Track Focus – Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)

Track Name –Steigerwald Ring (Sand am Main)
Club – Motor Sport Club Sand
Country – Germany
Location –  Sand am Main (190km East of Frankfurt)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt with block & concrete sections plus astro covered jumps

Better known in r/c circles as Sand am Main, Steigerwald Ring this week hosts its second 1:8 Offroad European Championships in just three years, reigning World Champion Robert Batlle having taken the win in 2011.  Featuring a very unique ‘portrait’ layout, the main straight running perpendicular to the drivers stand, the track is also different in that it is built into the face of a hill.  The reason for this is that the track is in fact built on the start/finish line of an old motocross track, the Motor Sport Club having started out as an offroad motorsport club in 1951 before making the transition to radio controlled offroad racing and building the current rc track in 1998.  Thanks to its former motorsport background the club boasts a membership of 150 of which around 60 are active rc racers.  Apart from hosting this year’s Euros, and the warm-up race back in May which was won by reigning Champion David Ronnefalk, the club also annually holds two German National Championship races.

In terms of the track, the surface is mainly dirt with three cobble blocked corners sections,  two concrete areas and astro turf covered jumps.  Compared with the 2011 layout the track has undergone three main changes the biggest of which is the removal of the table top which has been replaced by a double, double, single jump section.  Asked about the track changes Batlle said overall it feels similar to drive as before.  Describing the track as ‘quite small’, a quick lap set to be in the high 20 seconds, he said the biggest difficulty is in fact the weather.  A wet day in Sand Am Main yesterday, it was a damp start to the 34th running of the championship this morning with the Spaniard saying it is going to be hard to predict how traction will be for each of today’s four practice runs.

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