I stopped by bluegrass today to see how things were coming. The road is still gravel and the pavement the same as previous pics. Kurt Niemeyer, VP of marketing, was there unloading tires out of a semi for the barriors and I got a chance to chit chat with him for a bit....super nice guy. He was saying that the ground temp needs to be over 40's and the air temp over 60's for at least 14 days to finish the pavement. He said once it was laid, you could run on it after just 4 days. He said it is still in need of 4 inches of asphault and then the polymer layer to make it "sticky." It looks really good though, can't wait till its done. I asked him about garages and paddocks, etc. He said that building will continue throughout the year till september and it will be pretty primative at first. Anyways, just thought I'd pass along what I heard. It was exiting to see what was there, though.
yeah thanks man i went down a week ago did not see any change but at least we know there working on it... did you ask if he needed any help for some free track time? lol
there are only a couple turns that need them... but i would imagine the couple miles of fence being a small fortune..... just to keep the animals out i say let them run i find it kinda fun dodging squirels and deers...lol
I stopped by last saturday and saw about th same thing, A handfull of guys bolting tires together. I asked one of them if I could make a lap. He said sure ,just be careful as there is mudd on the track. I idled around the place. there was several areas of mudd the last of which I could not get thru. Looks like a fun track.
Yeah, he said they were scraping mud off the track in a couple of places from run off and were giong to wash the track down. I wonder if that will be a reoccuring problem or if they have a fix for it.
The worst spot had the mud maybe 4 inches deep about 30 foot across, and unless there is some sort of drainage tile I`d think it would be a reacurring problem
my main problem with tire walls is that, no matter how nicely you prepare them, they always seem to degrade quickly and hold water. after a totally un-eventful getoff last season, I climbed over the tire wall to get out of an impact-zone. I swear you could've caught malaria or bird flu, or a host of other nasty things from the water festering in those tires...
well basically it hurts less to run into air fence than tires, sorry for the confusion my initial point was that if you we going to spend millions upon millions to build a track why not invest in air fence vs tires, then again...i havent seen how the tires are set up, therefore it was just a thought
"or a host of other nasty things from the water festering in those tires" Also excellent for breading mosquitoes.
Air fence leaks and must be "blown up" throughout the day. We use soft brriers at Mid-Ohio and if there is a need we'll buy some modules at Bluegrass. Tracks a a compromise of what uses them. Airfence is useless for anything but a bike.
Actually, for all race weekends and all motorcycle trackdays, Blackhawk Farms uses airfence/soft barriers. (They're more foam than air, and don't need re-inflating, just a check and adjustment if they've taken an impact.) T4 is pretty scary without it - there's *no* runoff there - and is the first place they used it. Now it's used in T2, T4 and T5 and they're adding more all the time. I think they cost about $1,500 per section and are useless for cars, so it makes sense that any track would set up tire barriers for permanent walls, and only use soft barriers for "problem" areas for motorcycles. They can stay up for a weekend or so, but have to be taken down and are not permanent structures. You can always donate to the Road Racing World Action Fund, in the name of your favorite track to go towards air fence and soft barriers too. http://actionfund.roadracingworld.com/
Blue Grass Update; Tires and Drainage Tires I can appreciate the comments on tires; I have had my share of face to face incounters with them. Some of the finest tracks in the world utilize tires. as a barrier, to slow, stop, deflect, or protect. In many cases they are encased within high impact casings, or Vinyl (Barber, Indianapolis, Mugeilo...). These are the plans for the tire barriers for Bluegrass. Drainage The design of Blugrass utilizes drainage within the curbing and gravel traps. This is the same design as Indianapolis for the MotoGp. Until all the curbing, drainage tiles, and gravel traps are in place the issue of drainage, mud.. will exist. Just some additional behind the scenes information. As you can see and read this track will be one of the BEST!