Yeah, that was the sort of thing I was thinking ... passenger bouncing up and down trying to give some extra traction. ;-)
I'm also guessing that you still need to spend a few quid to get something worthwhile and continue spending money on the things that break. ;-(
I think that's why I generally stuck to racing RC cars and boats. [1]
Cheers, T i m
[1] Mind you, when daughter and I were racing RC electric 10th scale cars (Yokomo MR4TC and daughter also raced in the Tamyia class), we would get though a set of tyres each meeting (£20/set) plus any breakages, food and the petrol to get there wouldn't leave much change from £100.
I took my LWB series 3 to an open to all course in Kent at the Whitbread Hop Farm, there were loads of newish Range rovers and the like that got stuck and were dragged out by an old swb land rover, quite a few lost bumpers too. My series 3 went round it with little difficulty. Good fun to do.
I am talking bikes here. Speeds of 100 mph are not uncommon, and circuits are not safe in the same way as tarmac circuits have to be.
I'm possibly influenced by the fact that in the past I have spectated at several grass tracks where there have been fatalities both of competitors and spectators.
Bikes again, although car trials are fun also.
There are all sorts of age-related classes, both for men and machines! I know lots of riders in their sixties and even seventies, and whilst watching my Son compete in the sidecar class at a very muddy trial last weekend, watched a gent riding a (solo) DOT machine who was 86 years old.
Green lane vehicles have to be fully road legal, and generally use tracks known as BOATs. (Byway open to all traffic.) There are very few suitable places in the South of the country, and even where it is legal it is arguably anti-social to drive 4x4s over un-made surfaces.
Sorry, never watch it.
Last track day Son did, the guy in the next garage destroyed his bike. Sadly, he had ridden it there:
Yeah, BIL took us round a course in Abbingdon(?) in his 2L (auto) Disco and it was amazing what it could do. The only thing holding us back was the towbar that kept grounding on the bottom of dips, just when you wanted a bit of a run up to stuff. We didn't get stuck anywhere though but then we didn't always take the extreme options. ;-)
Ah, so is that more like speedway than anything else or is there a l/r course as such?
Ah, I see what you mean now.
Oh dear. I have only witnessed that in person at Brands with a Superbike rider and it wasn't a nice thing. ;-(
Ok.
Nice. The sidecars are mental (in all classes). ;-)
Ok.
That's probably why I wasn't aware of it (no mates doing it etc).
Ignoring the use of any fossil fuelled powered anything to do anything other than 'required' journeys ... and I can see why we would need to protect 'ancient stuff, I can't see why in many cases the man-made erosion would be any less part of the ever changing face of the countryside (most of England was forest at one time etc).
Ok. It was quite funny (JM falling in the mud several time and complaining as usual) and they guys who were into the sport in general.
Ouch. Kudos to him for riding there though (as is probably often the case for those doing track days).
Seeing that was at brands ... the fatality we saw was in the wet when one guy hit the side of the bridge you can walk over. He was taken out in the Air Ambulance but I believe died in hospital. ;-(
When we were in the pits it looked like most of them were just kids ... which makes it even more of a shame of course.
So, best / cheapest car based sport, ideally 'off-road'. It doesn't have to be competitive as such. Are we still talking time trials in a Lada Riva / Panda 4x4. ;-)
Trouble is it's too easy with a 4x4 to dig a mess which renders the track unsuitable for any other use. Have a look at the videos of what dedicated 4x4 tracks are like. Are you really happy with the changing face of the countryside meaning that all off road tracks end up like that, rather than the rather pleasant bridleway and BOAT network we have at the moment?
There's been a lot of TROs put in round here to stop the mess, and the tracks are in a much better state as a result. Though in many cases too late - it's not that long ago that some of the original Roman bits of Mastiles lane were still there, but they're now gone.
(the people objecting to the TROs claimed it was farm vehicles causing the damage. Several years later, I think the recovery of the tracks has shown that that wasn't the case)
Both riders share some responsibility. The one in the green jumper was very slow all day, and often well off line. It looked like he realised he was way too slow, gave it a fistful, and that pushed him out wider, whilst the overtaking rider, who had an aggressive style, didn't leave him enough room.
If you watch the other videos from Brands on my channel you can see that such incidents are very rare, especially in the beginners group. (Which this was.) Any riding considered dangerous results in that rider being black- flagged, and if a rider gets black-flagged a second time, their day is over.
Any incident that results in you stopping on track means the session is stopped. Any rider who falls must compulsorily attend the medical centre for observation for a minimum of half an hour.
If it *is* something you might consider, why not come to Brands on a track day, and spectate first?
Sure ... but isn't there the opportunity of something in-between, like some farmland maybe (not the field margins because I understand they often use them to provide wildlife habitat) as farmers usually have the gear to flatten it off now and again. ;-)
Doh, I didn't even think of a different spelling for that kind and of course, the speelcheker didn't care. ;-)
A mate had a Hi-Lux and used to have access to an otherwise isolated strip of farmers land that he and his mates had permission to play on.
They also had use of the JCB and would make dips and jumps etc and had the fun of making good afterwards. ;-)
If the farmer is willing to lend you their nice valuable land rather than waving a shotgun at you shouting "Git orrf moi larnd", that's the first bit out of the way. You need more than a single field, you need access, and it doesn't take much to turn it into a right mess - the ratio of time spent putting it back together to time spent driving on it isn't that favourable. Yes, one or two carefully driven cars will probably be fine. But it doesn't take much more for the mess to be serious.
Having some experience in the past of trying to persuade landowners to allow their land to be used for much less damaging use (children's motorcycle trials), I can tell you that it's pretty much a non-starter.
The primary difficulty is insurance; any landowner would be crazy to let you loose without it, and it's expensive. Landowners rightly will also want some form of financial compensation, and that raises other issues about the change of use of the land. Finally, the landowner will usually have to deal with opposition from neighbours, who won't want the noise and mess.
Before you ask, signing a disclaimer would *not* remove the landowner's liability.
it doesn?t cost that much when added to the overall farm policy I have 6H of woodland that is used for paintballing also let two local trials clubs use it in the winter
Funnily enough I've been there for exactly the same reason (PW50 - TY80).
Understood. *Everything* seems to need insurance cover these days, even sailing a RC model yacht or rowing down your local river in an inflatable dinghy.
Maybe you could have a shared use with a Clay shooting club (although I understand they too often have strict limits on how many days they can use the ground / year and what time they can start and must finish).
Understood, like carpark disclaimers.
I guess all the points above is why such 'off road' sites, especially public access are few and far between.
We did take our daughter to one near Newmarket that was quite good and we did have a fairly local motocross club that had a kiddies circuit that she used to go round (and round and round, in all weathers ) but that was eventually lost on noise (I think) grounds.
An that's another thing ... those stupid / selfish enough to not ensure their machines were as quiet as possible were first to complain when the ground was lost (to everyone). ;-(
I was going to say I'm not sure electric on-road racing would take off but then I remembered Formula E and for off road, Segways (that I believe you can hire at these outdoor / adventure places). ;-)
I used to race EV's round all sorts of tracks around the country (inc MIRA and Snetterton) but they were already licence for 'racing'.
Interesting ... I always wondered just how much mess the paint-ballers made (with the paintballs ) and similar with trials bikes, especially as you mention they are around in the winter?
Do the bikers (or you) have to do any 'making good' of the surfaces etc?
Having had paint-balling inflicted upon me (Son's pre-marital celebrations) I can tell you that the 'paint' used is designed to be water soluble and environmentally friendly. Although at a venue used more than once a week, there was little evidence of previous 'wars'!
I set out trials for around 10 years, and was a licensed CoC. I was never asked to 'make good', although we always removed all evidence of our having been there as far as possible. This would mostly be course marking materials, and sometimes litter.
Some landowners had an interest in Trials as ex-riders, and/or had children riding, and between events would clear out areas for us, or re-model parts that were too 'tame'.
If part of a venue was clearly being damaged, we would stop using that until it recovered. Generally we tried to use different parts anyway so the events would not be carbon copies of previous ones. Individual land owners would sometimes ask us to avoid particular areas for specific reasons, and we always complied, with the threat of exclusion for any rider who contravened.
At one schoolboy national event I helped set out in the Spring, the woodland was heavily covered in Bluebells, so we were asked to tape the smallest possible path between sections, and marshal it for the first lap.
We once had a new venue, a small piece of woodland only suitable for children beginning to ride. There were about a dozen houses on the access road, and on the day of the event they blocked it as a protest. they called the police, who examined all our permissions and authority, and insisted the event went ahead.
We invited as many of the 'protesters' as wanted to come to observe what we did, and monitor the noise and potential damage. They went away perfectly satisfied that their Saturday afternoons would not be too disturbed.
That was 25 years ago; the venue is still in regular use, with no further problems.
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