An IRL® IndyCar® Series car traveling at 220 mph can travel the length of a football field in less than a second on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. But the only statistic that mattered Sept. 8 at IMS was 25 feet per minute – the rate that paving crews began laying a new layer of asphalt at the famed track.
After spending four weeks removing the top 2.5 inches of the old asphalt surface and cleaning and leveling the remaining surface, Kevin Forbes, IMS director of engineering and construction, gave the green light Sept. 8 to begin applying approximately 19,000 tons of new asphalt on the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.
This is the first repaving of the historic oval since 1995.
“This is the first opportunity we’ve actually had to do a full lap (of paving),” Forbes said. “We’ve spent the last couple weeks doing a lot of preparatory work, doing the milling, cutting out some loose areas, just trying to get ready for this first pass today. Weather has kind of been a problem for us the last few days, so this is our first day with really good weather.”
The project is still on schedule despite several rainy days last week and should be finished in the first or second week of November, Forbes said. The project will not be officially completed until track personnel have reinstalled timing-and-scoring lines and added striping to the track, Forbes said.
The famed “Yard of Bricks” will be reinstalled at the start-finish line in late October. The 1909-vintage bricks that previously comprised the Yard of Bricks were removed and will be cut into smaller pieces and sold to the public. Bricks from the 1909 surface that were previously removed and placed in storage will be used for the “new” Yard of Bricks.
Information on the sale of the old Yard of Bricks and the old asphalt will be released shortly.
Crews from Grady Brothers, Inc., are applying the first layer of asphalt in a 12.5-foot-wide swath, requiring a total of four complete laps around the oval to cover the track from the outside retaining wall to the inside line. Forbes expects crews to complete one trip around the track per day, thus finishing the first layer, which measures 1.5 inches deep, by the evening of Sept. 11 if weather cooperates.
The application of the second and final layer, which will measure 1 inch deep, will require a slower pace. The paving machine will be extended to 18 feet wide and will require three laps around the oval to complete the task.
To make the racing surface as smooth as possible, crews are not stopping once they begin a lap around the track so there are as few joints, or seams, in the asphalt surface as possible.
In other words, forget about a lunch break.
“You’re dealing with a surface that is supposed to be as precision a surface as you can get,” Forbes said. “Race drivers expect precision; our fans expect precision. You have to approach it from the standpoint that you can’t take any chances. Every inch (of the surface) is as important as the inch before and the inch after.”
Repaving work thus far has included only the racing surface, as the pit lane and warm-up lanes are not scheduled to be milled until Sept. 25 or 26. Those surfaces will not be milled until the last minute because repaving crews are using those lanes to access the racing surface, and the milling process would weaken the pit and warm-up lanes, creating the potential for damage to the subsurface.
The new surface, when completed, should last approximately 15 years and will be much more water-resistant than the last surface applied in 1995, Forbes said. Crews also have placed approximately 400 feet of drains along the wall separating the main straightaway and pit lane, aiding the track-drying process after rain.
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IMS tickets: To purchase tickets, camping or parking for either the Indianapolis 500, United States Grand Prix or Brickyard 400, contact the IMS ticket office at (800) 822-INDY outside the Indianapolis area, (317) 492-6700 locally or log on to indianapolismotorspeedway.com.
