How Wide Should An RC Track Be?

RC car and truck racing has been around for what seems like ages and it really has been as the first commercially available RC cars came out in the 1960s. Being that the sport is over 60 years old it makes sense that many people are constantly looking for new things to do with their RC cars besides simply driving them in the park. 

That is where RC tracks come into play. These RC tracks are specifically designed to be used to race your RC car or truck around with a bunch of friends or even strangers to try and beat each other.

These tracks can be built indoors, outside, on land specifically designed for it, or simply in someone’s backyard. If you are building an RC track you will need to know the best dimensions for the track to ensure that it isn’t too wide and waste room or too skinny to allow people to pass. 

RC tracks need to have lanes that are 12-14 feet wide if you are using 1/8 or 1/10 scale RC vehicles on it.  If you are running vehicles they are larger than that then you would want to widen the lanes to 15-17 feet. 

The fun part about building your own track is it doesn’t have to be a standard size if it is just for fun with your friends or racing buddies. 

If you are trying to make a more professional track for all of the local RC racers then you might want to make sure that all of the lanes are the same width but part of the fun of backyard tracks is making them as much fun as possible and not being a stickler for the details. 

To learn more about how to build a great RC track you can check out the video below. To see the best RC vehicles currently on the market just click here.

Do RC tracks make money?

Now that we have learned a little bit about how to build an RC track as well as watching a pretty good video about building your own you may be wondering why not build your track and make some money off of it? Afterall RC tracks are in many different places so they have to be making good money…. right? 

In most places RC tracks barely break between the cost of building it, maintaining it, and repairing it. Many people build them either for the love of the hobby or because they are trying to drive business to their hobby shop and make money that way. 

If I go to my local hobby shop every single week to race my RC car at their indoor or outdoor track and they break even or even lose a little bit of money on the track then the store is likely fine with that. The tracking isn’t there to make a giant profit or to fleece the users, it’s there to bring people to the hobby shop so they buy their new cars, accessories, tires, and other supplies there rather than online at places like Amazon. 

By constantly bringing people into the shop to sign up for a race or to get to the track that they have they are getting you used to going there and once you are used to a place you are much more likely to go there in the future too. 

I’m not saying that is a bad thing as I am all for supporting local hobby shops over buying from faceless corporations but typically RC tracks don’t make a whole lot of money for this reason. 

With that being said I definitely feel like it would be possible to turn a consistent profit with an RC track especially if you go in with a hobby shop that doesn’t have one. If you offer to do the work of running it, maintaining it, etc. and in exchange they let you put it on their land driving traffic to their store then it could certainly be profitable for you as the overhead would be much lower. 

You could also sell snacks and drinks at the track to the racers and their family as well which could increase the profit margin by a considerable amount. 

How do you make an RC off road track? 

Now that we’ve discussed how wide a track should be and whether having a track could be profitable now comes the fun part, making the track! 

Making an off-road track for RC vehicles is only limited by your imagination. You can add jumps, bumps, mud, water or simply build it on uneven ground. 

When building any course water running through the track when it rains will be your biggest enemy so ideally you will want to build the track on the high ground and then slope everything slightly to the sides so the water doesn’t sit on the track all the time messing up your jumps or other sections. 

For an off road track you can have different sections that different types of RC vehicles would excel at or you could dumbly make it bumpy, jerky, and up and down. I personally prefer having some variations in the type of things the track features but ultimately it is your decision. 

It’s also your decision how you want to build it and how short and long it is, what shape it’s in, etc. Typically building an off road track will require a decent amount of time and possibly some heavy equipment depending on how elaborate you are wanting to go but you could also just build a simple oval or circle with a few jumps and rock climbing areas and call it good. 

It’s your call. 

How do you make an RC dirt jump? 

Assuming that you have decided on what you want your RC course to look like most people will want to add jumps to the track. You can certainly just use wood or even metal to create the jump but those have a tendency to get damaged or not last very long plus they cost far more than simply building a dirt jump. 

So, how exactly do you build a dirt jump for your RC car? 

How you build a dirt jump for your RC car depends on whether you want to go simple or elaborate. If simply then all you need to do is dig a hole in the dirt, pile that dirt on an incline in front of the hole and pat it down. 

More elaborate jumps can include a jump and landing pad which would require you to know how far apart they needed to be as well as building them at the right angle going up and coming down. 

As with the track mentioned earlier you can really make a dirt jump as elaborate or simple as you like with it being just a slight jump or a really giant one that you shape using a mixture of mud and dirt. 

Only you can decide what kind of jump you want to build and how much time and money you want to spend making it so the decision is up to you. 

Conclusion 

I hope this article has been helpful to you in regards to building your new RC track, jumps, or just finding out whether building an RC track is a worthwhile investment or not for you. 

Building a track for your RC cars can be a ton of fun but it can also be a ton of work to build and then maintain afterwards as well. If you can get a bunch of friends who all own RCs to go in on the cost and work it can be a lot more fun to build and race on an actual track than just doing it in your local park.