From: Rich J .....--... Re: Why not Winton?
on 18/11/2011 at 03:23 PM
"Not enough run off on most corners"? What are you talking about Terry? I've never seen a bike hit the fence at Broadford and I've seen and been in a lot of crashes there. Sure it could do with a bit more grass rather than gravel, but there's enough run off. It's a short track and top speeds are not going to be 300kph.
The Winton track surface is crap. It's a great, technical track, but you can't tell me that all the riders are happy about that black silasticy stuff they plug the cracks with just because "no one complained" at your last event there. the big bump a third of the way in to the sweeper, the high, bumpy, slippery, ripple strips that throw you off if you hit them when they are wet. That and that big concrete wall coming back out of the esses on to the old start finish line mean that I, like many, won't ride there again until something is done to fix it.
It gets the lowest entry numbers of any Vic series events, whether clubbies or Vic titles. If it was a great track and up to spec, entries would be comparable to the other tracks & people would go there. As it is, with travel time involved, it's not worth it in its current condition. It's a great track, but it really does needs work.
There is lost of BS being told about the 'black silasticy stuff' as you call it. Nearly every track has it some where on it and it is the product that is used world wide to seal damage and cracks. Believe it or not a lot of the damage caused to race tracks is caused by crashing bikes that cut groves into the circuit when they slide or bounce along after crashing, this doesn't happen when cars crash. I have had some track owners cursing bikes for the amount of damage that they cause their track surfaces with crashes and some would be happy to see the back of bikes altogether. Now that doesn't come from the three tracks that are all partners in ARTRP so here is one of the few tracks that are keen to support bike racing getting bagged and having misinformation being spread about it.
Same thing goes for Go Cart tracks where a number of years ago they allowed Motard bikes to hire the circuits only to find that when the bikes crashes they wrecked the tracks, now it is hard to find any Go cart track willing to allow bikes on it at all.
That 'black stuff' you talk about is designed to give equal traction to the normal track surface and it is was such a issue then it would not be sold around the world and or there would be records of it causing issues, but it would seem that much of the complaints only come from riders complaining about Winton.
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