Having never done a rally cross. How would a person make a course?
Is it just cones thrown out in a pasture?or is it rolled or smoothed or flattened in some way? Would you need an excavator?
how do you keep it from getting torn up or rutted up over time ?
how many acres do you need to have enough room?
I've only been to two different venues, so my experience is limited. Both were 1/8 mile dirt tracks, so they already had some earth moving equipment on site, but it really didn't get used much. Aside from the water truck, I only remember some gravel being shoved around with a plow throughout the day. The courses road the circle track for a bit, and cut across the infield in fun and exciting ways.
Cone setup is similar to autocross, except the course WILL evolve throughout the day. If places are getting too rutted up, or everyone blasts into the same cone, the course moves to accommodate. Sometimes a lot, sometimes just a few inches.
If I had to put a number on it, I'd say 4 to 5 acres minimum, but that is just a guess comparing the 2 acres my house sits on the to size of the courses I've run, and adding room for grid and course worker parking.
I've been running the Iowa Region rallycross program for a few years, so I have a few opinions I can share.
Minimum size in my opinion is 7 acres; anything less leads to painfully tight, first gear only courses that rut quickly.
There's no real way to prevent ruts entirely, but you can try to minimize them by having more open, flowing courses. Any tight corners are going to rut badly. Plan for the need to move your course due to rutting and design with space to allow for the move. I try to not put any elements closer than 75' apart to keep the fun level & speed up and slow the rutting down.
We've just set up in fields without any prep work ahead of time. However, almost all fields will need restoration work after a few events have been held there. Otherwise, you'll end up with a field so rutted that you can't really run there unless you do some restoration.
Pay a lot of attention to the soil type of the field as it makes a big difference. Anything high in sand content is a nightmare as it will rut just about instantly. Loam (black dirt) is great when it's mostly dry, but won't hold up well if there is much water in it. Clay is best as it gets rock hard when dry and isn't bad with a fair amount of water in it.
Our half mile course was on app. 15 acres. It was on gravel, so ruts were not a problem. Constant stone picking
Thanks for the responses. Once it does get rutted than how do you do the “restoration “? Tiller ,box blade and roller or heavy equipment?
Disclaimer: I have never prepped or restored a rallycross track, but i have raced them and i farm.
From what i have seen the condition of the field to be after a day of racing i think i would disc it to fix any compaction then use a cultimulcher after that to break up the dirt and flatten and smooth everything out. Then seed it with whatever grass mix suits the property using a broadcast seeder.
For restoration, there's no point in attempting any while the event is going on, as the loose dirt will get thrown out of the filled in ruts immediately.
We tend to try to do restoration immediately following the event, or in the nex day or two. This typically allows us to use either a box blade on a tractor or a skid steer, without the need for additional equipment to break up the dirt. We do have a drag with fingers that we've borrowed a few times when we've needed to break up the soil. Nature then compacts the dirt for us over the next month or so between events.
Our venues haven't required us to reseed anything and we get enough rain in the area that stuff regrows very quickly.