Posts
8180
Joined
4/22/2010
Location
Fenton, MI
US
This is what Red Bud looked like "back in the day" 
Red Bud Pre Sand Days
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Yep….my avatar is proof of a very different track….same corner different angle…
And ....they had a BMX track...wish I had some pics...
this was 83' track was always a mudfest in practice and by afternoon it was loamy choice A-1 berm ruts with multiple lines
Early 2000s it was absolutely the best track in the US. Now its fun, but a man made (usually over watered) sand pit disced half way to china kinda fun.
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while ive never ridden it, local tracks have followed suit and honestly riding massively deep rutted tracks to make things "challenging" is overkill and not fun. Staying on the bike on a lightly tilled track is difficult enough while navigating other riders let alone simply trying to survive
The 90's they would add wood chips and sometimes there would be a log in it. I always remember the huge pile of wood chips behind the 911 mx shop. I always liked the night track too. They used to do a 6 or 8 race series on it with a couple of Sundays on the big track. I miss the days when tracks were different dirt not the "just add sand" that they have become.
Thankfully our local tracks seem to be realizing that and going less deep and watered.
Nailed it!
As a Pro-Am in 1984 we had to race the night track and do well enough to then move up to the top Pro Pits the next morning.
Lake Michigan and sand dunes aren’t that far from the track so there has always been sandy soil.
It seems like most tracks are going this way. Martin MX used to get disc'd deep every now and then, however now it's the norm. A few years ago all jumps there were hard-pack, now you have ruts up the entire face of most of their jumps. Fun for fast guys or pros I guess, not fun at all for me and my C class skills lol.
Somewhere along the way track prep got carried away. Ruts don't equal rough and for us mere mortals slot car tracks are just plain no fun. I raced Red Bud some back before the transition and I personally loved it. I'll never forget showing up for a LL qualifier in the early 2000's and they had started bringing in the sand. The start straight was so deep you could park your bike and literally walk away from it while it just stood there on its own lol. I think Red Bud the last few years has really figured out the right amount of tilling and water. They were definitely guilty of overdoing it at times
We will be there watching another National before we know it!
I went to both MXDN's at Red Bud I hadn't been there in over 25yrs and to me it was almost unrecognizable 😂 but of course once it started raining the smell of Red Bud came to life (a smell that you would never forget)....I did remember the back entrance and how to get to it and had zero traffic getting in and out each day!
Watch dilla in 03' when KW beat RC, and then watch it in the past 5 years. Night and day prep difference and I'm not a fan.
Where was this finish line compared to the current one?
Corner before where it is now....where the turn after the leap is now.
As a kid i used to race a bunch at the night series at Red Bud. i think it was every other Saturday night or something. It was fun.
I have been able to come up with track layouts back to the mid 80s. Would love to see anything from this era, specifically the spot the leap ended up before it was there. It is so cool to go for the national and look for signs of the old layouts. They are still there.
The history of this place is a big interest of mine. I LOVE searching for remains of old layouts in person or on google earth.
There were many different ways the track was laid out, where the leap is now was left turn off camber sweeper that wrapped around the hill and then came back towards where the sand whoops start and went partially up that hill where spectators are now, a right 180 turn into the hill that always had a far outside line and an inside line and they both came together on an uphill jump, saw lots of crashes caused by the lines coming together in the air with Magoo being the one I remember the most in 78 or 79 on a Maico. Then it was a 180 left back towards the sand whoops and a right 180 where the spectator area is now then back up a small rise to a 90 left turn that we called the school bus turn because of the scoring bus and that is where you see Hannah above and also me in my avatar....same turn probably same year as the Hannah pic.
Pit Row
I raced the dust bowl tracks of the late 80’s and all the 90’s!!! The tracks that you can water during the day and not turn into ice skating rinks of today, are miles better!!! Nothing like hitting bumps you can’t see because of dust!!!
Picture I took at the 1978 Trans-AM!
I’ve been racing at Redbud since 1984, and here are a few pics from an amateur race I competed in back in 1986 on my KX-125. As mentioned, it was originally dry clay with a LOT of rocks that got really dusty in the peak summer months. They didn’t groom the infield like a golf course back then, and the Richie family have done an amazing job transforming it over the years into the beautiful facility it is now!
Red Bud back in the 70's & 80's was hard pack clay. Always muddy in practice but great during the races. No sand back in those days, Here's the first turn in 1981. No sand, just gravel and hard pack.
My boy Mark!
Who remembers a front falling gate?
I had a lot of starts going over that gate...
Same here....Pre railroad tie days you could get a run and literally hit that gate and knock it down (and piss Gene off 😬)...Pretty sure Red Bud was one of that last tracks in the area to move away from the forward falling gate.
Hard to see the gate with all that smoke 😀. Not sure on the year I took that shot 74,75, or 76. Think it was a TransAm.
I realize they did haul in some sand to loosen up the clay but in my opinion some of the endless sand came right from their existing soil. I'm also in W. Michigan, couple hours north of Red Bud and my current track went thru a similar transition. It's somewhat hilly with off cambers, started out mostly too hardpacked. I hauled in gravely sand to loosen up some of the turns but had to disk it regularly to keep it fun. As the track sunk down into the surface the hard pack seemed to give way to sandy soil. Now I only disk once in spring and most of my prep time is spent pulling the sand back up the hills after it rains. Almost white sand washes out of soil and collects deeply at the base of the hills in the turns. If you don't keep pulling it back up the hills the turns suck!
Was the bus being used as the scoring shack back then?
The track is no doubt miles better with the sand, versus the old days.
The problem is they still insist on plowing and watering to the point of a rut infested mud pit. Most of us love a rough track with good berms, but can do without the slot car effect.
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