Track Focus – OCRC Raceway

Track Name – OCRC Raceway
Country – USA
Location – Huntington Beach, California
Surface – Dirt
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Previous Reedy Races hosted – 2015 & 2014

The 22nd running of the famous Reedy Race of Champions takes place at OCRC Raceway, with this the third year the Huntington Beach, California, track has hosted the world famous race.  Run by father & son duo Robert and Nick Black, the 20,000 square feet facility has been in operation since 2008.  With visitors entering through the hobby shop, the racing takes place in an area 135ft long and 60ft wide.  With event organiser Brent Thielke having penned the track layout for the past two visits to OCRC, this year Nick Black had more input into how the final track turned out.  Switching back to an anti-clockwise direct as it was run in 2014,  this year Nick’s only limitations were a pipe layout from Thielke.

Describing the 2016 track as ‘visually different’, Black said they put a lot more elevation changes into the build adding some ‘big jumps’ to create something a ‘little different’.  In terms of the build the main work was done on Sunday with the ‘final grooming completed’ Monday. Having watched the first practice of the Invitation class drivers, Black was pleased with his track creation saying ‘I’m really happy to see (drivers) have to make decisions as to how to hit the triples and that they have different lines they can take. Its a bit of a challenge’.

Last year’s Reedy Race Champion, Ryan Maifield’s initial reaction to the track was ‘its a cool layout’.  While for the first round of practice the track was ‘super loose’, the TLR driver said ‘its really fast and flows really nice’.  The only slight fault he could find with the layout was at the end of the straight, saying it was ‘not awesome but still not bad’.

Heading the European challenge at this year’s event, the only European to ever win the event Joern Neumann not making the trip and Xray denying us the spectacle of 4WD World Champion Bruno Coelho being in the mix, Lee Martin feels the track will be ‘challenging to race on’.  The Yokomo driver said there are ‘a lot of points that might lead to contact’ highlighting the triples.  The EOS & European Champion also believe the step down lends itself to being a place where drivers are going to get into the side of each other.

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