It is now clear that group and cluster gas can be influenced by embedded radio-loud active galaxies. X-ray emitting gas belts are recently identified structures, which lie between and orthogonal to the radio lobes of their host galaxies, and are particularly evident in XMM-Newton data. Here I focus in particular on measurements from an XMM-Newton observation of the low-excitation radio galaxy 3C 386 and its X-ray emitting gas belt. The gas belt has a mean temperature of 0.94±0.05 keV, cooler than the extended group atmosphere. Gas in the belt shows clear temperature structure with material closer to the surrounding medium being hotter than gas closer to the host galaxy. I present evidence that this gas belt was formed by a ‘buoyancy-driven inflow’ of part of the group-gas atmosphere, where the buoyant rise of the radio lobes through the ambient medium has directed an inflow towards the relic cold core of the group. Gas belts of this type may be the dominant X-ray features in low-mass groups, and so signal such groups in next-generation surveys.