Santa Pod Raceway New Surface

[Coops]

If anyone was not aware that races at the pod,
the tarmac drag strip is no more.....
the old tarmac track was removed before Christmas 2017, better drainage has been added and a new USA spec concrete drag strip is being laid,
which is meant to be quicker than the old tarmac spec track....
Also a new tarmac shut down area has been laid at the same time as the new concrete drag strip is going in.
photos courtesy of Santa pod Raceway

So can't wait to give this a try later next month

[unstable load]

Wow, that's quite a big undertaking! Looking at the weather, at least the mix will remain well hydrated as it cures....

[stevieturbo]

I've seen the posts about it on FB...but it does seem confusing.

Now clearly the top race surface was never really tarmac in the first place ? More like glued rubber ?

So what exactly will the top surface be now, because I've raced on plenty of concrete airfields and in no shape or form do they offer the same grip as Santa Pod can.

I've been in many concrete yards, warehouses....and again, most are slippy as f**k unless it's a roughed up concrete.

So clearly whilst there is concrete involved here....what will the actual surface be ?

[Coops]

Not sure how true it is but someone said they know somebody that heard some of the track had to be re-laid due to weather issues,
not seen any confirmation of this though so maybe all bull, this rumour may also be the reason why some of the earlier events were cancelled and moved to later in the year ????

[stevieturbo]

laying concrete and frost do not go hand in hand, so I'd believe it alright. And yes they defo did cancel some early dates.

It's a huge undertaking to re-do the entire track even without problems.

[Blown v8]

I asked on their fb page,but they never answered,
I wanted to know about the expansion joints !
We've all driven on concrete roads,the M25 is abysmal

[Devonrod]

Does this mean that it wont be 50p to get in anymore like it used to be in 1966 when I went there................

[stevieturbo]

TBH, price to get in and use the track for me is largely irrelevant.....the issue is paying that price to watch tractors doing pass after pass.

It gets a little more than tedious and frustrating. It's another one of the reasons I stopped going for several years, as every time I travelled over for a weekend I spent all day queuing in fire up lanes to get maybe 3-4 runs. And seen no racing or anything else during the day because of it.

Even last year just helping a friend a couple of times.....the tractors seemed to be the main attraction..one of them even breaking down and spewing crap over the track...requiring more tractors to clean that up.

It's bad enough racers spewing crap over the track without tractors doing it too !!