Daytona will fix only portion of potholed track
Daytona International Speedway began repairs Thursday to the
damaged portion of Turn 2 that forced two delays during the Daytona
500 totaling more than two hours.
Track president Robin Braig said a team of engineers and
asphalt specialists from North American Testing Corp. decided a
strip of pavement will be removed and a reinforced concrete patch
will be poured in the area where a significant pothole developed
during Sunday's race.
"This is the correct course of action to repair the track,"
Braig said.
The patch in the asphalt surface will be about 6 feet wide
and 18 feet long, and should hold up until the 2 1/2-mile,
high-banked superspeedway undergoes a $20 million repaving
scheduled for as early as 2012. The current surface was paved in
1978.
Engineers decided that heavy rain, including a flood last
year, and cooler-than-normal temperatures weakened the track
surface. The pavement ultimately couldn't hold up to the stress
caused by tires and some cars, set low for better aerodynamics,
that bottomed out.
"It never has happened in the history of the track and it
does get inspected before these events," said Bill Braniff, senior
director of construction for NATC, during a conference call. "There
was no indication we had any problems in that area prior to these
events."
The concrete patch will take about two days to pour with
several days of cure time, but should be ready for Daytona 200
Week, a motorcycle event that begins next Thursday.
There will also be a tire test for the new Nationwide Series
car on May 18-19 at Daytona, which should give track officials and
pavement experts an indication of whether the patch will hold up.
NASCAR returns to the track for its summer races the first week of
July.
"We've talked with the American Motorcycle Association and
they support this plan," Braig said. "And we also have a really
good test coming up with the Nationwide."
Track workers and pavement experts spent 1 hour, 40 minutes
to patch the pothole before resuming Sunday's race. After 36 laps,
the first patch broke up and officials scrambled to find another
solution. They ended up gathering polyester resin products from
teams, mixing it with a hardener and then heating it to turn the
putty mixture into a jelled substance.
That patch held up over the final 32 laps without any
noticeable issues.
Jamie McMurray wound up winning the Daytona 500, holding off
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap of a green-white-checkered
finish.
Earnhardt has been among the track's biggest critics, often
saying it was overdue for a new surface. During one of the two
breaks caused by the pothole, Earnhardt reiterated his stance by
saying there was about "2 1/2 miles of hole."
"It's so damn slick," he said. "It shouldn't be like this.
It's 2010."
North American Testing Corp., which is owned by Daytona's
parent company International Speedway Corp., plans to inspect the
rest of the track again to ensure its integrity.
"All of our tracks are routinely assessed and that's an
ongoing process that we have," Braniff said. "As you all know, any
pavement has a finite life to it. We evaluate tracks all over the
country and we continue to evaluate them, and we continue to
evaluate Daytona International Speedway."
