Track Focus – Arena33
Name – Arena33
Owner – Tonisport
Country – Germany
Location – Andernach (130 km East of Frankfurt)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Mixed Carpet
Previous key events hosted – 0
Round 4 of this season’s Euro Offroad Series take racers to an all new venue as Arena33 plays host to its first international race meeting. Only open a number of weeks, the new 1200 square metre indoor facility is the vision of Toni Rheinard and his Tonisport business. Situated in Andernach, the hometown of the Rheinard family, the track is located in a former slaughter house in the town and after much work from family and friends has been transformed into a great amenity for both existing and potential newcomers to the hobby. Asked about the reason for taking on the extra work load of running a track, Rheinard said, ‘the intention of building the track was get new drivers involved’. With plans to add an outdoor offroad track, he added, ‘we wanted to have a place where people could turn up with a Traxxas and get involved in the hobby and hopefully progress into racing’.
A big boost for the racing community as the only indoor racing facility within a 250km radius, the opening of the track has already enjoyed high profile praise with Ronald Volker putting his recent ETS win down to the fact he had a permanent venue to practice. Toni said, ‘so far the reaction is very good but we need to improve on lots of things and with the feedback we get from visitors we will make it better and better’. Having opened as an onroad track, most of the drivers attending Round 2 of the ETS last month in Muelheim-Kaerlich testing at Arena33 in the lead up to that race, while it has switched to offroad for the EOS the plan is to remain as an offroad track for the Summer. Rheinard said, ‘with the weather starting to improve there are plenty of outdoor onroad tracks for racers to go to but for beginners we want to offer them a place to drive no matter how the weather is and we hope to have the outdoor track ready this year too’. Currently the track is open Thursday through Sunday each week. With over 300 entries for the EOS, well above the track’s normal expected attendance, the pits have had to be temporarily expanded with the building owner allowing a doorway to be knocked through into another section of the large building to an overflow pit area for the EOS weekend and any future international events the track may host.
In terms of the track, the 700 square metre layout features noticeably more jumps that normal and it is a layout that EOS co-promoter Scotty Ernst is very pleased with. Gerd Strenge, who has been very much hands on in the completion of the entire facility has created a number of extra new jump which make for a much more ‘offroad’ layout. Hoping he can claim a first EOS title this weekend, 2WD championship leader Michal Orlowski said, ‘I like it (the layout), it is more offroad. It is more challenging for sure’. Adding the layout is similar to Hudy Arena he said because the overall size of the track is smaller it is ‘more technical with all the jumps’. Describing the step down section at the end of the straight as ‘interesting’ he said getting a good rhythm was the key to mastering the track.
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