Daytona repaving Project approaches checkered flag
Repaving of Daytona's 2.5-mile tri-oval — a project started on July 5 — is rapidly coming to a close as the checklist developed by Lane Construction and the North American Testing Company becomes shorter by the day.
Lane Construction is the primary contractor. The NATC is a division of International Speedway Corp., which owns Daytona and 12 other major-league racing facilities in North America.
The repaving project hit a frantic pace before Thanksgiving weekend. The job is far enough along that Speedway president Joie Chitwood III was confident enough to schedule a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tire test on Dec. 15-16.
"We calculate that as 11 days and a wake-up from now," NATC project manager Bill Braniff said with a laugh.
What is finished?
The entire racing surface of the iconic superspeedway, pit road (completed Thursday afternoon) and installment of all the steel and foam energy reduction barriers.
On the almost-done list are the catch fence in Turns 1 and 2, a handful of stadium light posts and a few more layers of asphalt on approximately one mile of apron surface in the Turns 1-2 and Turns 3-4 areas.
"We're getting ready to pave the wedge area that divides the racing surface from the apron," Braniff said.
"Lane's mechanical supervisor Danny James has reached into his arsenal and adapted a paver that can pave that wedge. The very last area to be paved will be the aprons in the turns." Daytona Beach News Journal