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By Daniel
C. Brown
The Rolling K ranch
sits on 300 acres of sprawling green fields near Madisonville,
TX. It’s a horse ranch, but the real “horsepower”
on this spread comes from an unlikely source. It’s from
the unexpected buzz of highly tuned, two-stroke motorcycle
engines that race around—and above—a winding, bumpy
dirt track that occupies part of the barnyard area.
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PHOTO: CASE |
Brian Chatfield,
a native of England, recently bought the Rolling K horse ranch
in rural Madisonville, about 100 miles north of Houston, so
he could have a large enough area to build an outdoor practice
track for his 17-year-old son, Adam, an up-and-coming motocross
racer.
Motocross races
are typically conducted in rural settings on closed dirt courses
between a half-mile and 2 miles in length, and between 16
and 40 feet in width. The courses require both left- and right-hand
turns and include hills, jumps, and other rough terrain elements,
so it’s essential that Chatfield is able to simulate
race conditions.
Anything but
Level
The practice track on the Rolling K ranch is roughly
280 by 400 feet, and features a number of manmade obstacles
and jumps. In building a motocross track, the bumpier, choppier,
and more uneven the finished grade, the better.
Shane Schaefer,
owner of Schaefer Tracks, the contractor hired to design and
build the motocross track at the Rolling K ranch, describes
the track’s layout in motocross jargon: “Two triples,
about a dozen berms [banked turning areas], four ‘rhythm
sections’ [lots of small jumps], one ‘whoops’
section, and some step-ups, step-downs, and tabletops.”
In other words, the course is anything but level. The track
has seven lanes that criss-cross the area. Each lane is 20
feet wide, with a 10-foot space between lanes.
The sport of motocross
is second nature to Schaefer, a 27-year-old motocross track
designer and racer. “When my crew and I aren’t building
tracks, we’re racing on them,” says Schaefer. “Our
tracks are built by riders, for riders.”
Schaefer says the
company’s three most common tools of the trade for building
motocross tracks are a compact track loader or skid-steer,
a crawler dozer, and a wheel loader. “For cutting grades,
shaping tracks, and lifting and hauling dirt and sand, that’s
all the equipment we really need,” he says.
Schaefer Tracks
rents equipment for every project. “We dig dirt all across
America, and the costs involved in transporting equipment
are too prohibitive for us,” says Schaefer.
For this project,
Schaefer rented a Case 450CT Compact Track Loader, a Case
850K Crawler Dozer, and two wheel loaders—a Case 621D
and a Case 921C. “I’ve always been a big fan of
Case equipment, because of the responsiveness of the hydraulics,
the ease of operation, and the visibility,” says Schaefer.
“I’ve been using Case equipment for 18 or 19 years,
and Case is my first preference.”
Finding Dry
Dirt
Schaefer says the biggest challenge he faced with this
track was finding dry dirt to work with. “We uncovered
a number of underground springs while digging, so we had to
adjust the layout of the track accordingly.”
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PHOTO: CASE |
On the third prospective
site Schaefer tried, the wet, sandy soil was still unsuitable
for a track base. So the contractor realized he would have
to excavate the wet sand and haul in red clay from a site
about 800 feet away. “We probably hauled out 4,000 cubic
yards of wet sand,” says Schaefer. “Then we found
a site with dry red clay, which we needed to build the base
and the jumps and berms.
“We used the
Case 850K dozer to scrape the wet sand out so that the loaders
could carry it about 800 feet over to the borrow site, where
we basically filled in the hole,” Schaefer says. “We
would load out sand with the 621D and the 921C loaders. The
site was too wet to use trucks for hauling sand, so the loaders
did the carrying. After we got about half the wet sand hauled
out, we began to load and carry dry clay on the back-haul.”
For cutting grades
and contouring the track, Schaefer says the Case 850K dozer
provided excellent maneuverability and was a breeze to operate.
“It also offered us the visibility to the blade and the
work site that we needed, and was very dependable on the slopes,”
he adds.
“We got the
Case 921C Wheel Loader onsite at the tail end of the job,
but it sure came in handy working in tandem with the 621D
to move out all the wet sand and bring in the dry clay,”
he says. “What a pair of workhorses!”
Schaefer says getting
the chance to work with a new Case compact track loader was
one of the highlights of the project. “The compact loader
did the majority of the finish work, because it has the tracks
that pack the dirt. You don’t leave the rough texture
of the dozer tracks,” Schaefer says.
Fast Hydraulics
“The Case 450CT Compact Track Loader is a fantastic
all-around machine, and really came through for us with all
the slopes and soft, wet ground we encountered with this job,”
says Schaefer. The increased pushing power of the compact
track loader was much more noticeable than on a skid-steer,
and he was impressed with the smooth travel.
“The hydraulics
on the track loader were pretty fast,” says Schaefer.
“I move quickly, and to finally get a machine that can
keep up with my demand brings a whole new aspect to operating
equipment. An operator is only as efficient as his equipment,
and especially with the track loader we weren’t waiting
around for the machine to catch up.”
Each track built
by Schaefer Tracks typically takes about 140 man-hours from
start to finish. According to Schaefer, the practice track
in Madisonville was completed in less than 10 days, thanks
in large part to the performance of the Case equipment. “We
moved about 6,000 yards of dirt for this project,” he
says.
Schaefer attributes
getting the Rolling K ranch project to his company’s
reputation as the largest designer and builder of Motocross,
Supercross, and Arenacross tracks in the Midwest, providing
services for track layout and design, construction, excavation,
and maintenance. “We sponsor several racers and we race
competitively—so we’re very connected to the sport
of motocross.”
Since 2002, the
six-man crew at Schaefer Tracks has built more than 80 tracks
across the country, including the Waterman International Raceway
in Illinois—the largest permanent indoor facility in
the country. The company’s list of clientele includes
various motocross stars.
The key to success
for Schaefer’s business has always been good customer
relations. “When you meet and beat the customer’s
needs, the good word always travels well—and fast,”
he says.
Daniel C. Brown
is the owner of TechniComm, a communications business based
in Des Plaines, IL.
GEC
- November/December 2005
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