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Gelsenkirchen Track Preparation


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It says here 290m

http://www.veltins-arena.de/news_070921_motorsport.php

Plus on another page Olsen says it will be the biggest one-day track they have made :)

Surely Berlin was pretty big as it was on a running track which would have been 400 metres, even if it did over lap a bit onto the centre green it must have been about 350 metres?!

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Some inside info from Olsen...

 

A HECTIC week of work at the VELTINS-Arena is almost complete - as one of the most spectacular football stadiums in the world turns into a motor-sport venue.

The stage is being set for the VELTINS-Arena to host the dramatic climax to the world championship FIM Speedway Grand Prix series, with the winning rider taking away a $100,000 bonus, in what has been called 'the richest minute in motor sport.'

Speedway requires a very special type of race-track and on Monday morning the first of some 3,500 tonnes of shale, imported from quarries in Denmark began to arrive.

Three time World Champion and now FIM Race Director Ole Olsen, is the man responsible for the construction of the track. "When it's finished, this will be a perfect speedway track. It is the biggest one-off track we have built and it will fit seamlessly into this fantastic stadium.

"We want to make sure we provide the riders with a surface that they can ride to their limits and provide a night of spectacular racing. When we used this shale at PARKEN Stadium in Copenhagen, the riders all said that it was the best track that they had ever ridden on, so we took their word for it and brought the shale down from the same quarry in Denmark."

From the quarry, the shale was loaded onto ships in Copenhagen at the end of August and transported to Rotterdam. It was then loaded onto smaller barges and sailed up the Rhine to Gelsenkirchen Harbour, before competing its journey by road – 125 lorry loads.

The marking of the track, the external fence, the inner kerbs and the fibre-tex base were all laid on Sunday. The shale was then laid on top with 15% banking on the corners, before the real track building craft began. The shale is rolled, graded, watered and broken up again. The trick is to get 6% moisture into the heavily compacted shale.

"If it’s seven or eight per cent, that's too much and the track will break up, if it’s three or four percent that's too little, the track will be too slick for good racing," said Olsen, "We will have tractors grading it and compressing it and breaking it up again until we get it just right in time for riders' practice on Friday.

"Once that is done, we then install all of the track equipment, like the electronic starting grids and the revolutionary air safety fence. Once that is done – if we have done our job well, the VELTINS-Arena will look like it was built to be a speedway track all along.

"And then as soon as the racing is over on Saturday night, the fireworks have fallen to earth and the crowd is on its way home, we will begin to take it down, and by the end of Sunday, you wouldn't even know that we had been here…apart from the memory of a fantastic night of racing."

 

 

speedwayworld.tv

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Yes, particularly the corners - can't see much passing round them.

 

with 50 grand on the line seanisnumber1 i am sure they will find a way :P

 

fancy aj for this one although one last hurrah from the grin in his 100th gp at odds of 28/1 look tempting

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Pits are along back straight! As we are on front row back straight will be able to look right into pits from above.

 

I just noticed this on the webcam.

 

I was watching C5's Soccer USA programme this week - Toronto FC have tickets for £50 where you stand pitchside or sit on stools in a bar section.

 

Incredible how sports stadiums try and cram people in.

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When we used this shale at PARKEN Stadium in Copenhagen, the riders all said that it was the best track that they had ever ridden on, so we took their word for it and brought the shale down from the same quarry in Denmark."

Probably a stupid question but what happens to the shale afterwards? Has the Parken shale stayed in storage for future use in that stadium or does it get returned to the quarry with a refund, minus the amount that disappears over the crowd? :wink:

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