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 – 2013 & 2014 JConcepts Indoor Nats Finals, 2009 ROAR 1/10 Offroad Nationals, 2014 ROAR Electric Onroad Carpet National.

For the third year running the HobbyTown USA Hobby Plex facility in Omaha, Nebraska, plays host to the Finals of the popular JConcepts Indoor National Series.  The fifth stop of the tyre, body and option parts manufacturer’s annual series, the race has attracted a healthy 260 plus entries.  With 2WD Mod Buggy the biggest category it also looks set to provide the main action with the likes of new World Champion Spencer Rivkin, last year’s event winner Jared Tebo, 2014 INS Champion Ryan Maifield and multiple World Champion Ryan Cavalieri among the line-up.

Situated about 45-minutes from Lincoln where the HobbyTown franchise started out, the impressive Hobby Plex facility is 11-years in business with the 32,000 sq feet facility housing a well stocked hobby store, an indoor carpet track and the indoor offroad track which hosts this weekends action.  Since it first hosted the JConcepts Finals in 2013, Store Manager Alex Sturgeon says there has been a lot of changes to the offroad track in terms of the dirt and how they maintain the track.  The purchase of a John Deere tractor and a tiller last year have made all the difference with Alex, himself an accomplished racer, saying it has resulted in the dirt blending better making it easier to build new tracks.

Another big change relates to track watering.  Previously they didn’t water the track during race meetings but on attending his first Reedy Race at OCRC in California where they have a plumbed in misting system that changed. Unfortunately Nebraska experiences very cold winters, although this year’s temperatures are pleasantly warmer than the previous snow covered ground conditions of previous visits, so fitting a mister system was not an option but instead they manually mist the track every 2-hours.  This has the effect of making the track change and break-up less dramatically than when they didn’t water with Alex saying it makes it easier to choose what tyre to run for the event.

Also changed from our visit in 2013 to the track is that the oval racing circuit that was located in the centre of the dirt area which elevates up towards the very high drivers stand, and which dictated the track layouts has been moved off to the right of the track.  While making for a slightly narrower area in which to build an offroad layout knocking about 3-seconds off the lap times, Alex said the smaller size is better suited to 1:10 and gives him a clear canvas to work with.  With the track to host next year’s ROAR 1:10 Offroad Nationals, plans are afoot to rebuild and improve the pitlane layout making access to the downhill track easier.

Winner of both 2WD and 4WD buggy at the event last year, Tebo said this year’s layout is ‘pretty cool’.  The Kyosho driver said while its ‘not too technical’ it is ‘fun to drive and will make for very close times’ adding ‘you have to drive it pretty hard to go fast’.  Making his dirt race debut with TLR’s 22 3.0 this weekend, Maifield described the layout as ‘fun’ and ‘really flowing’ with the the biggest problem for him being that the track piping is higher than the track in some spots causing him to lose sight of the car.

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