It's here, our annual 2 day event! Come down and race for the trophies!

We'll be open from 9am both days till around 3pm. One race round on Saturday, and the rest on Sunday. One dropped round, so if you can only make it Sunday, you're still in the running.

Random grids make it even easier to get into the action, no qualifiying!

TimeAttack is a new class for us, a Single flying lap, no car tech rulings apart from 1/10 scale and 2s. No marshals, fastest lap wins the cash!

Our annual two day event is open for entries and we'd love to see some numbers in there so we can get organised.

https://arcr.org.au/Entries

AUSRAB industries has sponsored our Annual 2 day event along with help from Outsiders RC and CMC!

At our AGM it was preferred that we run an alternative format for this event, so we're going to run Random grids as well as for the first time ever CMC Time Attack for cash!

More details on the page

Should prove to be a great fun format where almost every race counts!

We're offering Vintage once more for a good laugh, get those cars in shape and tested ready for The Bash later on in the year! Or break them in glorious style! Either way, a great day out for the oldies.

The goodnews keeps coming. We have a second club sponsor, Outsiders RC!

These guys do great work supporting our juniors at events, selling the goods at tracks all over Victoria and online as well as running a great 2nd hand market!

https://www.outsidersrc.com.au/

August onwards dates went a little wonky on the website here, we've fixed them up, sorry for any confusion, no we're not changing weekends for the back end of the year.

Astrofest 2024 (formally Offroaderfest) will be the 14th of September, more details to come, 2 day event on the Astro.

If you're keen for us to run a different format ( XQualifiers, X Finals, 7 Min finals, Reverse Grid, shoot outs), let us know at a race meet or pop us a message on FB or email.

This year we will be having TimeAttack at lunch time! 

More details to come.

We had our first race meet in the single digits on Saturday and it was a challenge. It was 3' when we setup at 7am and rose to a mighty 10' by the end of the day, despite the sun.

Even silver compound tires were not able to keep the car from skidding under agressive power in the corners. It did really show you can get away with most other tires in the heated days, but soft Mezzo's are the king. Slower and careful was much faster on this day.

What did we learn?

• Turn up your drive and break frequencies to max to help ease in the power
• Silver rears in 2wd help
• Easy on the throttle until you're straight on, drag break can be very useful to cruise aroun corners
• The King's jump is grippy, the dark green section before it, not so much
• Any of the dark green Astro is very slippery in the cold ( high nylon %)
• Once you get the hang of it, it's actually really fun and akin to the old loose dirt days, just without the mess
• SCT and ST can make use of their 'spike' tire and get quite good side grip
• Starting from 10-10:30am seems better given we'll have more sun

So we're going to start later while in the winter, from 10am onwards. We'll open the track for practice before then so drivers can get used to the environment. We recommend you do, as those that didn't were in for a rude shock.

We'll be taking posession of our current Tire order soon, which will be available for purchase on racedays.

Bring on Autumn, it was damn cold out there!

The Club is doing another tire order, so if you're about to buy tires and don't need them for a few weeks, you might want to hold off and save on postage.

Stuart did a walk around last club meet and we used that as an idea of how much to buy. The main aim here is to raise some money for the club and save members on Shipping.  Final buy price still to come, but we'll have all the standard tires from Schumacher like we did at States.

Usually this is within a 3 week turn around but given our order, we're unsure how long it will take to get it all of it. Purchases will be done at race day from Stuart via Cash, card or pre-arranged Bank Transfer.

We've reconditioned the loop and moved it's position and waterproofed it. Initial tests indicate its working once more and is now protected from pins and spades!

We'll have a come and try kids track at the Adelaide Motor Festival on the 16th and 17th of March! It will be free!

ARCR Adelaide Motor Festival

RCRA has published the latest 2023 version of the rules for RCRA Sanctioned events.

This will be the rules active at our state titles in 2024 and include the new Tire limitation system which is as follows.

• 2wd & Junior Stock – Maximum of 3 sets (pairs) of rear tyres (open front)
• 2wd Mod - Maximum of 4 sets (pairs) of rear tyres (open front)
• 4wd Stock -Maximum of 3 sets (pairs) of each Front and Rear tyres
• 4wd Modified – Maximum of 4 sets (pairs) of each Front and Rear tyres
• Stadium Truck – Maximum of 4 sets (pairs) of rear tyres (open front)
• SCT – Maximum of 3 sets (pairs) of rear tyres (open front)

Get them here

As we’re finally nearing the stage where the track is in ‘race’ ready, there is a certain satisfaction(or relief!) that something you’ve planned for, worked on for months, sweated, bled and bruised through has come to fruition.

Looking back to just after states we were planning what to do with part of the proceeds we had, which was at the time, the entire bank the club had. We didn’t want to spend it all, needing to budget pretty hard to make sure the club didn’t go under financially again.

We’ve been looking at the ratty old carpet on the jumps and table tops we had which had served us well for their time but after a good winter and oil absorption were getting dangerous and toxic, as well as not looking or performing as well as they were. We found a small amount of Astro, easily enough to do the jumps so we started down that path. Logistically it became obvious that it was going to be very hard (and costly) to get it here from its far away location. Luckily David found another ‘stash’ for from an indoor cricket/netball field (Action Indoor Sports, Brahmer lodge thankyou very much). As it turns out, there was a lot more than we needed for that initial job, and we had the opportunity to get way more. Sadly, we only had a very short time(less than a week) to pick it up before it was to be disposed of. Of course, it was the weekend of Mother’s day also!

That week we had very frantic committee chats going back and forth. Do we get it to do the jumps, do we expand to the infield also or do we take the punt and get everything, knowing that we might cover the whole track, or get ourselves a rather large dumping fee or at worst have to store it for a while (knowing we have very limited storage at the track).

We decided to go all in, so then Jeff had to talk to RCRA to make sure we COULD do an Astro track within the rules, as if we can’t hold a State Title or Nats, that’s financial suicide for the club, no matter how much it would benefit us locally. After that was confirmed (we passed with flying colors as expected, the rules are quite good) we decided to get the Astro.

We grabbed all the Astro we could carry in sizes that were going to be useful for the track (but in hindsight we should have just taken everything). David and Jeff moved it all in 2 days via truck to David’s house (which was close by allowing us to ferry faster from Action Indoor) then later to the track once the dead line was passed and we’d had a breather. We piled it up neatly after the initial delivery. That was only the beginning of one of the longest build journeys we’ve had (since the initial move).

We then had to make sure the membership wanted Astro an a surface. We wrote up a survey and many drafts later, sent it out to our financial members. 100% of responses were positive, so we knew we were on the right path (over 95% of those members responded).

Our Oiled surface had gone as far as its initial install could go. There were so many cracks in it and the winter damage had well and truly started to show. We were looking at quite the repair bill and lots of work, and that was just the surface. We knew we still needed drainage (as it has since we began in 2014). So that was stage 1, get in the pipes. That took a while to plan, even longer to implement in the wet and mud but it’s done now (and it was nearly all funded by the proceeds from Food and Drink at the new Bistro at Mitchell Park).

Hot tip if you want to support the club, eat at the Bistro and tell them you're with the Car club!

We’ve installed it in a big kind of grid, with lots of capacity for water level holding and with a pump in the final drain, we can empty the system quite easily. This process took a long time with mostly just a two man team (Jeff and Mark King) chipping away. Adam Block, the Wilkins crew and Stuart helped out when they could as well as Chris Olsen and Pat popping in, which really helped out on the big job days. Once we had some aggregate to camber the track in the correct ways it became obvious that we had a bigger task than we thought but we made it though. Over ½ the track has been re-leveled now. Its a very good base for water flow and the Astro now. Let me tell you, working with that stuff is so much easier than wet Clay!

On top of all that, we've had to down tools due to the unrelenting weather, hospitalization and life. Somehow, even with mother nature fully gunning for us, we've managed to do it all without missing a raceday Saturday where we could have raced. We've still not held a race meet since May though!

Finally, the most recent working bee came around and we finally got the Astro down. Truth be told we nearly didn’t have enough (we were prepared to pad or gain extra pieces and we do have some more blue left). Turns out you can do all the math you want, but until you manage to jigsaw those pieces into the track layout, you’re never quite know for sure. We went with the track as it currently was, as its quite an enjoyable layout instead of going for the whole track as a single surface. We knew we didn't have enough big bits to do that. Next time Batman.

It was not perfect at this stage but the cars don’t seem to mind the cosmetic downsides. There is still quite a bit of work to do, but we're over the hump, it looks like a track, not a mud pit and potentially.

Testing on the track has been to see if there are any wrinkles or badly places joins etc (as well as testing wear and performance) and initially we found a few as we have not changed to a fully flat track and Astro is best done on flat. Wrinkles here and there or incorrectly overlapped edges. One by one we cleaned up and aligned all the overlaps/joins, moved parts around, re-arranged the main straight several times and we’re left with a track that is really clean to drive. Now the straight is pinned down and we’ve learned a good system for doing that, we’re ready to final pin the rest.

Surface wise, it was assumed we’d be medium grip at worst, as the small testing we had done allowed for a bit of wheel spin from standing start (in the wet). Now it’s out, that’s probably where we’d say it is, maybe medium-high in the hot weather. There is lots of consistent grip but its not High. You’re not on rails, you’re not turning on a dime and you can slip out if you overcook it or drive like a loon and you’ll understeer into the wall if you try to turn too fast. Perfect driving surface for racing. Drive well, control your throttle and you’re going to have a great time. It doesn't drive much different to the Oiled Clay on its best days, but it is the same everywhere. Your Dirt setup will work, but if you're running 4wd you will want to adapt to a higher grip setup otherwise you will be traction rolling in places (especially with Dirt tires).

The second Astro working bee resulted in a much cleaner and secured version of the Astro. All the extra and waste parts cleaned up, Sean R and Chris O did an amazing job patching the little missing sections from when it was a cricket pitch. We had a small army of helpers and it worked great, so much done.

Obviously we’re no longer on the ‘common’ tire group for Australia (which may change in the future), so we’ll be finding sources of tires from all over but we’ll get there. Wear is at an all-time low for carpet tires and about the same for dirt pins such as holeshots, it has never been this good before, even with the Oiled surface at its best. It has also never been this consistent. Hand on heart, this is the best racing surface we’ve ever seen and we’ve had some great track surfaces over the year (albeit for very short periods and at much greater dollars and people time). Sure, it’s not the Dirt racing of old but we haven’t been doing that for a while really with the Oiled Clay.

Hopefully the tire situation will resolve itself over time (having 3 major carpet events in recent months in Europe has not helped) and we’ll be smooth sailing. Luckily, we’ve tested normal pin tires and they are still quite viable in the meantime.

So from all of us on the committee, thankyou all for waiting and helping out when you could, we’ve managed something we originally only dreamed of. Once we’re done, come down and enjoy 1/10 scale racing like Adelaide has not seen in a long time if ever.

ARCR Committee