Track Focus – Hudy Racing Arena

Name – Hudy Racing Arena
Club – Private Track
Country – Slovakia
Location – Trencin (120 km North East of Bratislava)
Direction – Anti-clockwise
Surface – Carpet
Previous key events hosted – 2013 Euro Touring Series Finale

With the Euro Touring Series having made a hugely successful trip to the Hudy Arena last July, this weekend the Euro Offroad Series make its first visit to what can unquestionably be described as the world’s greatest RC facility.  Like with the ETS, the massive 25,000 square metre facility, which also includes the factory of both Xray and Hudy, has exceeded the expectations of racers with ‘super impressive’ being a commonly used word to describe the place.  Having conducted a factory tour yesterday, Xray being one of the few true r/c car manufacturers in the world, defending EOS Champion Joern Neumann was more than impressed by the set-up, also getting a chance to see for the first time the part of the factory that produces full inhouse the FX Engines he is running in 1:8 Offroad this season.

Built over the Hudy Arena’s indoor asphalt track, the carpet track created just for the event is one of the Series’ toughest yet with Round 2 2WD winner Naoto Matsukura describing it as ‘super difficult’.  The key elements that are causing drivers difficulty are the centre table, it featuring a dip in the centre of the table, and the double in front of the drivers stand, the tapered jumps also proving tricky to master.  Kyosho’s David Ronnefalk said while the track is ‘prett hard’ it is really fun and the Swede is a particular fan of the curbing that dont normally feature on such an offroad track.  He also feel the track has some features that will seperate the drivers.  A driver who know ths place better than most, as he and team-mate Renaud Savoya spend much time here testing, Martin Bayer said the track is different and more offroad like compared to what racers ran on at Round 2 in Berlin.  With ‘way more jumps’ he said ‘it seems difficult but that’s the challenge of offroad.’

One driver that came to the Hudy Arena in advance of the EOS to test, Team C’s Hupo Honigl said that getting the timing of the jumps right is difficult.  Describing the track as about 20% different to that he tested on, he said in 2WD getting the balance in terms of power right is very important.  With only a set level of mechanical grip available from the handout Pro-Line front tyres he said the on power sweepers mean you have to reduce rear traction but that can then hamper you for the many jumps.  For 2WD lap times are expected to run at 24-second mark.

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