South Florida RC Mayhem - Markham Park

[ArrmaFreek2022]

I went to the Davie one, I heard the other one closed down. These guys are awesome too. By far my favorite hobby shop I've ever gone to. Luckily the Davie one is not too far. But you can tell these guys know what they are doing, and are actually passionate about it.

I agree, Mario and the two Brians are awesome and very friendly. I go to Davie also. Lets get this fixing Markham track and also lets see about the meet in Delray. Anything happening this weekend?

Sad to say they all left. Just the guys who moved from the Weston stores are left. Bruce and such. Sad to see the other guys go but wish them the best.

 

[Ghast]

I agree, Mario and the two Brians are awesome and very friendly. I go to Davie also. Lets get this fixing Markham track and also lets see about the meet in Delray. Anything happening this weekend?

I just went to mills pond yesterday and it got rained out as soon as the track got done getting prepped. I might do coral springs or mills pond this Saturday for practice with my new TLR. I would do the race on Sunday but I don't have a transponder yet because I don't know which one they use at either place

 

[ArrmaFreek2022]

I just went to mills pond yesterday and it got rained out as soon as the track got done getting prepped. I might do coral springs or mills pond this Saturday for practice with my new TLR. I would do the race on Sunday but I don't have a transponder yet because I don't know which one they use at either place

Yooooo, yes yesterday it poured cats and dogs man. I'm gonna see if I head to mills pond Saturday at 10. Hopefully see you there, if I see a guy with a TLR its probably you.

 

[Squ@chn]

1. The ramps need more dirt and it needs to be cleaned.
2. Driver Stand area needs a quick exit staircase
3. The whole area needs to be mowed, especially the walkway near the driver stand
4. This is just my opinion, but I feel like we could do a different layout that utilizes the space better.
5. We need draining pipe borders along the track.
6. We could possibly use a small wooden border around the track to help protect onlookers from flying cars

100% agree.
I'm sure they don't mow it because it's hilly. It'll probably have to be weed wacked.
I was too scared to stand in the Drivers Stand! I stayed in the middle where I could see everything

 

[Ghast]

100% agree.
I'm sure they don't mow it because it's hilly. It'll probably have to be weed wacked.
I was too scared to stand in the Drivers Stand! I stayed in the middle where I could see everything

Makes sense.

I crashed my car because the drive stand was so low. I just got the ball rolling on the volunteer thing. Should be about a week or so.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Wow I never knew of that place. I just looked at it on Google maps and it looks pretty decent. I am up for testing it out or going to a meet.

I went to my local shop again and we got the car fixed. We rebuilt the two front shocks and removed the old headless screw that was broken off in the control arm.

View attachment 303100

I also talked about getting the ball rolling at Markham to get the track set up. There is definitely interest. It's just going to take quite a bit of work though, and it's not easy to get work done in that park. I'm in communication with the parks naturalist to get more information.

Gotta ask, does it seem like a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" situation to go out and weedwhack the infield and perimeter? I was tempted to bring my cordless out today but opted against it due to rain.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Minor update: I think we might be in hedge trimmer and/or machete territory. Some vegetation can be brought down easy enough but theres some plants my weed whacker (18v) couldnt touch. Also, the rock garden area thing really needs a clean up if not a rug. Exposed large rocks are taller than my aggressively high set suspension could clear. I could see it coming back to life with help, but she needs love.

 

[305HemiGuy]

Minor update: I think we might be in hedge trimmer and/or machete territory. Some vegetation can be brought down easy enough but theres some plants my weed whacker (18v) couldnt touch. Also, the rock garden area thing really needs a clean up if not a rug. Expised large rocks are taller than my aggressively high set suspension could clear. I could see it coming back to life with help, but she needs love.

Really saddens me to hear just how bad the park staff has let that place deteriorate. It has tons of potential to be an awesome bashing course, but it seems like all of the TLC goes to the crawler course & RC airfield. Last time my family & I went, which was early last year, my wife got stung by a bee up there in the drivers stand area. There's just way too much overgrown vegetation out there. Best of luck to you getting that place cleaned up

 

[MiamiRC]

Was there maybe two weeks ago and can't believe how bad it was. There was noone else there and it was a Sunday which made me sad but I understand why. It's just depressing. I don't understand why the useless park staff can't even cut the grass??? I mean they cut the grass across the dirt path in through the fence but it's like they get to the basher track and just throw up their hands. Props to the crawler guys they keep improving and working on that section and it looks awesome with the new obstacles. We need someone with a tractor to take an interest in the basher side. It's clear the park isn't going to do anything.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Everything at the park short of office work, pass checks, sanitation or operation of a lawn tractor is volunteer driven. The MTB guys have done great things with the trails with no physical labor from the park staff. The crawler guys also do incredible work. The short course/basher side just doesn't have a volunteer network. It's just the nature of the beast. The park needs a regular volunteer team to maintain the area if we want to keep it going. Being that there's a drone course on site now, I'd wager a guess that they would take over the full area at some point if we don't get the thing up and going. It all starts with one hedge trimmer, weed whacker, shovel and some dirt.

 

[StephenSchandelmayer]

I'm a bit up the road in Jupiter but I would love to meet up sometime! I have never been out to Markham actually. I don't have anything too great for a track at the moment but that could change. The park on Atlantic Ave is great for the oval it's beautiful but they have a track and it's so pitiful it's hard to believe. Almost unusable. The best jump on the track is a little hill on the edge of the track that you hit from off the track lol. I'm a bit far away but I would be down to pitch in for some help if you guys let me know when you are going out. It would have to be weekends for me though traffic would just be brutal after work to get there

 

[LicketySplit]

They allow FPV drones there? It would be cool to meet up and get some track footage.

 

[BrokeRC954]

I'm at the park trying to make a bit of progress. If you come by this weekend, I won't promise that I've made a noticable dent, but the sightlines on the infield will be improved on the wide sweeping turn to the west as well as between the pallet jumps. Not sure how much more I can get done due to lack of batteries for the ryobi.

 

[305HemiGuy]

I'm at the park trying to make a bit of progress. If you come by this weekend, I won't promise that I've made a noticable dent, but the sightlines on the infield will be improved on the wide sweeping turn to the west as well as between the pallet jumps. Not sure how much more I can get done due to lack of batteries for the ryobi.

Take some before and after pictures. Would love to see the progress you were able to make.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Take some before and after pictures. Would love to see the progress you were able to make.

It just started raining so I'm running home to grab more batteries and a sawzall to cut down the thick shrubs. I'll take pics when I get back. One big thing we need is dirt/asphalt to fill in low spots on the jumps. I have buckets and a shovel but no dirt.
Oh, and the black tubing for barriers are there but currently a foot deep in overgrown landscaping.

 

[BrokeRC954]

About an hours worth of work and this is an accurate representation of the grass situation. Parts of it are over a foot tall. In some of the pics you'll notice a height and color difference in the grass, that's what I've been able to bring down so far. This is gonna take many days or many people with the right equipment to bribg back fully. I'm still working but it's still very rough.

Main goals for today:
Clear sight lines to the jump entry and exits
Create access to the spotters stand
Bring down as much vegetation as possible in the sweeping turn.

I can't promise that I'll make a sizeable dent as a 18v Ryobi string trimmer that retailed under $100 is far from the right tool but it'll help. I have a corded mower but there's no power out here so thats a no go. A gas push mower would make quick work of a bunch of it but it's deceivingly thick.

 

[305HemiGuy]

About an hours worth of work and this is an accurate representation of the grass situation. Parts of it are over a foot tall. In some of the pics you'll notice a height and color difference in the grass, that's what I've been able to bring down so far. This is gonna take many days or many people with the right equipment to bribg back fully. I'm still working but it's still very rough.

Main goals for today:
Clear sight lines to the jump entry and exits
Create access to the spotters stand
Bring down as much vegetation as possible in the sweeping turn.

I can't promise that I'll make a sizeable dent as a 18v Ryobi string trimmer that retailed under $100 is far from the right tool but it'll help. I have a corded mower but there's no power out here so thats a no go. A gas push mower would make quick work of a bunch of it but it's deceivingly thick.
View attachment 319027View attachment 319029View attachment 319030

Holy cow! That place looks 10x worse since I was last there. Our last trip there was about a year and a half ago when the wife got stung by a bee out there. That's another thing, definitely watch out for bees and wasps, they're out there, but it's so overgrown they're hard to spot. You used to be able to clearly see black mounds of dirt that formed jumps, but even those seem to be overgrown now. Man if I still lived down there I'd gladly bring my equipment out and help. The RC Gods are surely smiling down on you for this great task you've taken on I attached a couple screen grabs from a video I recorded when I was last there. If you look closely in the first picture, you can see the drivers stand in the background.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Holy cow! That place looks 10x worse since I was last there. Our last trip there was about a year and a half ago when the wife got stung by a bee out there. That's another thing, definitely watch out for bees and wasps, they're out there, but it's so overgrown they're hard to spot. You used to be able to clearly see black mounds of dirt that formed jumps, but even those seem to be overgrown now. Man if I still lived down there I'd gladly bring my equipment out and help. The RC Gods are surely smiling down on you for this great task you've taken on

In just the past ~2 weeks it's grown a ton. We've been getting daily rain, enough for it to grow like, well, weeds. When I brought my car 2 weeks ago out here, there was an area that had been trampled to at least make it to the spotters stand. Now it's close to knee deep. Short of salting the earth or tarping the grass for long enough to kill anything under it, it'll take a TON of work. I'll do what I can but there needs to be a volunteer-base to keep it down. I saw a video somewhere from 4-5 months ago and nothing was higher than ankle deep. It's just very quick growing stuff. I'm gonna keep doing what I can.

 

[BrokeRC954]

I'm calling it a day, but I've got us access to the track and spotters stand. I carved this path across from the large lot to the west of the track through to the track itself.

Then I tackled the overgrown spotters stand. Before:

After:

If people brought a few light lawn tools and spent 20 min per session just hitting a few feet of the track borders to clean it up, it would be amazing very quick. I spent probably 4.5hrs all in. It's not much now, but it can get there.

 

[BrokeRC954]

Went out again today, didnt take pics but talked to some people who were stoked that the track is coming along. Most of my work was on the sweeping turn overgrowth, just trimming it back as much as my batteries allow so not a huge difference. The rock exposed jump is also starting to come back to life. Only 4 buckets of dirt made a massive improvement. Though it needs probably 8-12 more buckets to truly smooth it out, at this point a good air-out should keep A-arms and axles in one piece