Track Focus – Flowood RC Indoor Park

Track Name – Flowood RC Indoor Park
Owner – City of Flowood
Country – USA
Location – Flowood, Mississippi
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous no. of JConcepts Clash hosted – 1 (2012)

The JConcepts Clash returns to the Flowood RC Indoor Park in Mississippi this weekend for the 7th running of the annual offroad event.  The large indoor venue hosted the event for the first time last year as JConcepts looked to protect itself from the problem of rain which interrupted the event on four of the five previous years when it was held in Florida.  Once again the track  layout for this year’s Clash has been created by Paul Wynn who is better known for heading up bodyshell design at JConcepts.  Wynn said the challenge for creating the track is to come up with a layout that works for both the 1:10 electric and 1:8 nitro classes that run at the event. While the building of the track is not exactly to his spec, the layout being made a little easier, he said after some early open practice ‘it is working out pretty well’.

Housed in a former a Gymnastics Centre the track has been in existence since December 1st 2010 thanks to the efforts of local racer ‘Bubba’ (apparently nobody knows him by his real name Nathan Barham!!).  Set to turn 68 later this month, ‘Bubba’ got interested in r/c racing 10 years ago and with a lack of tracks in the area he decided to build a track on his own land.  Unfortunately his land was not zoned for the purpose of an r/c track which eventually led to the closure of that track but ‘Bubba’ wasn’t letting go so easily and approached the Mayor of Flowood about the city providing racers with a new home.  The city liked the idea in terms of it being an attraction to bring people into the town but an initial plan to build a covered track failed on the grounds of the costs. Still the Mayor was keen to help the racers and would come up trumps when he would take ‘Bubba’ to visit a building that due to planned road improvement in the area had been acquired by the city and was lying unused.  Entering the empty building with the Mayor, Bubba immediately said it would work and put together a proposal to the city which they duly accepted.  Setting up a ‘Not for profit’ company ‘Bubba’ is now the Manager of Flowood RC Indoor Park.

With a membership of almost 300, the track is open for practice during the week with club races held on Saturdays.  One interesting use ‘Bubba’ has come up with to track is the hosting of kids birthday parties.  Together with a number of local volunteer racers he gives kids the chance to race the tracks fleet of short Course trucks.  This has proven very popular with most Sundays booked up and as well as being a great way to introduce youngsters to the sport and the facility that is available to them as well as bringing in important income to help maintain the track.  ‘Bubba’ said the relationship the city has worked out really well and would like to see more tracks created this way adding that he is more than happy to assist or guide anyone interested in making such a proposal in their area.  In terms of events the JConcepts Clash is the biggest event to be hosted at Flowood RC Indoor Park with the next biggest event being the tracks own ‘Bring the Heat’ event which took place last month and was won by Adam Drake.

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