COTA Austin - construction and infrastructure

[hairy_scotsman]

I've said that pedestrian/cyclist access should be provided for residents and their guests. This could easily be accomplished without providing access to thousands of people parking down the road in a big field. It's just not that difficult.

The article you linked to said the residents were pretty darn happy with the arrangement.

They were happy with the notion that they weren't going to need parking passes when they had previously been told repeatedly that they would need them and that they'd only get two. That was good news at the time, in a relative way. Starting during that meeting, however, they started to question how locals could get into the track, and COTA had no answers for them. Since then they've asked for pedestrian access, with no response from COTA that I know of.

[Richard]

... and so it came to pass that there was no more talk of parking

[sknguy]

The idea of the kink over the hill at Turn 10 is that hitting the blind apex there is critical enough that a leading car will have to be within just a few inches of the perfect line or they'll be forced to lift to stay on track, setting up overtaking opportunities into 11. I think it will become a defining feature of the circuit, along with T1.

Ah... I see. Elevation changes are something that's missing on a few circuits. All hail rolling prairies. Can't wait to see the completed track. It's tough trying to visualise the race with just graphic renditions.

[hairy_scotsman]

Here are some nice new photos taken near dusk yesterday & posted by my buddy while I was out karting:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 878&type=1





Road to future helipads:



Not sure what's going on here with some pretty big holes being dug on the track itself.





Turn 11 berm:

[Pup]

Somewhere in Texas, there is a very happy quick-grass salesman.

[Shrieker]

You know that's the way it goes...

[Pup]

I heard a rumor at a party last night that I find very hard to believe, which is that the PSL's are sold out. That from an Austinite couple who bought some seats last month.

Take it for what it's worth. Personally, I suspect they got their signals crossed. I'd bet they are confusing PSL's with suites.

[lotus7]

Here are some nice new photos taken near dusk yesterday & posted by my buddy while I was out karting:

Not sure what's going on here with some pretty big holes being dug on the track itself.
/578692_444372652243952_157330087614878_93679735_1397768004_n.jpg[/img]

Sub and/or base course compaction test failure in those areas ?

[hairy_scotsman]

I heard a rumor at a party last night that I find very hard to believe, which is that the PSL's are sold out. That from an Austinite couple who bought some seats last month.

Take it for what it's worth. Personally, I suspect they got their signals crossed. I'd bet they are confusing PSL's with suites.

Probably. I heard a couple days ago they've sold less than 1000.

Either way, a sellout seems unlikely, at least for now, as they can't open up sales to the general public until May 1. They still haven't finished talking to the ~11000 people on the select seating waitlist. There are something like 15000 "psl seats" on the main straight alone, then more at 1 & 15.

[Pup]

Yeah, but no one buys 1 PSL. I'd bet the average is four. Even more once you factor in businesses and resellers. These people we met had bought 6. So if you say they've got 24k PSL's to sell, then they probably only need to find 6k suckers, er, customers. It's possible. Time will tell.

I'm less inclined to believe 1000 than I am a sellout. They'd surely have sold more than that just to tour companies.

[sknguy]

T10 kink I presume. Looks like it's not so much the turn that's blind so much as it is the set-up for the turn which is blind. Yeeaaassss... that's fiendishly clever.

[FW17]

Some work on the team buildings area






Some work on the pit wall

[Pup]

Great photos, WilliamsF1, and a good article, too.

http://www.theaustingrandprix.com/news/ ... ering.html

Nice to see those team buildings under way.

I can't resist pointing out the difference between the quality of stonework on the buildings vs the retaining walls...

[Richard]

I can only see render on one building (medical or media centre?), the rest are unclad.

The rustic stone finish to the retaining walls looks to be very good ... for rustic stone cladding. I presume it's appropriate to the local context. Admittedly I'd prefer bare concrete to match the functional nature of the circuit.

[Pup]

The media building has one full wall veneered, but if you look closely you'll see that they've started putting up stone on the base of the pits also.

For the team buildings, I assume that they would pour slabs for them all even if they're not building them for the race. Otherwise, they'd have to tear up the whole paddock to put them in later.

So we won't really know if they're doing them until the framing starts.