HOLT — Vehicles’ roar on the Emerald Coast Dragway earlier this week didn’t come from powerful dragsters, but from concrete trucks and support vehicles building new track-side safety walls.
Meanwhile, local contractors and volunteer track enthusiasts are tackling other projects, including rehabilitating the control tower after almost five years of vandalism.
PHOTOS: View photos of Emerald Coast Speedway refurbishments>>>
As partners Ozzy Moya and Robert Brown, with local project manager Jim Knight, renovate the dragstrip between Holt and Harold, new track walls, were being poured Monday and Tuesday.
While Moya still hopes for a Memorial Day weekend grand reopening, Brown and Knight said that depends on other repairs’ progress, but a summer opening is likely.
The rest of the track rehabilitation hinges on the walls being done, Brown said.
“It’s not your everyday wall you see on a highway bridge,” Brown said. “(Department of Transportation) and track standards are different. Before the asphalt can go down, the walls go up. You’ll ruin your brand new asphalt driving cement trucks up and down it.”
HELP FROM VOLUNTEERS
Pouring the new walls was a priority, Brown said, because track safety is their biggest concern. The concrete walls replace steel guardrails the guys called “can openers” because they sliced open dragsters veering off course at 200 mph.
Because a barrier paver that molds the walls in place without concrete forms was needed, the partners were at the contractor’s mercy.
“We had to use this out-of-state wall guy. Their schedule is our schedule,” Brown said. “Then we had rain and rain and rain.”
The rain delayed pouring the wall, not just due to the weather, but also because it washed out the clay base.
To the rescue came a team of track-lovin’, shovel-wielding local volunteers.
“They brought their own pick-ups in and loaded ‘em up with clay,” Brown said. “Several took off from work. One guy took a vacation day. They really want this track back.”
While the track sat vacant between 2011 and February, vandals shot out the control tower’s extra-strength safety windows — a $3,000 replacement expense — smashed holes in walls, spray-painted graffiti, destroyed bathroom fixtures and chopped out the kitchen vent hood.
“They worked hard at that to get a dollar’s worth of scrap metal,” Brown said.
PROFESSIONAL HELPERS
Brown and Knight shared a list of area contractors who provided cut-rate prices for various services just to see the dragway opened again. They include:
●John Nelson, A to Z Plumbing, who replaced vandalized bathroom fixtures and split pipes
●Jim Wise, Wise Equipment, who supplied the track with lawn mowers and other machinery
●Steve Potts, A&P Metal Works, who’s doing control tower air conditioning ductwork
●Jerry Guilliot at Crestview Ready Rent and Sales, who, saying, “I want to see that track back,” supplied heavy equipment
●William Clary of Holt Electric, who, in addition to rewiring the tower, is coordinating other contractors and also cut off the old track guardrail posts, charging just $1 per post.
The roster also reflects the owners’ determination to use local companies and workers whenever possible.
“We want to hire local,” Knight, a Baker resident, said.
Brown and Knight said the volunteers’ and contractors’ responses are typical of local racing fans eager to do what they can to help facilitate reopening day.
“People are coming together,” Brown said. “I might own it on paper, but it’s everyone’s track. It’s a family track.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Locals pitch in to help renovate Holt dragstrip (PHOTOS, VIDEO)