As of around 3:00 PM this afternoon, Thunder Road has a new carpet layout. Track dimensions of the oval will be approximately 80'x40'; and we have 80'x54' to play with for a road course layout. And, there is even room to lay out a monster trioval arrangement; with the two *short* chutes being around 50' each.

All thanks to Kenny Hogan of Raptor, who flew in to lay the carpet; and his lovely wife, Susanna. And a nice word to the usual suspects who always show up to help in any upgrade of the Thunder Road facilities. We've reworked and enlarged the pit area, and made some other improvements. Come check it out!

First race on the new carpet will be the USPANCARCHAMPIONSHIPS Race on October 22nd. Thanks; Ernie P. :cool:

I think that this should have been put in the track discussions

No, this should be put right where it is under Generial Announcements! A discussion about it should go under a Track Discussion. This is announcement letting everyone know there has been a serious up grade to an old track.

Thanks for all the effort you have put into Thunder Road Ernie.

big THANKS to kenny of raptor motorsports for doing a fine job with the carpet installation. everyone here appreciates you taking the time to help us keep this ol' track growing. please come join us and show us what your cars can do. hope you had some fun while you where around here. come back soon! Thanks, Jesse Bean :wave:

I had a GREAT time...... I plan to make it to one of the "big" carpet races there, if not the first one......It was great meeting some of the track regulars as well......

Kenny@RAPTOR

I stopped by the track today and it looks great. Great job an the carpet Kenny.

Thanks.... I really wished I would have brought my equipment so I could have turned a few laps around the poles.....

Kenny@RAPTOR

Well, the rehab of Thunder Road still has a bit to go; but the track, new lighting and work benches are just about finished. We'll be ready to host the USPANCARCHAMPIONSHIOS on Saturday the 22nd. The track will be open on Friday night for practice, racing on Saturday. If neccessary we'll run the mains on Sunday; but I'm betting we can get everything run on Saturday.
I hope to see a lot of you there. The new carpet is nice! Thanks; Ernie P. :cool:

we've got light! the new flourescent lighting looks great thanks to mclin. we're putting the finishing touches on the track this wednesday. a new wall was framed up to completely enclose the tracks facilities. this is gonna really look good when it's completed and will add to the brightness. thanks to steve herndon for that! i've been itching to to run on this thing, so i hijacked ernie's 12th scale and took it for some laps. i have to hand it to snowbirds b/c the dimensions which we copied really seem to be a perfect fit for our cars. the corners ice is about 16feet wide. and the straights are a little over 11 feet wide. this really creates a great balance of corner handling and straightaway speed. the corners are now wide enough to allow the car to be turning long enough to make chassis handling a bigger issue and i think that it will allow a broader range of driving styles b/c now i think you will be able to loosen up the car a little more because it's such a smooth transition through the corners. then the straights will present some really high speeds allowing the new motors of today to really shine showing a variety of torque getting up of the corner and i can only imagine what the rpms will be when it comes time to turn left again. i have never seen a smoother track than what we have now. before the carpet was installed the concrete was filled and leveled and then ground to a glass smooth finish. i didn't witness a single bump in this thing. we had people standing around the track at different positions who were also very excited with how smooth this surface is. i've seen the road-course layout and it's gonna be fast! what we have in store may create a situation where thunder road will have to open during another day in the weekend to cater to the touring cars and other road racers. i'm imagining the 12th scales are gonna be rocket ships with all the room. 10 ft lanes everywhere will allow the touring cars to navigate easily through all the turns and the 12th scales will have to have mod motors to feel like they are even on a race course. we're gonna see some "SPEED" out of these things. ernie's trying to get a road race planned for november since this thing has turned out so well. don't forget that this weekend is a uspancar championship race and we are starting with a clean slate even for the locals who've been gearing up from a long summer. C-Ya this weekend,
Jesse Bean

where is thunder road? do you have a website?

Ernie Can u post some dates for some of the big races you are going to hold at thunderroad? The web site is thunderroadrc.com

Thanks Brandon

thanks for the link dang to bad it is in VA. oohhhh gordonsville va at that. lol track looks killer man

Dave, try this http://www.thunderroadrc.com/. there are no pics yet on the site of the new carpet. Just shots of last years rework of the pits. There will be pics of the new track shortly and may be on RC-oval.com now. The carpet is the carpet used at the Snowbirds last year. It was laid down just as it was taken up form there. the oval is the same. just 5' shorter. the new road course will be even bigger because it will combine the carpet from the Bird's and some of the existing.