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A guide to good motocross track design.Land How much land do you have access to? Is it cleared of trees, rocks etc.? These can be worked around if required or even moved if it's your own land but the process will be a lot easier if there is nothing in your way in the first place. Is the land undulating? If you are thinking of a natural terrain motocross track design then hills and valleys are well suited. Even if you want a more supercross style track then you can still incorporate it into the natural changes in elevation of the land. Slopes and undulations can help with natural drainage as well. Environmental Concerns Will your motocross track layout cause problems for anyone else. Dust? Noise? How far away will it be from your neighbours? Including these factors into your motocross track design now will hopefully save you some grief down the track (pardon the pun!). How are you going to secure the property to prevent anyone riding on it when you're not there? With all the craziness about lawsuits these days you don't want some stooge to sneak onto your track, break his neck and then file suit against you. Motocross Track Layout Before you go to the trouble of building jumps and berms, you need to finalise your layout. Mark the track out roughly with some pegs and just ride it for a while. A good natural terrain motocross track design will flow nicely from corner to corner, plan out some decent length straights for speed and also if you want to string some obstacles together. Once you're happy with the layout then it's time to start building obstacles. Obstacles Depending on your own skill level and anyone else who will ride the track, decide what obstacles you would like. Incorporate sections that you would usually struggle with when you go racing, stutters, off camber corners or anything else that presents a problem. Keep in mind that the level of difficulty has to be enough so that you improve your riding but not that difficult that the track psyches you out and demotivates you.
A good motocross track design will follow the lay of the land. Use hills and slopes for drop offs and step ups, berms can be cut into the sides of any undulations. If the land you are working with is flat this doesn't have to make any difference to your motocross track layout but it means that you're going to need a whole lot more dirt as every obstacle has to be made. You can buy dirt and have it trucked in, this is extremely expensive, or you can dig a dam and get the dirt that way. The dam can be used to water the track. Decide what sort of surface you would like on your track. Using clay soil on up ramps and berms will give you a hardpack surface which is low maintenance but probably not as nice to ride on, alternatively soft loam is nice to ride on but will cut up and need a lot more maintenance. Try not to level your track perfectly, a slight angle will allow drainage and you'll never really notice it when you ride anyway. If you're trying to make your track beginner friendly then obstacles like table tops and ski jumps are probably the go, however if you want some gap style jumps then there are ways you can make them a whole lot safer. A double could be built as an up ramp, then a gap, then a table top as the down ramp. If you come up short then you can flat land on the top of the table top and as you get more confident you can jump the whole obstacle and land on the down ramp. Good motocross track design should always be about safety as well as making the track challenging. Machinery and Maintenance Once you've settled on your motocross track layout then it's time to call in the earthmovers. If you're paying a contractor and you're on a budget you may have to build your track bit by bit as you can afford it. The track will need maintenance so you candecide if you want to purchase some machinery or you will pay someone to do it. You don't have to have a huge front end loader, a tractor with a blade on the back and a bucket on the front will be sufficient for most of your track maintenance. A good motocross track design will always be different depending on where the track is, these points are just to get you thinking about what is best for your situation. Dirtwurx.com have a good section on motocross track design as well as some technical stuff about how to actually make and form jumps and obstacles.
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