Chuck,
Bill Ward who has put many days in dragging the salt says we just waited too
long this spring to get out to drag. Should have done it when the whole
course was like the last two miles at the north, sort of like spring slush
on the roads. The drags are built with three I beams in a framework with
the barels on toop. The setup works well on the long course for most of
seven miles and just smooths it. The short course is another story.
Speculation about the sodium chloride being low on potash...it is mined out
of the brine pumped the last two winters..and the motion of that salt over
the surface of the salt that was there. We need a blade as you say.
Checking on a road grader...patrol...to work it. There is a problem with
berms of material, the cost of working five miles and the equivalent of a
six lane freeway in width on limited funds. Just $10 from each racer isn't
a lot of money when you hire other workers and their tools instead of the
two, twenty year old trucks we have. It gets touchy too, you dont want to
leave tire ruts the drag can't take out. Then the surface is a new thing
each year and needs different approaches. Not an exact science. Mickey
Thompson spent days with a washtub full of slurry patching the course before
his runs in the sixties. Lots of experience out there dragging but no pat
answers. Get Salt Fever, Wes
----------
> From: Chuck Rothfuss <crothfuss@coastalnet.com>
> To: "Wester S. Potter" <wspotter@jps.net>
> Subject: Re: bonneville conditions
> Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 23:57:41 -0400
>
>At 03:11 PM 7/31/99 -0600, you wrote:
>
>**SNIP**>A drag with two 55 gallon barrels of water for weight didn't cut
>the surface at all.
>
>Wester,
>
> I've pushed plenty of Michigan snow, and have plowed lots of dirt, but
>I've never had any experience with salt. That's why I have to ask a
>question here that may sound really weird. How about cutting down the high
>spots with some sort of rotating blade? They've done it on the asphalt at
>the railroad tracks I cross on the way to work recently and that's what got
>me thinking about it. If the DOT can do it to miles of highway, why not on
>the salt?
> Borrowing ideas from several farm implements and saw mills, I was
thinking
>about a large solid drum(s) that rotated in bearings and was driven by some
>sort of small engine. The surface of the drum would be abrasive or have
>cutters installed on it, and the depth could be set so that only high spots
>were removed. In fact, the brush on the front of a tractor or street
>sweeper would be perfect if it were traded for some sort of big sanding
drum.
> And what if the street sweeper applied water to the hard spots and then
>ran over them with its' stiff rotary brushes? Would that make a big mushy
>spot, or would it possibly smoothe out the rough spots after it dried?
Like
>a big Zamboni (Ice rink resurfacer) for the salt!
>
>Chuck "Not missing Michigan mud" Rothfuss
>ECTA
>Swansboro, NC
>
>
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