Early 1980s

I only started my activities in 1986, so most of the information here are hearsay and please read it with a pinch of salt.

Singapore organised our first ever FEMCA event in the early 1980s (1984 I think) for 1/8th Scale Internal Combustion (I.C.) cars at the McDonald's track. Rody Roem attended this event, but the finals were rained out and based on the Heats, a local racer won the event. I don't have his full name, but most of his good friends calls him by his nickname: Ah Put - he was using his Serpent Quattro.

This track was affectionately called the McDonald's track because of it proximity to the McDonald's outlet at the East Coast Park Recreation Centre. But in actual fact, it was the kind contribution of the management of the East Coast Park Recreation Centre that built up this track. In the evenings, by 6:00pm an operator lease the track from the Centre to operate 12V operated Kid Cars. I could still remember that modellers would continue playing even as the operator pushes his Kid Cars onto the track and we would finally stop when one of the cars smash into one of this Kid Cars.

The charges at that time was SGD$10 per day. Just as you might have guess, the track management got their hands full with local modellers who refuse to pay up. So it was destined to doom, however the saving grace in the early days were the crowd our racing pulls in to the Centre. However, we all know that tracks are not cheap to maintain and by the early 1990s the Centre's management decided to close it down.

I remember racing my SG Vito Orazi and later my RC500 at this track. In those days, the Serpent Quattro and the RC500 were the winning cars. We also had a lot of fun racing 1/12th Electric on-road here, I had my most enjoyable time with my AYK 86J. It was really a sad day when the area was leased out to a Kiddy Ride Operator who installed a mini Viking Ship ride on top of the track.

Update 19 March 2017 2032hrs from Mdm Jennifer Yeo, the official formation of the club was November 1980.