Going 3 wide at Capital City Speedway

R.W. Tomlinson raised the bar in customer service when it put its unique resources and expertise to work at Capital City Speedway.

Tomlinson was awarded the contract to re-surface Capital City’s track with a 40mm lift of friction course asphalt. The track’s width varied from 15 metres to 17 at its widest (in the curves), which meant we would have had to pave three lanes wide. Standard paving techniques of a single paver and three rollers would leave cold joints between the three lanes and lead to premature cracking of the surface.

So we put our heads together and came up with a solution that would give our customer the best possible product. The decision was made to pave the track using three Caterpillar AP-1000 pavers in echelon, which meant that the pavers operated side by side so there would be no cold joints. It is common to see two pavers in echelon, but this was the first time in company history that we went three wide.

The job posed unique challenges because the banking in the turns varied from five to 10 per cent, preventing us from safely dumping the trucks. Our Roadtec RP-2500 shuttle buggy was used instead to transfer the asphalt from the trucks to the pavers, which kept a constant forward speed. Despite early morning rain, all three crews and the equipment performed flawlessly, placing 1,000 tonnes in 5 1/2 hours. The quality of the job was exceptional, and we are sure all of the race car drivers and fans will appreciate the new surface. In fact, they have seen lap times decrease by 1 1/2 seconds.

Capital City Speedway is home to local stock car racing in Canada’s National Capital Region. In operation since 1961, the pavement was close to 50 years old and in serious need of repair. The track is a three-eighths-of-a-mile oval and will host 18 events this summer.