Paving Daytona speedway

I'm not sure if these have been posted before? But I thought these shots where pretty interesting. Quite a feat of engineering.

Peter

 

Wow.
Never again will I bitch about pouring my shop floor!

 

I work for a paving crew and that would be very hard to do.paver will walk down hill and rollers will slide right off of that when the asphalt is soft.Keep in mind all that equipment has to move together to work right anytime you stop can create a bump.

 

Pictures do Daytona no justice.

 

THANK YOU! Always nice to see how things are built.

 

WoW ! JUST TO GO OVER 200mph.
INTERESTING ,THANXZ

 

Very cool. I bet that cost a buck or 2

 

alot of that equipment must have been built just for that job. i wonder what that cost? thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks for the neat pics.Wondered how they kept the equipment from sliding down the banking.Couple of big Cats and cables seem to work just fine.
Not a big Nascar fan but being it's winter here when they run the 500 I put on some grub,invite some friends over,get a pool going to make it interesting and it turns out to be a good time.

 

Thanks for posting the pics. Always kool to see how things are done that you don't even think about.

 

I also do paving for a living. I couldnt imagine the pita it was to get all those operators to move those machines at the same time.

 

heard when they paved ky speedway , they had 2 sets of pavers . in opposite directions... they started back to back and ended up on the other side front to front. no seams or something like that. cool shots either way.

 

Way cool. I bet those guys have a hard time walking on level ground after a whole day walking on that.

 

Pretty much how they did it the first time, but they didn't have the hydraulics, sonars 'n such back then. There are many photographs in the museum at the track of the original construction- cutting the grade with a D6 9U cable dozer, just like the one I learned on in '73. Even some pics of them putting a little fill back up on the slope, must have undercut it a bit the first time. Old Galion tandem rollers, held up on the slope with a grader from the top, no ROPS on anything- maybe an umbrella for the sun. Didn't help that it's built out of sand, not the most stable surface to try to grade and compact on a slope. At times the original paver was fed with a crane and clamshell bucket. There's even a picture of young Bill France Jr running a roller- on flat ground- dang flatlanders...
Got a few dirt slingers helping out the paving crew, we hang Kitty Katz, excavators and such over the bank from another Kitty all the time- you want to be able to trust the guy on top
The grader is trimming the edge of the first pass for a good, straight joint, and trying to rake the joint on that slope wouldn't work very well. The guy on the manlift is checking the compaction with a nuclear tester. The paver is using an up-to-date multiple pickup sonar setup to control the screed, averages the height over it's length for smoothness

 

Study these pictures a bit and you start to understand why so many of the old race tracks were "paved" with boards or bricks.

I hope these guys don't try using this same equipment to repave a drag strip!

 

Awesome. Thank you.

 

That's for sure! When I went to Daytona I parked just outside the track and it was mind blowing to get out of the car and look up at a several story high back side of the bank. The scope/size of the track has to be seen in person to be appreciated.

 

We saw the new pavement when we were at the turkey rid run. They were not 100% done, and you could see how much asphalt was applied. It is crazy how much asphalt they had. Most roads are a few inches, but this stuff was more like 8-10 thick.

 

Thanks for posting those.. Its interesting to see what they have to do to pave a steep slope. Hope this doesn't turn into another NASCAR bashimg thread.

 

I think they said 20 Million !
60'

 

If they were putting on that much, they were probably either fixing bad spots by removing the old broken stuff and full-depth asphalt replacement, or leveling up low spots to get rid of the humps 'n bumps, with "leveling courses"- pardon the pun

 

So cool! i just raced the Richard Petty experience! those corners are smooth as silk!!! they only let you go 150 but the 8 laps seem like seconds!

 

Reports say new surface smooth as glass!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You're welcome guys.

Wasn't intended it to be a NASCAR thread but rather an appreciation for the engineering require to do this.

 

Just remember that this was first done in 1958 with less sophisticated equipment.

 

Not bashing NASCAR, but I hope the repaving helps the racing there. I took my family to Daytona for the 50th running a few years back and ....... it wasn't even a race until the last 20-30 laps. Just a bunch of fast cars playing follow the leader. We've been to other tracks, with much better results. (Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Darlington,Talladega, etc.)
Drivers who tested earlier this month are saying the racings going to be "Insane"
Hope so. And yes, these are great photographs of some old techniques using modern technology. Thanks for sharing.

 

I've been watching some of the 24 Hour at Daytona this weekend. There's been a lot of talk on how smooth the surface is. So much so that it's really doing a number on the brakes. A lot smoother for those GP cars.

Peter

 

...that's so cool, thanks for posting. a few of us were talking about how they do this while at the Goodguys Joliet show. Simply amazing; those guys are sure good at what they do. I can imagine the line of dump trucks to pave somethin like this!

...did you take these pics?...or where did you get them?

 

One of the guys from our car club had pasted them along to me. I just thought it would be of some interest to a few folks on here?

Peter

 

that picture does those turns no justice!!!!!