photo Credentials? That is a long haul from my place but I love 1/8 scale cars and I need a long trip anyways :) I'd like to bring my rig and get some video of the mains at least.

Griz

The latest track photos are now posted in the IFMAR W/C thread at Starting Grid. It's item #15. To get there, just go to www.sgrid.com/cgi-bin/backtalk, log in, go to the forum ONROAD, and find item #15. Starting Grid forums are now free, so if you want, create an account and send me the user name so I can validate it. There's no charge for racers.

I'll copy over a photo here showing how the new driver's stand is shaping up.

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/july/homes...dway%20004.jpg

I don't know much about Twitter, but it was suggested I learn how to use it to pass on information quickly and to let people know about updates. For anyone who understands this stuff, if you follow "StartingGridRC" you should be getting those updates.

(...and if someone tells me how to do this better, I'm all ears!)

The latest report and photos from the "1/8th IC Track WC at Homestead Club (Miami)" can be found in both the Starting Grid online magazine, and also in the conferences - it's item #20 in the onroad forum.

Feedback from racers, as well as a high-res video will be posted tomorrow.

I'll copy over one of the photos from today:

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/august/hom...homestead-.jpg

The video (mostly of Art Carbonell) needs editing, and should be finished by late tomorrow night.

track is looking great!

One more photo of Doug McNeely photographing the track - you'll probably get to see his photos tomorrow as well!

http://www.sgrid.com/2010/august/hom...stead-1781.jpg

The rest of the images and the upcoming video will be posted at www.sgrid.com. There will be two videos, one done with a camera/recorder, and the other one done with an ex-Ray Wood digicam. If you're not signed up for the magazine, the same information is posted on the free forums.

To get the whole track into the photos, I had to use an extreme wide angle lens. The track is huge, but this lens makes it look even bigger than it really is.

Sure is a pretty location!!

Mike which interface do you recommend for the site I will be mostly looking from my iPhone? Thanks

Once I settle in after the move to Florida gotta make a trip asap to the track it's beautiful

looks great going to be very nice when all done . keep the great work going

The interface I use from my Win Mobile phone is almost always Pistachio, which gets you all the important stuff, and leaves out the "fancy" stuff that uses up space and slows things down.

If you have a terrible connection, and just want to read, not see the images, "Vanilla" works fine as well - I used to use that when I things were really slow.

Either interface makes it easy both to read and to respond. If you use the "Abalone" interface, there is too much "fancy" stuff that gets in the way of the information.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The video of Art is now posted, both in both the magazine and the on-road forum. (Sign-ups for the SGRID forum that are good for a year, are still free through the end of August, if you're a racer.)

I'm not sure how the video will work on a phone, but here's the link if you want to get to it from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8vDRIn9fig

Now here is a serious question:

I have lived in the US for a long time and raced on many different tracks and I have asked this question lots of time, w/o getting an answer.

Why are on road track in the States always built as a square and the lanes are divided by unmovable objects?

Especially in your country where you have so much room and where constructon work costs a fraction of what it costs over here, wouldn't it be easy to build a real track with lanes seperated by grass?

Most oval tracks I have seen are build this way.

Maybe somebody can give me an answer to this, since I am asked this question over very often.

Thx.

Yeah I would love to see a grass-infield track in the U.S. Good question Stefan.

IFMAR
 

Actually the land and costs to build a track here is much higher than you may suspect. Land is getting to be at an all time premimum now, and with the on-road scene dying in so many areas,the economy not doing well, costs to run a nice facility, it is just not a sound investment. I live in So Ca. and this is where many of the manufactures are located, and when a couple of the local tracks closed down, everyone thought one of the RC manufactures would step up and build a nice track.
But with the costs of the land,building costs, and monthly costs it just does not add up. So to answer your question, it really boils down to how much land is available for a track,costs, and willingness for someone to take a chance and invest high dollars on a hobby that it at best losing ground every month. If one of the manufactures were to step up and actually build a track as you described with the grass infields, they would have to locate it towards the high desert area to keep the costs down. Then you would have the question of who would drive that distance to be able to practice, or attend some races

Then there is the fact that some of us actually LIKE our style of track. :D

Give me a short, tight track any day. I love watching top European pros come to Ft. Meyers for the first time. They all drive scared. :D

I did understand most tracks in the US are not based on supporting clubmembers but just people paying for a day racing/driving. Clubmembers are the way to keep and maintenance the tracks in Europe. In such a construction you do keep more activity on the tracks and also attracting new members.

Very true. Europe definitely seems to have the whole "club" thing down. There are only a few proper club run tracks in the US and they just happen to be among the best.

Wingracer,

I did NOT imply that nobody likes the tracks over there. I actually liked Ft. Myers as well, I just hated the fact, that wherever I raced, that each single contact with the barriers either chunked a tire or parts fell off the car (especially NTC3 :-))

I started gas racing in ATL and when I returned to Germany and had my first race on a European style track, I thought I was in heaven.
Chunked tires are really rare and not every mistake costs loads of money.

I think the biggest difference is that tracks over here are all in the hands of clubs with no commercial interests.