Building a 250cc training and Minigp race track

[Shaun Harris]

Cheers guys. I have done about all I can with the home work involved in this plan for now from here in New Zealand. The next stage of this is a trip to the USA to sit down with certain people and discuss the rest of it face to face.

[chrisc]

Ok Shaun, I was involved in the early stages of Colin Dale Park, the "motorsport park" that had been designated by Manaku City Council and the later Auckland Council for noisy unsociable activities. This is where the new Auckland Kart track will be built to replace Mt Wellington and Rosebank Rd.

I was directly part of the consultation with the user groups, and work with the designers in the development of the master plan for the entire site (a 50 hectare piece of land). I then took over the Civil enabling works, primarily the earthworks, roading and stormwater designs for the relevant consents that the council was obtaining prior to handing over the designated areas to each of the user groups.

The Kart club ended up with a 10 hectare site allocation. The wanted 20 hectare to start with. Bear in mind that the goal is to build an international level karting facility. From memory they are going to build a 1200m track with the ability to increase its length to 1600m (or 1800m I cant quite recall). Average track width of 10m. Given that they were buying no land (pepper corn lease to the council) the budget was in the order of $3million.

You would be stupid to use anything other than Asphaltic Concrete. What mix to use you would need professional advise. Mix 10 is standard for roads, but I know they did use something special at Hampton Downs. No idea what the mix is in Taupo.

Not enough details to answer the question. But at the very least an invited tender process, at the most public open tender, would be required to get the best price.

Oval dirt track? Motocross? Just curious not much to add on this, apart from un-stabilised dirt tracks are starting to run into there own consenting issues due to sediment runnoff. Just something to think about.

Its a big dream, and there is nothing wrong with that, but the practical engineer realist in me says you better have big pockets or big backers as you will spend (in my opinion) several $100,000 before you even turned dirt.

I remember briefly talking about this in another thread, and maybe a bit at a Tokoroa meet Pumba. I'm unsure if you're aloud to speak of the project much in a public area but are you able to give an update for those interested like me? I haven't actually been out to that area to have a look if there is visible progress. I can't find any recent discussion on it online either. Cheers

[Pumba]

You are just in luck as I have been looking back in the last week over some old project files and have my hard drive sitting right here beside me. I dont have any concerns talking about it now. I left the consultancy that was dealing with the consents, enabling earthworks, stromwater, and roading designs back in December 2012. So bear in mind some of my info may be out of date.

So the Manukau City Council obtained a 50 odd hectare site at 87 Prices Rd.



This site is adjacent to the existing Puhinui Reserve (Horse Facility. Big 3 day event thing here once a year) and under the approach path for the Airport. The land was called Colin Dale park and designated as a "Motorsport Park" back in the early 2000 with a Plan Change in the District Plan.

This was the concept plan at that stage



As you can see the plan was centred around the Kart Club (Mt Wellington is on Council leased land and has been looking for a new home for a while now) and this being the future home of speedway (once the arseholed Western Springs). I think I recall Ivan Mauger being involved in some capacity at this early stage and that was the reason for the long track. Anyway. Oh the other thing you may notice is that a quarter of the site at the headlands was the harbour lost to the local Iwi for a Marae site. A deal that was done at the Mayoral level to get the plan change through.

Back in 2010ish the council advertised for expressions of interest from potential user groups facility. This is about when we became involved. We interviewed each of the groups, figured out what they wanted, and then worked with a landscape architect to develop a master concept plan for the site.

This was a hell of a process because each group wanted at least half the site, and we had to leave room for the speedway even though we had no one to talk to because the no body wanted to be seen to be involved as it would compromise their position at western springs.

Anyway lots of backwards and forwards and council bureaucracy and not understanding what each of the groups actual wanted and grossly underestimating the cost and we ended up with this Master Plan.



(Note speedway had fallen by the wayside at this point)

In tandem with all this I was doing the engineering designs and consenting packages. I think we were up to about 150,000m3 of earthworks for the site with my final design.

Last I heard was that the earthworks consent for the enabling earthworks was issued in February/March 2013. So I would have expected there to be some movement of dirt in the last earthworks season.

But really after this point I don't know. The company I was with had grossly underestimated the work involved in the project and was looking to cut it loose. Add to that the fact they made most of the people left that were involved in the project redundant about the same time as the consent came through I lost most of my contacts at that particular company (well the ones that would tell me ALL the details anyway).

If anyone is out and around that area and wants to have a look at the site (I keep meaning to but the few times I have been back to Auckland since leaving doesn't take me in that direction) and tell us what it looks like (maybe some photos?) now it would probably give us a good idea what stage it is at.

[chrisc]

You can never make everyone happy, that sounds like some painful job you there for a while! Thanks for the low down.
I'm definitely keen to see if anything has happened, anyone live close by?

[Shaun Harris]

Be great to find out an update regarding this motorsports park

[kiwi cowboy]

...both CAMS and BEARS next meetings are on the full track...June 15th, rnd 2 BEARS winter series...you can get as many laps in as you want on the practice/hire days which are weekly things...

Is the Cams meet on the 10th and bears on the 11th may not on?????????

[ellipsis]

...going by the CMI calendar BEARS Rnd 1 is the 11th...day after CAMS AGM meeting...

[scott411]

Be great to find out an update regarding this motorsports park

it got put on the back burner when the supercity was formed, although I know the person with the rights to the motocross side of it, and there is still some talk about it, I think the offroaders held a race meeting there,

on our orginal question, about 10 years ago we talked to the Auckland Kart Club about moving out to Harrisville to be with the MX track, but the land was unsuitable, I know they have been trying to replace Mt Wellington for a while,