Ford Returning to F1

[twobjshelbys]

My recorder picked up the Abu Dhabi race. I didn't watch it but the track route is a lot more interesting than the vegas track.

 

[PL510*Jeff]

This type of issue has been around for a long time. The initial Long Beach race had similar problem. The cars have so much down force, they "picked up" the man hole cover, which weighs about 60 pounds. Fortunately Long Beach uses a cast iron ring and they ended up welding the cover to the opening ring. The issue in Las Vegas is that they use a much less expensive concrete opening ring. So welding the cover isn't an option. They do a lot of good things in LV but as it turns out manhole covers is not one of them.

Correction : the lid that got sucked up was not a 36" manhole cover I described earlier but a much smaller lid for what is called a roadway box. It is about 10" in diameter and weighs about 5#. Purpose is to allow access for a long wrench to operate the opening or closing a water main valve. A $10 part that caused a very expensive repair to the race car. I never did find out the final solution to keeping the lid from coming loose.

 

[twobjshelbys]

Correction : the lid that got sucked up was not a 36" manhole cover I described earlier but a much smaller lid for what is called a roadway box. It is about 10" in diameter and weighs about 5#. Purpose is to allow access for a long wrench to operate the opening or closing a water main valve. A $10 part that caused a very expensive repair to the race car. I never did find out the final solution to keeping the lid from coming loose.

Yes, I and others posted pictures of the actual cover. It's a water valve access cover. I think they weight a little more than 5LB as they are cast iron.

According to the local news they removed all of the covers, filled the holes with sand and topped them with asphalt. I assume the water company has a vacuum or something to clean out the pits if/when they need access. I suspect they will remain this way for the foreseeable future.

 

[twobjshelbys]

My daughter and I have tickets to U2 at the Sphere in mid-December and I'm afraid that parking will be unavailable, let alone costly, and am considering the strip bus. I already know it will be a dry concert: a 12 oz beer is $20.

So the tear-down of F1 continues. It's still closing streets late night/early morning.

So our U2 show was last night. The area around the Sphere where the track turned into what eventually will be a parking lot is all cleared of grandstands etc. We parked nearby and walked on Sands and you can still see the tire marks from the turn!

The U2 show was two distinct parts: U2 the band, I'm not a real fan so give it a B+ (I went along with my daughter).

However, I give the Sphere an A+++. The auditorium sound and video are simply breathtaking.

Part of that high grade is U2's second mark: The Sphere itself is only a means to an end, and success of all future groups will depend on the CONTENT they provide. U2 's content was nothing short of breathtaking. Read about it in the Wikipedia article about the technology that had to be assembled. It's amazing and simply not cheap and some of which was new invention.

Did anyone else see this show?