Gomaco makeover

The 0.86 km long Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee was demolished and rebuilt during a 13 week break between races earlier this year.

Contractor, Baker Concrete Construction, turned to Gomaco for the technically challenging rebuild because it knew the job would require input from the equipment manufacturer as well as the track designer.

"The technical expertise at Gomaco is one of the reasons we chose them for the job," said Rob Ford, project coordinator at Baker Concrete. "They have a strong engineering department and we knew they could handle the complex challenges of the speedway."

Gomaco selected an SL-450 slope finisher for the paving and designed 705 special brackets to mount a running rail onto the outer crash barriers. "The key aspect of the paving was to keep the end of the SL-450 close to the barrier to minimise the amount of hand finishing," said Mr Ford.

"There was some pretty intensive engineering involved in achieving this but it was critical to get the machine in the right place for every aspect of the track," he said.

A second rail was precisely mounted at the bottom of the 30⁰ banked track to ensure the correct grade was achieved through all the corner transitions.

"As the track widened through the transitions, the rails widened too and adjusted horizontally so that a constant grade could be maintained. We adopted fully automated legs with slope sensors on the SL-450 so the legs adjusted to plumb or true vertical as the rails changed," said Dennis Ernst, service manager at Gomaco.

With the rebuild completed on time, the ultimate success of the project was determined by nine-time Bristol race winner Rusty Wallace. "On a scale of one to 10, this is a 10," he said. "This place is great, it now ranks right up there with the best!"