Track Focus – RCI Shanghai

Name – 2016 AOC Rd1
Host – RCI V2
Country – China
Location – Shanghai
Direction – Counter Clockwise
Surface – Carpet

The opening round of Scotty Ernst’s Asian Onroad Championship is again kicking off at RCI V2 in Shanghai, the track having hosted the season starter for the previous 2 years. RCI V2 is the 2nd iteration of the RCI facility, this purpose built track located in an office complex south west of the city having being built 2 years ago. A major difference for this year is the change from CRC to ETS carpet and the addition of corner dots, the previous version relying on wooden boards for the corners. While a privately owned track there is a club and members can use the facility 6 days a week, with Monday the closing day. As usual for Asian tracks there are pit rooms that can be rented, as well as two hobby shops and neighbour is a covered offroad track run by SMP Racing. Built so as to promote RC racing in China, high quality international facility having helped to improve the level of racing in the country, RCI V2 is one of 5 and the only privately owned track to have been selected by the Chinese sports council as an official government training centre.

In terms of track layout, it is very much influenced by the big US indoor events such as the IIC and Snowbirds, its size of 32m x 14.5m a major factor, with lap times just below 10 seconds in Modified Touring and just below 9 seconds in 1/12th scale. Asked about the track, reigning ETS Champion Ronald Volker says the addition of the dots and the change to ETS carpet has made the track much more comfortable to drive and he believes the layout will make for some close and tough racing. Adding that it’s “incredible what RCI have made with the facilities compared to 2 years ago”, when he was last here, he believes the key to running fast times on this new layout is to find enough steering as the track offers a lot of rear grip.

A driver making his first visit to the RCI facility and in fact his first trip to Asia ETS Formula Champion Jan Rathiesky, who is running 4 classes this weekend, really likes the track saying it was ‘incredibly smooth yet very tricky’. A ‘super cool track and really nice facility’ with the curbs on each  side of the corners it was ‘safer than the ETS’ in that sense but added the end of the straight was very difficult as it is the only point on the track that doesn’t feature curbs, but a tight line is key to gaining time.

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