dirt-oval bashers

[72montedude]

Summer has finally arrived here in the north east and school has finally gotten over this monday. Anyway me and my best friend are looking to have a little more fun smashing+bashing than doing hill-climbs and speed runs and huge jumps like last summer. So we've decided we are going to build a medium sized dirt oval with the super nice packing dirt in the woods behind his house. We want to use the same chassis' and the chassis has to be a 1/12 2 wheel drive pan car . We should prolly use some kind of carpet oval car right? We'd like it to be roughly around 75-100 US dollars for the chassis alone(like that will happen---but ya never know) and if thats not possible we could scrounge up parts and make our own. If we do have to scrounge up parts and make our own what do you guys recomend for design and parts use? also what kind of tires (foams or do they make rubber slicks?) do you think we should have if we are going to be running stock 27 turns---we want the cars to be able to swap ends pretty easily on hard packed dirt so throttle contol is the key to winning. Any info at all would be greatly appreciated thanks
Will

[Lapster]

If you are gonna run 1/12 scale you will have to pack the dirt very^20 hard. (very^20- very to the 20th power). And if it is out door it will require a lot of maintenance.

As for the chassis I would lok at bolink cars. They wil work... but arent very durable.

[highroller]

1/12 scale won't have the clearance to run on a dirt surface, even on asphalt the surface must be supper level or they bottom out. 1/10 pan cars also need ground clearance, but have been raced on very smooth, hard packed clay tracks. Offroad type vehicles would be the easiest to run, plenty of ground clearance, chassis and suspension can be adjusted to run on a dirt oval. Foams are mostly used on carpet, asphalt and concrete radials are mostly for asphalt and concrete. For dirt track mini pin rears, mini pin or grooved front tire and even the Proline Striker or Road Hawg are good on a semi to hard packed surface.

Power slides look exciting, but when racing we learned the straighter you could keep the car and quicker you got back on throttle the faster you were.

[72montedude]

packing the dirt very very hard (ie to the ^20 power) wont be hard at all since my friend's aunt's b/f builds pools and he has a 700 pound packing hammer thing that will obviosly pack the dirt very hard and effortlessly. the surface will be perfctly flat because of this and will hold its packing because it is pretty much clay. Ive allready been to the bolink site but i didnt see anything very eye catching. Ill go look again tho. thanks
Will

[Lapster]

Hey... have you looked at the HPI rallys... they would be sweet for something like that.

Go on instant messanger... i am FHCsux88.

[MicroMan]

If you're really stuck on 1/12 scale outdoor dirt oval,you might want to invest for a roof to cover it. If it rains you'll never be able to race on it again. Good Luck.

[Henry G]

You should run rally cars on it. You can get pureten rallie's for cheap. They only come in rtr. They cost about 150 U.S. dollars or so. I'll be willing to cut you a deal onmine if you're interested. I have a peugot body in nearly perfect condition. They're pretty durable suckers. I've cart-wheeled mine a few times and it held up fine (I had the body off:) ).

[highroller]

I used to race dirt oval years ago with a RC10 converted to a sprint car, and 4wd SRP1 on tracks in New England & New York and New Jersey. Those were made up of clay, rolled, tamped and watered but still broke up after 5 heat races. 1/12th pan cars can only use foam or radial (rubber capped tires) and offer very little traction on a dirt surface of any kind- almost like driving on ice with slick tires.

[Cotharyus]

Rally all the way. Check out the Tamiya TB-01 Impreza rally. Pretty cheap, durable, and if you look around you can find a lot of tweaking.

[ayk_driver]

bolink outlaw cars r like 80 bux threw towers for a kit... wood be perfect for that man!

[Lapster]

Yea... i was lookin at those outlaws also.... but i dunno about drability and how it handles.

[MachWon]

If it were me, I would stop down (pieces of rubber hose inside) the shocks on off-road buggies or trucks and get full bodies for them. (We used to do that for 2WD stock gearbox on carpet in the 80's)

That way you get durability, ground clearance, a fantastic choice of tires. (i.e. road rage, road hog, slicks etc) and the option of running them when the track gets too rough (back in buggy/truck form)

Just my 2c

[shrttrackr]

many people use foams and rubber caps on clay ovals. foams don't hook up on every surface; however, they work great on hard packed clay surfaces. you will need to groove the foams and run anywhere from a 20 -30 durometer rear tires and 25-35 front tires.

we run rubber caps on our local dirt oval; however, the caps we use were discontinued years ago and are extremely difficult to find. they were the caps that trc and custom works specifically made for dirtoval.

if you get the right clay, you can use hpi touring car slicks. we use hpi super nitro slicks on our gas sprint cars. at our track, these tires have so much bite that a car can do wheelies.

as for chassis, i would stay away from the 1/12th scale on an outdoor track. there are a few indoor tracks in NY that run 1/12th scale cars on clay. keep in mind that these tracks are ultra smooth...it is virtually impossible to keep an outdoor dirt oval that smooth. all of the other suggestions are valid...we race anything from TC's, to rally cars, to buggies, trucks, custom works cars, etc.

good luck with your track

craig
webmaster
www.dirtoval.com