Matt Romanowski

Was it 4 feet they took out of the hump at Tremblant on the repave?

There is also the track changes after a few years after the repave. There is a thread here talking about the bumps starting to come out at the Glen.

Hella-Buggin'

+1

Although, the wife will join me for the weekend because Monterey is a nice place for her to spend the day. where as Thunderhill is not so fun.

Matt Romanowski

For folks who are really curious, with a little google work, you can get a Michelin ebook that explains the macro and micro roughness of asphalt in less obtuse terms than has been mentioned here.

There is also an ASTM standard for asphalt grip along with a tester that is used in drag racing to give you a repeatable, quantifiable measure. Finally, there is a French firm that makes the "black box" that measures the wavelengths of the micro and macro surface that is used in F1, DTM, and banned from IMSA.

ProCoach

It was along with other changes, just like the addition to the base at the bottom of the dip between VIR T10 and T11.

Both LCMT and VIR made these changes in their “restorations,” rather than “repaves,” as neither had been in use for some time before they were brought back to life.

Mahler9th

Thanks Peter and Matt for the perspective on paving materials and mentioning opportunities to learn more. When I was about 9 or 10 I got to work in asphalt paving for my dad in exchange for $0.25 per hour and the occasional sip of Pabst Blue Ribbon... so your comments brought back memories.

In any case, it will be interesting to experience the effects of whatever they do at Laguna Seca, and it is nice to hear that investment is being made.

If any of y'all out there in RL social media space are gonna be down there next weekend for the Club Race, might be nice to meet you. Hopefully the event will be the first of a new annual series, and year after year it gets bigger and draws racers fro all over.

And hopefully the Fall IMSA and IndyCar weekends will exceed entertainment and financial expectations.

fatbillybob

I hope the track will invest in more garages and infrastructure. At times that paddock is pretty small with a big event like Runoffs where many have to paddock in the dirt. I don't think much of the facilities at Mid-O either because paddock in the grass isn't much better but at least at LS their are not animals in the garages pooping on you or your car like at Mid-O.

Horus2000

Can't wait to race there for the first time next weekend! And with a repave coming, that gives me an excuse to come back.

ProCoach

I think the garages at WRLS are pretty darned good!

fatbillybob

Yes but LS needs more of them.

Mid-o needs to fix theirs.

trygve

I like what I've seen so far with WeatherTech sponsoring Laguna Seca. Little changes all around the place. When I was there last month doing a Porsche Performance Drives event, I noticed that the drainage "dip" near the entry station booth, that was awkward to drive over with a trailer & loaded tow vehicle, has been replaced with a real live buried drainage pipe and repaved flat. And there was a two-story structure going up overlooking Turn 3. For Rennsport last year they improved/extended some of the run-off paving. I do hope that they improve the infrastructure for track timing; the timing building is primitive/old-school but workable (though it gets hot on a sunny day), however the rat's nest of wiring entering the walls and crawling all over the floor looks ridiculous, and I've even had to trapse through the vegetation on the trackside embankment to locate a working timing loop wire because things had been cut.

They resurfaced Laguna Seca some recent years back... probably 10 or so years ago, maybe more. I recall that it helped briefly in terms of grip & lap time, but the effect didn't last long. Looking forward to getting back in the car there next weekend!

Matt Romanowski

It will be interesting to hear exactly what they are doing. Hopefully they get a quality job and it lasts well. There are a ton of different aggregate and binder mixes. I have step in-laws (is that a thing), that have a very large multi-state paving company. The asphalt that they used at WG and a few other places were special mixes that were specified by the tracks.

Hopefully it doesn't go like VIR with repaves and lawsuits.

ProCoach

Every track specifies a specific mix, based on application temperature, chemical bonding, level of epoxy, aggregate size. This science is well known.

The same local plant of a well-known national company and equipment was used in the December 2013 repave of VIR as the original October 1999 initial pave.

This was the same mix that Road Atlanta used in 1993 to such good effect, as used by Mid-Ohio a little later for the big repave, the last one up there, AFAIK..

The problem is generally acknowledged that the mix cooled to a lower temperature than it should have been before it was put down. Therefore, the bonding agent never "flowed out"and the aggregate (stone) was not glued to the surface well.

The start and stop of the "lifts" or lanes of asphalt were also not well leveled or even with one another. It began coming up almost immediately. It was not inexpensive and after a number of attempts to fix it, legal action commenced.

Another company was brought in to repave the track in July of 2016 for the IMSA race in August. It's held up much better.

Matt Romanowski

The article and lawsuit as I remembered them identified insufficient compaction, which temperature could certainly cause. http://www.yourgv.com/news/court/vir...4762f8788.html

It would be interesting if they used the same mix and 23 years earlier. I'm not an asphalt expert, but i would expect the technology would have changed quiet a bit in that time. The equipment certainly has!

jayzbird

Yes, Weathertech has done some really nice upgrades. I remember walking the track ~ 2015 and the gullies and eroded edges around the drainage culverts were scary—and this was before rainy season.. Much better this past year. They’ve already added quite a bit more concrete at the 8a apex that allows a straighter line through the corkscrew, as well as additional pavement exiting T11 onto the front straight. Both of these have already made the track faster, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more extra runoff added with the resurfacing to make it faster besides the better surface. We’ll see.

MaxLTV

I would not worry about it. Laguna's grip is very variable already due to all the sand blowing over the track on dry and/or windy days. They already improved water drainage significantly, though - that does help with lap times in the rain tremendously.