Track Focus – Outback Raceway

Track Name – Outback Raceway
Owner – A-Main Hobbies
Country – USA
Location – Chico, California
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt

The 3rd & ‘Summer’ stop on the JConcepts Indoor National Series has travelled to Chico to the Outback Raceway, one of two tracks owned by online r/c retail giant A-Main Hobbies. Situated just 1-mile as the crow flies away from the Silver Dollar Raceway which last September hosted the 1:10 Offroad World Championships, Outback Raceway is situated in A-Main’s distribution centre from where it ships r/c products and soon bicycles to customers all around the world. Originally built as an onroad carpet track in 2008, in 2009 it was converted to offroad.

The fifth year of the track hosting the JConcepts Summer Indoor Nationals, the event is the biggest race hosted at either tracks with this year attracting a new record of over 300 entries. Built using rice field clay, specially selected for its water retaining qualities and high bite, the track covers an area of 92 X 50 feet with a good 2WD Mod Buggy lap time being a high 15 seconds. Undergoing a full rebuild every 1/4, the track also gets a section modification once a month which Director of Race Events Kevin Jelich, who is responsible for all track works, says helps keep things interesting for racers. Commenting on the latest layout Ryan Maifield, who makes his race debut with TLR this weekend, described the track as ‘pretty cool’. He said the track is ‘really flowing with a lot of technical stuff at the same time’ adding that the ‘surface is better than last year’ too having been very rough previously. Set-up with pit spacing for 85 drivers, the arrival of the JConcepts race has seen Kevin have to extend things into the ‘overflow pits’ which has drivers in part of the warehouse among the vast stock which has been sensibly fenced off!

Facility Co-ordinator Ruben Benitez, who looks after the day to day running of racing at the track, said while Summer is slow for racing, in the winter months the track attracts around 80 racers for its Friday night club races, a number that he is happy to report is continually increasing each year. Operating a monthly pass system for racers looking to use the track, it is open weekly Tuesday through Sunday. In addition to the JConcepts race, the two other key events on the calendar for Outback Raceway are the ‘Fall Brawl’ and ‘Outback Shoot Out’.

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