RC Tracks of Las Vegas ready for IFMAR Worlds - track walk photos

0 Sept. 27, 2016, 9:20 a.m.

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

From RC Tracks of Las Vegas (via Facebook):
www.rctracksoflasvegas.com

About 10 pm last night, RC Tracks of Las Vegas posted a gallery of photos to its Facebook page showing the completed layout for next week's IFMAR World Championships. The pictures signaled the end of the two-week project, itself a culmination of two years of work since co-owners David Taliaferro and Chris Tocco were awarded the event, and show the winding course lined with blue carpet - a truly stunning look.

In addition to track overview photos, the following gallery also features a walk-around for more detail on each section of the course. Here are the highlights:

1 - The first turn is a hard right-hand 180. If the track surface, which was scrubbed free of the polymer used to preserve a hard-packed finish at Silver State and is expected to be watered throughout the week, was anything like at the Worlds Warm-Up race expect the hard braking in this area to cause the track to blow out badly - which could make the start of the finals very interesting!

2 - After the first turn, drivers will be punched down the short chute into this check-up bump preceding a sweeping left-hand turn. I anticipate seeing drivers try a variety of approaches, from short-jumping to get back on the ground as soon as possible to launching deep into the corner.

3 - This is a moderately-sized double directed away from the drivers' stand, which could make timing the jump difficult in order to stay on the inside of the turn.

4 - With the apex of the corner elevated, this turn falls off-camber further than it this view looks from the drivers' stand.

5 - An unexpectedly large step-up jump that will undoubtedly evolve as the face - and the run up to it - gets rough throughout the week.

6 - Though difficult to see from the drivers' stand view, the inside of the first right-hand turn in this switchback section is punctuated by a small jump that doesn't span the width of the lane. While I don't imagine any drivers will go wide to miss it, that just means the cars will be unsettled when flying toward the left-hand turn that heads up the hill.

7 - There's not much space on top of this raised plateau, and no lip on the descent to help the cars clear the following roller. It may not be worth going wide in order to gain the speed needed to jump down.

8 - Another hard braking zone that will surely get rough. The following roller is larger than it looks in the panorama, so going slowly enough to maintain a clean arc connecting the apex of both left-hand turns will be important.

9 - The roller heading into this double-double section looks big enough to require checking up in order to get the car settled for the first take-off. The second double looks pretty tough, especially to land on the inside.

10 - The left-hand turn in this second switchback section is made of bricks - an IFMAR Worlds staple. As the bricks get polished by exhaust residue and tire spin, getting lined up for the next uphill could get tricky.

11 - A nicely-sized table top presents the final obstacle on the track. While it won't be difficult to clear, it will be important to get lined up for the next corner.