Off-Topic Forum

They've had the panels all of this season. If anyone talked in detail about the removal of the grass, it had to be on RaceDay. But I haven't heard anything about why they paved it. As for the curbs, I think they NEED them there. Having seen them up close, the bottom of the curb is also the lowest point of the turns and it goes uphill towards pit wall from there. It would take a lot of work to make that area from the curb to the wall flat and would take way more work to make it slope at the same angle as the track itself.

They have drainage holes under the curbing so they cant flatten it out and remove, Plus if you removed all together it would just be another spot to do brain dead Bonsai moves

spazmatastic wrote:

They've had the panels all of this season. If anyone talked in detail about the removal of the grass, it had to be on RaceDay. But I haven't heard anything about why they paved it. As for the curbs, I think they NEED them there. Having seen them up close, the bottom of the curb is also the lowest point of the turns and it goes uphill towards pit wall from there. It would take a lot of work to make that area from the curb to the wall flat and would take way more work to make it slope at the same angle as the track itself.

Oh yeah. I knew about the drainage and forgot to mention that. The drainage is also why the grass was there in the first place. The grass was like a holding area for the rain to seep into and get to the drainage pipes below instead of running out on the track. All the water from the track drains away to a creek bed that runs downhill from the south parking lot, parallels the back-stretch of the track and continues on to the north. Not sure where it ends but I'm sure there's a catchpond for it at some point north of the track.

Exactly my friend, Ya dumps in the pond then to a river, but no Idea the name. But supposed to be good fishing at the pond.

The pond drains into Smith River which runs south into NC where it merges with the Dan River that runs northeast back into VA and runs right through Danville, VA. Many of the towns and villages along that river have DAN in the name somewhere, but Danville is the biggest city along the river as far as I know.

That is cool, Never knew that.

Me either, as far as Smith River goes. I live so close that I figured that I should know the name of the river. When I saw the direction it flows, I just knew it had to end at Dan River and followed it until I saw that I was right. I used my local FOX radar website to get the river name, but it doesn't zoom in real close. So I switched to Google Earth to follow the river. They merge about halfway between my house and the M'ville track.

The Dan River is well-known in this area. Our local energy company (the largest one in NC) has a couple of hydro dams on that river. Sadly, that river became a national story a few years ago when Duke Energy had a massive coal ash pond burst and flow directly into the river. That was a huge ecological disaster around here. The state has come down hard on them over the years to keep that from happening again anywhere in the state. The EPA also got involved. The state legislature also refused to let Duke Energy raise rates to customers to help them clean up the mess and make sure other coal ash ponds couldn't do the same thing. Duke had to do it out of pocket. I was glad to see the state stand up to Duke b/c most people in their coverage area have no choice but to buy electricity from them. BTW, Duke Energy has nothing to do with Duke University. They do share the same family name but are completely separate organizations.

All I can say is watching Lagano going over Bubba's car from inside Bubba's cockpit is insane. 

Kaz with 5th! Ya love to see it!

Portions seemed like different races....

Early (1 and 2 stage) they actually seemed to race....

Then they lined up the train for most of the last stage....

Even discounting the cars that wrecked early,

few of those racing at the front early,

were anywhere to be seen late.....