Track Focus – Fengtai Raceway

Track Name – Fengtai Raceway
Host – Beijing Model Sport Association
Country – China
Location – Fengtai, Beijing (20 km west-south of central Beijing)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Clay

The FEMCA 1:8 Offroad Championships takes place for the first time in China this week at an all new track in the Fengtai district of Beijing.  Located next to one of the stadiums built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games, the track is part of the development of an r/c car complex by the Beijing Model Sports Association which also looks after rc planes and boats and already has a building for that located just across the street.  A month ago nothing resembling an r/c track existed on the site until Charlie Siribodhi, organiser of the 2010 1:8 Offroad World Championships, arrived from Thailand last week with 6 of his Pattaya track crew to build the track for the event. As competitors from 10 of the 14 countries that make up FEMCA region started arriving on Monday the main building which house the drivers stand, pits, race control and media centre was only just a frame but some impressive construction work saw the building literally grow infront of their eyes in readiness for yesterday’s opening ceremony.

The layout was designed by Lung Chuan Lee from Tawian.  Lee, who as a day job works on designing and painting bodyshells, was invited to design the track for the FEMCA event by the Beijing Model Sports Association due to his experience in designing a number of tracks within China.  With the track producing around a 30-second lap time, pre-event favourite Atsushi Hara described the layout as ‘easy and friendly’.   The former World Champion said the high levels of the traction in some sections compared with the height of the drivers stand make it a little tricky to judge when driving.  While some sections of the track are a little on the narrow side, he said the positioning of the rostrum can make much of the track look narrower than it actually is and so you tend not to use all the available track.  For the Japanese ace the trickiest section is the opposing speed bump located after the big step-up.  In terms of traction on the freshly laid track, which has been sugar coated, Hara described it as ‘OK’.

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