Changes at Pukekohe

[Swedish Brick]

Right, my fears about the new corners were 100% completely wrong. That was some pretty damn good racing all weekend!
Concrete walls over the mountain look fine too.

[smokin'joe]

Originally Posted by Swedish Brick

Right, my fears about the new corners were 100% completely wrong. That was some pretty damn good racing all weekend!
Concrete walls over the mountain look fine too.

fully agree. would go out on a limb and say the best saloon racing, in NZ for nearly 10 years.

[DX20VT]

Agree, and loved the 4 x Qualify 4X race format,
much better than the start where you finish.

[Goat Boy]

Looked good although I heard one of the SC drivers say it was "hard to pass" but I don't know if that was generally true or just him - good crowd too which is a relief, not sure what the Saturday crowd was like.

[HProject]

Having been there for the whole weekend, my only complaint is the over the top catch-fencing. It looks to me a bit like they just decided to use every ounce of the stuff they had left over from Hamilton, instead of leaving a few spaces for spectating. I know a lot of photographers are miffed by the fencing too - with some of them spray-painting portions of it black over the weekend so that it would mess less with their pics. The heights of a lot of the photog portals seemed pretty poor too.

As far as the track changes go though, it's a winner.

[Goat Boy]

ST are there next month, can't wait!

[RogerH]

I read on another forum that evidently the old back straight configuration can't be used as the circuit licence doesn't incorporate this as part of the race track anymore.

Also, there were apparently drainage problems over the weekend with the new back straight corners section turning into a lake.

[socram]

Correct Roger. Apparently, they will be applying for an additional or modified track licence so that the old back straight can be used in its entirety.

I gather that due to the visibity problems caused by the concrete barriers, they now need extra flag marshals.

Siting the start finish on the opposite side of the track has also caused problems. Drivers have been missing flag signals as their eyes are focussed to the right, following the corner, not glancing left at one of the points of the circuit that demands 100% concentration on the track.

Race control is still situated on the outside of the circuit and as mentioned above, the rain caused major problems Saturday. Back to the days of old when the paddock was littered with Pukekohe onions and other detrious after heavy rain and rubbish bins floated along the track during it!

[GT 86]

Why would the circut owners allow V8SC to come in and only allow the track to hold one licence only in its new configuration. Who is up who here and also in this new configuration you need 3 more flag points. Ahm, now only one circut, 3 sets of additional flaggies, flooding. Look I enjoyed the V8SC but there is more to Puke than V8SC. The pits were constructed for the V8SC fly away containers, trucks cant park there still, the pit bays are not flat so setups on cars are more than a mission.

[Goat Boy]

Very disappointed to hear about the flooding issues, I hope they get that sorted as it hasn't been a problem for a while until these changes were made - I wonder what it was that caused the problems?

[Armco Bender]

I wonder what it was that caused the problems?

Rain...

[Southern Man]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

Rain...

Sorry wrong answer, you have not factored in conspiracy theory.

Please try again..

[Goat Boy]

If we are going to chase conspiracies we should call upon the services of Dr Matthew Dentith, whose doctorate is in conspiracy theories would you believe...

Wonder what kind of a job you'd get with that?

[smokin'joe]

Originally Posted by Southern Man

Sorry wrong answer, you have not factored in conspiracy theory.

Please try again..

there was a polar tilt due to the standing starts of the AV8SC , and the gravitational pull that the NZV8 Toyotas have !!!!

[RogerH]

I had a visit from a competitor who was racing at Pukekohe the other weekend - he was looking for body parts for his car after he hit an impact absorbing concrete wall. He said that 15 cars where damaged during the meeting which is an extraordinary number for what was a smallish club type meeting.

It brings into question whether there is something inherently astray with the new track "improvements". Clearly so many impact absorbing concrete barriers close to the track edge are much more unforgiving than the pre "street circuit" track configuration but it seems that a lot of the problem was caused by the weather. Evidently, the relaid track sections have different grip levels in the wet so there is inconsistent grip around the circuit. Additionally, there were problems with standing water in areas where they have constructed new kerbs as there appears to have been no provision made for drainage.

Thinking about all of this on a wider perspective, it makes you wonder where the $6.6m of rate and tax payers money actually went as it doesn't appear that the physical changes to the track should have cost anything like this amount.

Does anyone know what the spectator numbers were at the Supercars event? I recollect that Auckland Council's ATEED people were basing the multi million dollar investment on their projection that the event would generate 50,000 bed nights. They acknowledged that around 70 - 80% of spectators would be local (thus not generating bed night stays) so on the basis of each out of town spectator staying two nights they would have needed over 80,000 individual attendees (not counting someone who attended on Saturday and Sunday as two attendees). I wonder what the actual figures were?

[Goat Boy]

Originally Posted by RogerH

I had a visit from a competitor who was racing at Pukekohe the other weekend - he was looking for body parts for his car after he hit an impact absorbing concrete wall. He said that 15 cars where damaged during the meeting which is an extraordinary number for what was a smallish club type meeting.

It brings into question whether there is something inherently astray with the new track "improvements". Clearly so many impact absorbing concrete barriers close to the track edge are much more unforgiving than the pre "street circuit" track configuration but it seems that a lot of the problem was caused by the weather. Evidently, the relaid track sections have different grip levels in the wet so there is inconsistent grip around the circuit. Additionally, there were problems with standing water in areas where they have constructed new kerbs as there appears to have been no provision made for drainage.

Thinking about all of this on a wider perspective, it makes you wonder where the $6.6m of rate and tax payers money actually went as it doesn't appear that the physical changes to the track should have cost anything like this amount.

Does anyone know what the spectator numbers were at the Supercars event? I recollect that Auckland Council's ATEED people were basing the multi million dollar investment on their projection that the event would generate 50,000 bed nights. They acknowledged that around 70 - 80% of spectators would be local (thus not generating bed night stays) so on the basis of each out of town spectator staying two nights they would have needed over 80,000 individual attendees (not counting someone who attended on Saturday and Sunday as two attendees). I wonder what the actual figures were?

It's very worrying to hear about the drainage issues. If you're going to spend that sort of money on a circuit upgrade you would at the very least think that you would not be making anything worse than it currently was. Whoever did the modelling for the circuit may only have done the new bends on the back straight, so if the contractor just went ahead and put in new kerbs without any modelling it may not have been apparent where the low points were.

If it is a problem at the upcoming ST round they may have to look at putting in a slot drain, don't really want catchpits per se on the racing line!

The concrete barriers should have been moved out a little, would have kept the bike boys happier - we will not see bikes there again now, which is a pity as Puke was a great bike circuit.

[Swedish Brick]

What barriers specificly worry the bikes? From the footage it only looked like a few up the hill. Wasn't anywhere near as bad as the talk suggested.

[Goat Boy]

Originally Posted by Swedish Brick

What barriers specificly worry the bikes? From the footage it only looked like a few up the hill. Wasn't anywhere near as bad as the talk suggested.

From the bikers I kknow who have cancelled their track days there because of it I think it is the ones coming up onto the hill, but there may be some others too.

[Swedish Brick]

Still looked a lot friendlier than the street tracks they race on!if anyone here knows some, can they ask specificly?

[RogerH]

From what a biker told me, it was primarily the concrete barriers around the hill area. Evidently, they usually put air bags in front of immoveable objects (in this case the impact absorbing concrete barriers) but because they were so close to the track edge, the air bags would end up partially on the track.

[socram]

A request has been made by the most active (car) race organiser in the country, to move the barriers back. Whether this will be done or not remains to be seen, as someone running many events locally, may not have the clout of one moneyed overseas race group, running just one weekend a year.

We'll see, but numbers for tomorrow's meeting at Pukekohe are well down on normal, for what may well be the last race of the season for many drivers. I am still not allowed to drive so won't get the opportunity to experience the varied track surface on a day that is not looking too promising from a weather perspective.

Having said that, it wasn't so long ago that patchy resurfacing made the entry to the hill a total skating rink in the wet. It was so bad then, that even the warm up lap behind the safety car was such that it appeared to me to be too dangerous to race - so I pulled off on lap one. Not worth risking the car, so much as I would have liked to have tried the new layout, for once, I am rather glad that I can't race.

[Bill Brown]

Originally Posted by RogerH

I had a visit from a competitor who was racing at Pukekohe the other weekend - he was looking for body parts for his car after he hit an impact absorbing concrete wall. He said that 15 cars where damaged during the meeting which is an extraordinary number for what was a smallish club type meeting.

It brings into question whether there is something inherently astray with the new track "improvements". Clearly so many impact absorbing concrete barriers close to the track edge are much more unforgiving than the pre "street circuit" track configuration but it seems that a lot of the problem was caused by the weather. Evidently, the relaid track sections have different grip levels in the wet so there is inconsistent grip around the circuit. Additionally, there were problems with standing water in areas where they have constructed new kerbs as there appears to have been no provision made for drainage.

Thinking about all of this on a wider perspective, it makes you wonder where the $6.6m of rate and tax payers money actually went as it doesn't appear that the physical changes to the track should have cost anything like this amount.

Does anyone know what the spectator numbers were at the Supercars event? I recollect that Auckland Council's ATEED people were basing the multi million dollar investment on their projection that the event would generate 50,000 bed nights. They acknowledged that around 70 - 80% of spectators would be local (thus not generating bed night stays) so on the basis of each out of town spectator staying two nights they would have needed over 80,000 individual attendees (not counting someone who attended on Saturday and Sunday as two attendees). I wonder what the actual figures were?

I doubt that you will ever get a true spectator figure.

Each attendee that spent 3 days there will be 3 spectators.

Then the is kids if they were free there will be a calculation to add them in.

You also have officials and race teams to add in.

The oldest trick in the book to boost attendance numbers.

[Tourer]

Bear in mind that ATEED's bed night estimate is for just that - so one person staying for two nights is two bed nights, another person staying for three nights is three bed nights etc. that being the case, you don't need heaps of different people attending each day to generate bed nights.

Shame about the drainage issues - no doubt they'll fix it & Puke does suffer from being the place that most of the local runoff drains to - have been drainage issues there before, including the outside paddock more like a lake.

The barriers are movable so would think moving them back could be accomplished in some parts of the track.

[Goat Boy]

Hopefully they can sort it. I have to say the attendance looked pretty good from the TV, you'd have to have had 50k there on Sunday?

[RogerH]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Bear in mind that ATEED's bed night estimate is for just that - so one person staying for two nights is two bed nights, another person staying for three nights is three bed nights etc. that being the case, you don't need heaps of different people attending each day to generate bed nights.




Shame about the drainage issues - no doubt they'll fix it & Puke does suffer from being the place that most of the local runoff drains to - have been drainage issues there before, including the outside paddock more like a lake.

The barriers are movable so would think moving them back could be accomplished in some parts of the track.

Thats the way I tried to calculate it - if the average non-local spectator stayed for two nights then the 50,000 bed nights equated to 25,000 spectators. If these 25,000 out of town spectators were say 25% of the total spectators (assuming 75% of all spectators were from Auckland, Hamilton and other locals) then the total number of spectators needed to be around 100,000 in order to met ATEED's projection.

The barriers I saw were locked into the ground with heavy duty pins - I think the barriers need to be locked together and locked into the ground so they can't move in order to get the track certification. Accordingly, I don't think they are easily moved.