COTA Austin - construction and infrastructure

[munudeges]

Sorry mun- you need to re-read the posts. The comment was "9 months before the race".

That's what I meant by 'minutiae'. Regardless of how he phrased it they do not have until 18th November and it doesn't alter the fact that they need to be ready at least two months before. Attempted points scoring over how someone has worded something that doesn't alter the main point in any way is very droll. Simply put, they do not have the amount of time that you want to imply that they have.

I'm simply showing the relative progress of track in relation to the race date.

In two different sets of circumstances where India was going to do whatever it took and could commandeer as large a workforce as possible. Not to mention the government backed cash, the political will and the organisation to get the logistics sorted as a result - namely bulldozing anything that stood on the land, including homes. Austin can't even get a decent access road sorted, and it seems as though no one had even thought about it until recently and there have already been stoppages. Even then, they were quibbling about money.

Realistic? Hardly.

[hairy_scotsman]

I wonder how many individuals involved in this project, including those obese wasps in a hard hat, which I usually see huffing and puffing when they are asked to displace their corpus a few meters without air-con if it's above 80, have any possible xperience of such a project and have any knowledge of F1?

How can you consider building the track, while leaving the access roads without attention, is this a Monty Python sketch?

I know of 2 people still actively involved with COTA who have high-level racing experience of one kind or another...one from MotoGP and one from IMS. That's it except for the Tilke guys.

[munudeges]

How do they build anything is built in the rainy UK!

This is a bit of a laughable misnomer. The UK isn't wetter than anywhere else on Earth, quite the contrary, and they don't have the extreme storms and monsoons you see anywhere else in the world - including Austin, as it happens. That's what you would call building in extreme conditions, as well as in hot or cold temperatures at extremes. Pushing 40 is what you'd call the more extreme end of the scale.

You don't need to look very far to see this project is in trouble, politically, logistically and climatically. Where the latter is concerned you need the former two, politics and logistics, to be in order to give you a chance.

[hairy_scotsman]

How do they build anything is built in the rainy UK!

...they don't have the extreme storms and monsoons you see anywhere else in the world - including Austin, as it happens. That's what you would call building in extreme conditions, as well as in hot or cold temperatures at extremes. Pushing 40 is what you'd call the more extreme end of the scale.

Yep... Austin's average annual rainfall is about the same as Seattle's, but we tend to get it in the form of big storms, whereas Seattle get lots of drizzly days. We have about half as many rainy days on avg as Seattle does.

[WhiteBlue]

How can you consider building the track, while leaving the access roads without attention, is this a Monty Python sketch?

It is not good news that the access roads might not be fixed for the first race day. But is it a deal breaker? Certainly not. Has anybody of the participants of the discussion been to Silverstone on race day in the early 90ties before they build the dual carriage way? I don't think so. They managed to get the race done and the fans just had to endure the chaos. The big shots went in by helicopter as most still do to the day. Traffic logistics - particularly if they are restricted to the first race only - will not stop the commercial side of F1 to run the race.

I don't know if the local evacuation requirements can be bent for a one time event or if they can hire a fleet of helicopters for med evac stand by. In any case if push comes to shove and critical structures are not finished they still have the option to delay the first race to 2013.

I'm confident that this race will happen over a multi year period and that it will be very good. Have a little faith! You do not often see people spend $100m on an F1 race project and pull the plug on it after that kind of expenditure. In fact I cannot remember a single project that went into such a mess. Even the A1 ring in Austria which was dead for many years due to missing planning permissions was eventually completed.

I do not think that the people who do the project and engineering management for CotA are at fault. They have carefully analysed all the tripping wires many months before the construction actually started. To me this road mess really sounds like the same rampant ego problem that got Epstein into the mess of loosing the 2011 METF payment and having to pay Bernie out of his own pocket. The guy looks like a complete fruit cake to me. He keeps throwing money away with one hand and tries to penny pinch project critical mile stones with the other. He should have his head examined IMO.

In the end we just do not even know if the road problem is on the critical path. Perhaps they can navigate around it one way or the other. To conclude that CotA is dead due to that problem is a bit over the top.

[xpensive]

I certainly think so, in the sense that they have obviously neglected something very important as this is not Montreal where you can take the subway to the race. Americans do not tend to travel with car-pools either, why 120 000 visitors is very likely to bring at least 60 000 vehicles down that pitiful worn-down road.

Wonder if they have thought about parking-space for 60 000 vehicles?

Or did they perhaps xpect Tilke and his team to attend to all of the above?

This is beginning to be amusing, a good day!

[hairy_scotsman]

How can you consider building the track, while leaving the access roads without attention, is this a Monty Python sketch?

It is not good news that the access roads might not be fixed for the first race day. But is it a deal breaker? Certainly not. Has anybody of the participants of the discussion been to Silverstone on race day in the early 90ties before they build the dual carriage way? I don't think so. They managed to get the race done and the fans just had to endure the chaos. The big shots went in by helicopter as most still do to the day. Traffic logistics - particularly if they are restricted to the first race only - will not stop the commercial side of F1 to run the race.

I don't know if the local evacuation requirements can be bent for a one time event or if they can hire a fleet of helicopters for med evac stand by. In any case if push comes to shove and critical structures are not finished they still have the option to delay the first race to 2013.

I'm confident that this race will happen over a multi year period and that it will be very good. Have a little faith! You do not often see people spend $100m on an F1 race project and pull the plug on it after that kind of expenditure. In fact I cannot remember a single project that went into such a mess. Even the A1 ring in Austria which was dead for many years due to missing planning permissions was eventually completed.

I do not think that the people who do the project and engineering management for CotA are at fault. They have carefully analysed all the tripping wires many months before the construction actually started. To me this road mess really sounds like the same rampant ego problem that got Epstein into the mess of loosing the 2011 METF payment and having to pay Bernie out of his own pocket. The guy looks like a complete fruit cake to me. He keeps throwing money away with one hand and tries to penny pinch project critical mile stones with the other. He should have his head examined IMO.

In the end we just do not even know if the road problem is on the critical path. Perhaps they can navigate around it one way or the other. To conclude that CotA is dead due to that problem is a bit over the top.

Exactly. It's yet another pissing match.

[strad]

And you ask me...Who is anti American and doesn't want the track and race come to fruition??
Like I said...Just look around.

[xpensive]

And you ask me...Who is anti American and doesn't want the track and race come to fruition??
Like I said...Just look around.

And there we have it, took some time to lure out the good old "Anti-American" argument, but now I can rest my case!

[Richard]

That access road isn't a problem at the moment, they've go time to build it. The problem lies in the egos and political interference.

Just to finally nail the competence of the construction, a competant construction team should be able to finish the job on time. Are Tilke project managers or perhaps giving oversight of the project management? Who is the main contractor, what have they built before?

Who is in the design team for the grandstand and paddock? What have they done before?

[GTSpeedster]

And you ask me...Who is anti American and doesn't want the track and race come to fruition??
Like I said...Just look around.

I'd say blame it all on the 'commies'!!

[Mr Alcatraz]

And you ask me...Who is anti American and doesn't want the track and race come to fruition??
Like I said...Just look around.

And there we have it, took some time to lure out the good old "Anti-American" argument, but now I can rest my case!

Ya''awl boys are either dogin' us, or are just plained scared!
I figure I will be catching just about as much F1 whether a U.S. Grand Prix that weekend there or in a paralell universe. When someone gets seriously anti American on this this portal You will know it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tah9BKZb ... re=related[/youtube]
Roll Tide!

[xpensive]

That access road isn't a problem at the moment...

No I guess not, as there's not going to be much traffic there come October?

But seriously richard, what's your investment in this anyway, of course it's a problem with a four-lane highway not even being planned yet!

[WhiteBlue]

Tilke does the project management as usual. But you can't be successful if the owner tries to shoot himself in the foot all the time. The access road negotiations are going on for more than a year now. There is no reason for the council to make any more concessions. They do not have to meet a dead line. Epstein has. So why is he still screwing around with this? Another ego trip or simply loss of reality?

[FW17]

Tilke does the project management as usual. But you can't be successful if the owner tries to shoot himself in the foot all the time. The access road negotiations are going on for more than a year now. There is no reason for the council to make any more concessions. They do not have to meet a dead line. Epstein has. So why is he still screwing around with this? Another ego trip or simply loss of reality?

Stop the Epstein bashing without facts

A 2 way road can well be used for a bus mass rapid transit system to the nearest light rail head