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1/12 Stock Car Oval Racing overview

The UK RC Oval Racing scene overview Oval 1/12 racing is one of the less common forms of RC racing in this country but it still has a stro...

The UK RC Oval Racing scene overview

Oval 1/12 racing is one of the less common forms of RC racing in this country but it still has a strong dedicated following.


There are a few classes that are raced such as Hotrods, Saloon Stox but Bangers and Stock Cars are the most common. I am going to cover the Stock Cars on this post.

Competition Stock cars

These are mini versions of BriSCA race cars that pollute the air with their V8 roars on most Saturday nights over the country. This RC class has been running for quite some time with some legendary chassis designers such as Pinky etc crafting these cars.

There are kit versions now available from Mardave, Tic etc although most clubs will have a group of guys who can make you one of these cars (Or at least help you service a second hand one) so you can start racing.

Lets get one thing straight, these cars are fantastic, fast and hard as nails. So lets take a look at what makes them tick.

At first glance you can see that it kinda resembles a pan car, although on closer inspection you can see a lot of subtle differences. Unlike pan cars, stock cars all run a solid rear axle. The rules also stipulate that the bottom chassis plate must be one piece of material, so instead of a floating motor pod, or t-plate they simulate the effect with a cut chassis allowing flex at the rear.

This is then dampened with an oil shock to help smooth out the power delivery and balance the rear as you wind up the motor out of the corner.

The front end is usually a fixed solid axle, and there is a good reason for that, these cars are fast and the racing is very physical, a complex front end like that of a 1/12 pan car would be destroyed in a hard crash, and could easily loose any finesse in its settings with minor contacts with these open wheeled racers.

Saying that, this is racing and like any class people are looking at ways to innovate and my car has a form of front suspension developed by Terry Crowley. It still isn't as adjustable as a Pan car but it does have some adjustments with the spring tension and it also allows a bit of caster adjustment.

The chassis is then combined with a massive bumper, and topped off with a BriSCA shell, and most importantly a massive wing!

The Tyres are std 1/12 mardave style donuts as these cars race on carpet.. So now we have the car lets hit the track!

Racing at Urmston

http://www.urccc.co.uk/

Urmston is one of of the clubs that races these cars and over it's 30 years it has hosted many nationals in the class along with nurturing some of the classes leading drivers including Anthony Wyper (The current national champion, and also former European champ), and Graham Eccles (Currently winning this seasons national championship)
Anthony Wypers 1/12 Stock car

Its a very friendly club, racing Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings,  and is always supportive for new racers. The Club is still ran by Alan Crossland is still working race control and has been running the club for all these years. Here is a link to their website URCCC

So here I am with the car all charged ready to race

Basic Rules

In oval racing you get graded depending on your points earned in each quarters championship. There are the following ranks
  • Superstar
  • Red
  • Blue
  • Yellow
  • White
On a points meeting you get scored for each qualifying race, and then scored on the final.

You just need to get as many laps as possible as you race anti-clockwise, you are allowed to hit other cars but you are not allowed to drive the wrong way around to take out other cars.

The electrics in this class remained firmly in the brushed era until only this year, so now you are now able to use a Lipo (1 cell) and a blinky esc (The Core Pace) along with a 10.5 Brushless motor. I am keeping it old school using a speedmaster, nimh's and a Mardave G22 motor.
Mac's Race Team and Grafix Click the link for fantastic shells 

So lets race

Race 1


Round one was pretty good, the car was keen to over steer so I dialled out some steering on the tranny. The car was much better but I still had a tendency to do it on some occasions as it was coming out of the apex.

Overall I finished 2nd with 64 laps, not bad but some guys managed (70) in this round.

Race 2


I was battling with the steering being a little over the shop for this race, I found that an early collision knocked a battery wire out of the car and it kept dragging the chassis and making the steering change.
Overall I managed 3rd position with 65 laps

Race 3


When sorting out the wires, I noticed my cells were moving left and right in the car, messing around with the balance so I stuck some foam in the battery compartment to keep the weight on the outside.

The plan worked well at the start and I managed to keep in front for the first few laps, unfortunately I got hit by a back marker and lost a few laps until I got untangled. :(

I then raced on a mission and managed to end up 2nd again in the race with 64 laps 3 laps behind the winner.

Finals

So after the laps were tallied up, I just missed out on the the A final and qualified 1st for the consolation (B - final). The cool thing about the B-Final is that the winner gets through to the A final! It really helps keep you in that racing mood, as you know that you have it all to race for ! The other thing is that the Finals are 5 mins long as opposed to 4 minutes.. that makes a pretty exhausting race!

B final


The B-Final was a close race, I was neck and neck with Ian Warman and Mark Craig, the racing was good and their was a lot of scrapes and scraps and I managed to keep ahead to take the win (Despite Mark trying to take me into the barrier, although loosing his wheel definitely helped!)

A-Final

Sit back and watch the race here!


I came 7th in the A-Final not the most lucky race in the end, the car was really digging in on the apex.. next time I will put some superglue on the outside of the tyre to calm it down.

Overall

Oval racing is really great fun and you should really try it out, it requires a very good eye and driver reactions whist you are on the track. The chaos that can ensue on the track really keeps you on edge.. try it, you might like it!

Here is the Urmston Website link. 
Facebook page here

Here are other useful links
Urmston 771303987602168045

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