Track Focus – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex

Track Name – HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex
Country – USA
Location – Omaha, Nebraska
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt
Previous key events hosted – 2009 ROAR 1/10 Offroad Nationals, 2011 ROAR 1/8 Electric Offroad Nationals

The JConcepts Indoor National Series is in Omaha, Nebraska this weekend with the impressive HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex facility hosting the Finals of the popular five event tour of America.  Situated about 45-minutes from Lincoln where the HobbyTown franchise all began, the Hobby Plex facility will soon celebrate 10 years of business having opened its doors here in 2004.  Housing an impressive hobby store, an indoor carpet track and a now indoor offroad track it occupies a total space of 32,000 sq feet.

Originally the offroad track was outdoor but when rain affected proceedings while hosting the 2009 ROAR 1:10 Offroad National Championships, owner Ken Kailen decided he didn’t want this to happen again and so decided to enclose the offroad track.  After 2-years of going through planning it was completed just in time for its second ROAR Offroad Nationals when it hosted the 1:8 Electric classes in 2011.  Luckily for drivers this weekend he made that decision as outside there is a covering of snow on the ground.  The Onroad carpet track, which is in the same area in which all drivers pit, hosted the 2008 ROAR Carpet Nationals and will again host the event in February so they are no strangers to hosting key events.

As a race venue Hobby Plex caters for around 200 racers each week on its offroad track with dedicated nights of racing for Dirt Oval and Short Course with Saturdays set aside for the regular 1:10 classes.  Such is the size of the track they also  run 1:8 Nitro with the latest round of their Winter Championship attracting over 90 drivers.

Store Manager Alex Sturgeon, who is also responsible for the maintenance of the offroad track and who it is great to see is racing himself this weekend, has built and presented a very nice track for the JConcepts Indoor National Series finals.   The layout of the large track, which is producing circa 22-sec lap times in 2WD Buggy, looks relatively easy but with a lot of elevation up towards the rather tall drivers stand it is proving a little more challenging.  A nice touch is the blue painted infield which really helps define the track layout.

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