Surrey & Hants 2.0

[Kelk]

Firstly, admins I hope you can leave this post here as it would be great to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Recently the club has been reviewing what state it is in and how it can be taken forward. We've approached people from other clubs within the Mid South Region for their open and honest feedback. What's good and most importantly not so good.

From this collation of thoughts, ideas and "for the love of all that's holy in the world do...." an action plan has been put in place and this is the start of it. So we thought it might be useful for other clubs (hence why its in this forum rather than the clubs) in case knowledge sharing helps them and if they have any ideas for us

So what's good?

Location
Facilities - on site electric power, toilets, parking hard standing Tarmac for pitting with additional space on a grass field if needed for bigger events, food nearby

Most importantly - what's not so
The fixed features - double doubles and table top are far too inconsistent
The astro itself - large ruts and ridges that make driving on it inconsistent
The rostrum could be a little higher

I'm writing this on my iPhone so the next post is the "and here's what we are doing about it"

[Kelk]

The track is a new layer of astro put down over the original astro. The original astro was always heavily laden with sand and this killed pinion gears and was always a source of complaint. Placing the second layer down gave a more consistent track surface and put the sand issue to bed.

The track looked like this...

[Kelk]

Yesterday saw the start of the club addressing the issues as they were laid out to us. Firstly the dirt double doubles. The astro has been peeled back and then attacked with spades....



Once clear it was time to take on the dirt / rubble based table top. This was an epic effort given the size of it and the weight of the material involved.










The table top has gone we are pleased to say. A lot of hard work but it's gone.
A great effort from Stuart McCabe, Carl Howard, Christopher Ellis, Gareth Whittacker, Paul 'stumpy' Taylor, Terry Dickinson, Keith Merridith, Duncan Hedger and I am sure I've missed some people

[Kelk]

Mote pics to follow

[Kelk]

.....

[Kelk]

So we have got work to do still Nd will be deeply reliant on club members but the aim is to bring S&H to a level where people think of us first as a track they want to go to

More updates to follow in due course

[Welshy40]

Ace, does this mean you will be using just one type of astro all over as thats whats kept me from coming down as its original state had several types and wasnt constant with yellow mini spikes, and hate the idea of buying several sets of different manufacturers tyres to race there.

[dobber]

Originally Posted by Welshy40

Ace, does this mean you will be using just one type of astro all over as thats whats kept me from coming down as its original state had several types and wasnt constant with yellow mini spikes, and hate the idea of buying several sets of different manufacturers tyres to race there.

Hi mate, we replaced the astro about a year and a half ago so it's one type of astro all over with no mix and matching. There is also zero sand which is what we also suffered from back in the day. But not no more!! 😇

Keep looking on here and we'll post when we are reopening. We are also planning on some decent jumps 👍

[Kelk]

Originally Posted by dobber

Hi mate, we replaced the astro about a year and a half ago so it's one type of astro all over with no mix and matching. There is also zero sand which is what we also suffered from back in the day. But not no more!! 😇

Keep looking on here and we'll post when we are reopening. We are also planning on some decent jumps 👍

I'll just add to what has been said. We are taking all this very seriously - we want to make the track and club one of the locations people sit at home and go

"You know what, I wanna see what surrey and hants have been up to" grab their race kit & buggy and jump in the car. We are working our way through it, we have action plane in place and the best bit is the entire club is pitching in

[Kelk]

Hi all,

This is the first update on Surrey & Hants Radio Control Car Club's progrress.

The old astro is completely gone. After having peeled up the new top layer, the old under layer has been completely removed and the top layer but back down. Giving us this...



Which basically leads to a 5 or 6 very large (and ridiculously heavy) sections



Which has all been very neatly laid down and the edges of each of the c. 10 - 20m strips cleanly cut to give a smooth edge to line up against the next..



These edges were then peeled back to slide under some very professional (and heavily researched) fibre glass "tape" which runs the entire length of each strip and under the joins where 2 ends meet



Each strip has been covered with high quality adhesive and left to set





Then to ensure the astro sealed well to itself and to the fibre glass tape all the filled hoses have been neatly placed to weigh down the bonding.



This has given us a very, very consistent surface and a base layer from which we are free to build upon

[Kelk]

Next stage - JUMPS

The jumps have either been loved or loathed at the club and remember the original ones have been dug out. We've gone to someone who has templated the designs, worked out the trajectories and computer modeled everything...











Not happy to settle there we have had 2 foot wide prototypes made with thinner top surface material than we will be using for the 'real' versions.





As you can see the prototype closest proved our thoughts correct about the top surface needing to be thicker as an Xray XB4 nose-dived into the surface from a preceding jump

[Kelk]

At the IconicRC day at SHRCCC on Sunday 1st Feb, the new surface and glue was put to the test. 6 solid hours of all manner of cars going round ranging from Tamiya Holiday Buggies, Clodbusters, Optima Mids, Lunch Boxes all the way through to Schumacher KFs went round at various paces.

And it was all successful and most importantly everyone had a great day.

As for the prototype jumps, these were tested in differing locations and differing styles of jump with all sorts of modern race buggies and again we've learnt what we need to and revisions to the designs have been made.

So what's next?

The new jumps have been commissioned for build today and are going to take a few weeks to be constructed. All CNC cut and the build quality, as per the prototypes (except for the top surface) is exceptional. We will then seal them from this lovely British weather and place different coloured outdoor carpet to make them truly stand out from the astro base.In the meantime we are having the old astro removed from the compound completely and the rubble and earth from the old jumps taken away.
Then its all new hoses, changes to the rostrum, new banners to be hung around the walls of the compound, additional speakers etc etc

So why are we publicising this?

To entice new people and re-inspire old members to come and try the track as we make the improvements. You are all welcome by the way

Share what we have done so other clubs may learn from our efforts if it helps them at all.

And most importantly to thank those club members who have worked so hard at doing all this so far in no particular order - James Lucas, Chris Ellis, Neil Richardson, Terry Dickinson, Stuart McCabe, Carl Howard, Keith Meredith, Alex Tudor-Hart, Duncan Hedger, Richard Hamme, and many others

Next update in a few weeks time. I hope you enjoy reading this thread and in case you weren't aware we race on alternate Sundays (next one is the 15th Feb for the Winter Series) from 8:30am and every Thursday evening from 6:30pm. Thank for reading so far

[zoaman]

the only fault I did find was with the table top in front of the rostrum .either side was a flat ended brick wall.this was could have beed taken down one brick layer and that would have got rid of the solid flat end that breaks cars.so just maybe a point when rebuilding the track.keep up the good work n see u soon

[Kelk]

Originally Posted by zoaman

the only fault I did find was with the table top in front of the rostrum .either side was a flat ended brick wall.this was could have beed taken down one brick layer and that would have got rid of the solid flat end that breaks cars.so just maybe a point when rebuilding the track.keep up the good work n see u soon

You aren't the first to comment on that, but feedback is appreciated . Once all the new jumps have been built, a new table top is in the pipeline but that's a little ways away yet.

As a minor point I did see one car, a fireboolt I think but I could be wrong, hit it flat out and take a chunk out of the blocks and the car was fine as an exception to the rule

And you are welcome anytime

[zoaman]

the only fault I did find was with the table top in front of the rostrum .either side was a flat ended brick wall.this was could have beed taken down one brick layer and that would have got rid of the solid flat end that breaks cars.so just maybe a point when rebuilding the track.keep up the good work n see u soon

[jlucas]

The walls long gone

[1066 Racing]

Nice work guys, we'll have to organise a trip up at some point : )

We've experimented a bit with jumps based on BMX/Skateboard ramp angles, fair bit of trial and error compared to your CAD (mega!) but have some decent stuff now for indoors, biggest problem is all has to be put away each night so a bit limited on what we can store/easily move.

After some advice on outdoor track stuff if you don't mind?

Astro; where did you get unsanded stuff from? Does it have a specific name/type? We were offered a whole massive pitch of sanded but couldn't take it at the time, probably a blessing in hindsight.

And hoses, we've had problems getting hold of decent diameter stuff in one colour as you have, where do you suggest sourcing that from? Fire stations don't have it any more, apparently even hoses are leased now...who knew?!

Any advice appreciated.

[jlucas]

Astro we did lots of research and one of the guys found a guy that deals with second hand stuff we went looked round his yard and found what we wanted I haven't got any details for him however if I can find it will pass it on to you.

As for hosing no idea we have collected what we have over the last 2 years

Hth
James

[andrewc]

Thanks James

Very keen on the Astro info; being able to view before acquiring sounds ace. If you find the contact please do drop us a PM or a reply.

Thanks! And keep posting the club updates, always interesting to see what other clubs are up to.

[Kelk]

Things are moving on nicely with the jumps. After having been designed so well by Alex, and then tested by the club, the first stage of fabrication has started with the delivery of some Diabond....



and the first one is being put together



These will be sealed and then covered with blue astro