{"id":1078,"date":"2014-01-06T19:46:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T00:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2022-10-05T09:07:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T13:07:08","slug":"apex-indoor-rc-try-try-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/apex-indoor-rc-try-try-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Apex Indoor RC: Try try again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last winter I enjoyed running my RC cars at Universal Raceways<\/a>: it wasn’t too far of a drive, the track was indoors, and they had an on-site hobby shop.<\/p>\n

But they went out of business.<\/p>\n

Around the same time they closed their doors, Sids Raceway<\/a> opened for the season. It had a much larger dirt track, was about as far away as Universal… and there were 2 Hobby Shops within a 10 minute drive if you broke anything.<\/p>\n

But then it started to get cold: and Sids is outdoors.<\/p>\n

So, where to go this winter? There were some indoor offroad\/carpet tracks about an hour from my apartment… but I had run on carpet for 2 winters now. Last November I had read that a track in Brantford<\/a> was moving to a new location that was indoor and had a clay surface: Apex RC<\/a>. Sign me up!<\/p>\n

This is what you see when you come in: a few stands with kits\/tires\/snacks, a wall of parts and paints, hotdog and pizza machines, some tables to kick back and relax, and bottomless cups of coffee for $2!<\/p>\n

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To the right is a large open pit area: every 8′ table has room for 2 people, and each person gets 2 power plugs. It’s well lit and there were extra chairs for those who brought friends and kids. The air felt a tiny bit damp, but that’s because the tracks clay surface gets watered a few times a day so it’s always a bit humid.<\/p>\n

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Here’s my little corner of the world: my beat-up Tekno SCT410<\/a> truck for bull-in-a-china-shop driving, and my Losi 22 1.0<\/a> buggy for something a little more refined:<\/p>\n

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And finally the track itself: with a nice long straight up close to the drivers stand and a banked corner at the end to help keep you off of the wall, some small ripples in the infield to keep your suspension unsettled, and a double-single tabletop combo along the back wall with a very short runup to let you air things out. My 4WD Short Course Truck had no problems launching itself over those jumps… but I struggled with my 2WD buggy to get up enough speed without spinning out. I crashed many times along that back wall \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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The first time you show up you sign a standard waiver and give them your MYLAPS transponder number (if you have one). The owner and staff were very friendly, and they did a great job keeping the track in shape with periodic watering… and switching to timed practice (buggies, and SCT\/ST) when things got crowded. I’m hoping they add a bit more parts support, but I understand they’re not trying to be a full Hobby Shop (they have a great selection of tires though!)<\/p>\n

This past Saturday was my second trip there, and I hope to go again a few more times this winter. The only thing that would keep me away would be the distance: it’s a solid 90 minute drive for me each way from Toronto, and that’s more time than I like to spend on Canadian highways in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last winter I enjoyed running my RC cars at Universal Raceways: it wasn’t too far of a drive, the track was indoors, and they had an on-site hobby shop. But they went out of business. Around the same time they Continue reading Apex Indoor RC: Try try again…<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ptY4v-ho","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2612,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/2612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}