After a full-on year in charge of constructing Highlands Motorsport Park, Kevin O'Neill is justifiably ``tired'' but also ``quietly satisfied'' at what has been achieved.
The sheer size of the development is evident in the construction facts (see fact box below) and the speed at which it has been achieved is a credit to the contractors, says construction manager Kevin.
The build timeline started a week before Easter 2012 when Kevin met Highlands Motorsport Park owner Tony Quinn, who designed the track with his son Klark, in Brisbane. Kevin was then on the site on Easter Monday and the first sods were being turned in the last week of May. Sourcing contractors was the easy part, says Kevin. He and Tony's brother-in-law Peter Kelly, who was also in charge of the refurbishment of The Nose Restaurant, didn't have to look much further than Cromwell's industrial estate, where they found the majority of the workforce that built Highlands Motorsport Park.
``Only if we couldn't get equipment or services that we needed locally, did we decide to look further afield.''
The 700 tonnes of cement, for example, came from local outfits McNulty's Transport and Allied Concrete. Kevin listed other Cromwell- based companies Aotea Electrical, Totalspan and Breens Construction, which supplied the builders. He gave a special mention to Cromwell's BWC Earthmoving, which was ``basically the key to the whole thing''. ``
Bruce Wilson and Tony Smith really went the extra mile with their can-do attitude,'' doing the earthworks and assisting the other contractors right the way through the whole process. Kevin says he has been ``very happy'' with the quality, service and value for money the contractors working on Highlands Motorsport Park provided.
``Central Otago has built a facility that Central Otago can be proud of. What we have built is a world-class events centre rather than just a race track,'' Kevin said.
Construction Facts
- Total length: 4.8km
- Track area: 58,000sq m
- Earthworks: 26,000cu m
- Dam (lake) excavation: 10,000cu m
- Total excavation: 45,000cu m
- Kerbing: 10km (300cu m of concrete)
- Cement: 700 tonnes
- AP40 (road base): 7000cu m (13,000 tonnes)
- Asphalt: 9500 tonnes at 700 tonnes a day, 70 tonnes per hour
- Skid pan: 7000sq m (800 tonnes of asphalt)
- Go-kart track: 6000cu m (500 tonnes of asphalt)