Bedfordshire Model Car Club (BedsMCC) is a remote-controlled car club where we run small purpose-built scale race cars on a small track at Bromham Village Hall. We have been a club for over 10 years and have evolved from running on the bare floor of their main hall to rolling out specialised carpet designed specifically for remote-controlled car racing.
We are affiliated with the British Radio Car Association (BRCA) and as such we follow their rules and regulations when it comes to racing at the club, and any other requirements.
All the classes of car we typically race are “on-road” classes, to say that they are designed to race on a flat surface with no obstacles. We primarily focus on cars that are around the 1/12th scale, including the GT12 (Grand Touring 12th Scale), LMP (LeMans Prototype), MTC (Mini Touring Car), Mini, and Hotrod classes. All races are non-contact and timed using small digital transponders inside each car, that time each driver’s car as it completes laps around the track. All classes raced are battery powered, either using LiPo or NiCd batteries. We cannot race any nitro or petrol powered cars as it is an indoor venue, we also ask that people do not bring these types of cars with them as the venue is situated near private residences and this can cause a disturbance to those who live nearby.
Our track is built before each race meeting in the main hall of the venue, consisting of 5 rolls of 2m wide and 18m long carpet specifically designed to provide traction to the cars raced around the track. The layout is marked out using square pipe trunking joined together with wooden blocks and thin flexible plastic strips to mark out the track configuration. This allows us to have effectively an endless number of track layouts, however we prefer to stick within specific guidelines, such as having a main straight along the same side of the track for every meeting, and always driving in a clockwise direction.
A typical race meeting consists of three qualifying rounds, followed by one final. Qualifying is raced in groups of up to 6 drivers of similar pace and car class over a 5 minute timed run against the clock, with a staggered start for each individual driver. The finals are a standing start on a grid and also raced over a 5 minute period, where the car that completes the most laps in the fastest time within the 5 minute period wins. Starting position is based on qualifying position determined first by number of laps completed, then total time taken to complete those laps. Timing is done through a specialised program on a computer, connected to a small timing loop we lay under the carpet that can detect and decode each transponder that passes over it. Each driver has their own unique transponder number assigned to them which the software can then use to track their position during each race.