building a new backyard track

im going to start building a little track at my house and im wondering if anyone has any tips before i get started. the area that i have to work with is about 30yd by 15yd give or take. its definitely longer than it is wide. its pretty flat considering the location. i have already started clearing the area to bring in a skid-steer this weekend. im not trying to build a world class track by no means. more of something for practice and fun short course racing. i'll try and get some pictures up of the area tomorrow. thanks for any input.

Depending on what you are going to run, that sounds a bit small even for short course truck, The smallest 4x4 SC track I have seen lately is in the 100x80 foot range.  Now if you were to only run 2wd SC and 1/10 buggy I could see that size working.

im going to be running a 2wd sc10. i watched some YT vids and i did see some of the smaller tracks being kind of difficult to run. i have drawn up a few ideas but nothing is started. i thought we were going to get a skid-steer today but now we're getting a bobcat tomorrow. there is a lot more that we have to do other than the track. im thinking if we get the other work done tomorrow and part of sunday i should have quite a bit of time to build this thing. i hoping i can most of it done with in the time frame i have. im sure im going to have to do a lot by hand. it will be my first time running a bobcat and it looks like a lot of fun.



from grown level near where im putting the driver stand


some what of an elevated position where the driver stand will go
the tree on the right is going bye bye


opposite side of the area from other pictures
the stump on the right is leaving too

day 1 of my back yard track in the books. i got a lot of the grass up and out of the way. learned that the soil is pretty packed clay which should make for a great surface. i had to pull out two trees with the bobcat and a few stumps too. i snapped a few cell phone pics to show the progress let me know what you think. and any helpful tips is also much appreciated.

Looks like a great start..I can help with labor, in exchange for track time when done. If you plan to share your track, parking and time of use will be considerations that will hae to be addressed. As for layout do what ever you want ! its your track ! 
                                                                                  Have a good 1
                                                                                    Richard ......

Looks like plenty of room, i built one inbetween two houses, short short course. Basiclly and oval with in x, my tip is to make your landing nice and long, make for smoother landing and carve right in the berm. Have fun would like to try it out post if you would like help. Ps the fire department are getting ready to test their hoses, give em a call for some old hose their dont need, makes good barrier if you dont want to spend the cash for tubing.

here are some shots of day 2. starting to cut in jumps and berms.
there is still quite a bit of work to be done.


here is the plan for the end. there will be track time for anyone who would like to come out and help.

i want to thank Richard from mild to wild for coming out to help me today. i hope to have this done within the week so he can come out and be the first to try it out.

It looks like you are off to a great start.

all i have to do now is fine tune and pack everything.

Is that your Bobcat?

no i wish, we rented it.

May I ask how much is the rental cost on something like that?

we rented it right here in town at valley rental. it wasn't too much we had it from Saturday morning to Monday morning. i ended up running it 2 hours over and was charged for that. so all in all we paid around 260 and that included trailer rental. we got a lot done with it. making the track was only a small portion of what we did. it was the second biggest piece of machinery i have ever ran and it wasn't hard to get used to.

@gps
You can a newholland skid steer loader from grants pass rentals for 180 a day. If you rent it on saturday, they give you until monday to return it. And with an expierenced person operating it, you can get ALOT done in a short time. I myself have logged close to 1000 hours running skid steers over my years as a concrete finisher. If you can drive an rc, you can operate a skid steer. Its not brain science or rocket surgery.

What is a skid steer loader, and how is it different from the Bobcat in the photos above?  Is it better than a Bobcat?  I always thought a Bobcat was the best thing you could have for RC track building.

id say that bobcat is the brand and skid-steer is the equipment. the bobcat i rented had both feet and hand controls. (i mostly used the foot controls) it was a great tool for what i was using it for. the float didnt work as well as i thought it was going to work. i still got a lot done with it in the time i had it. there is also a mini skid-steer that im sure is a little bit less to rent. its pretty much the same thing but smaller and you stand behind it. i would possibly rent one of those in the future for adjustments to the track i'd be making. the full size is great for moving a lot of dirt from point A to point B. and the smaller for smaller jobs is a smaller area.

here are a few more pics of the burms on one side.

Very good work.  Is that pipe for boarders?

i might be getting fire hose for bordering.