For every action there’s a reaction, and when the regular supercross schedule for Seattle was disrupted by the World Cup, the Seattle Supercross was moved earlier on the schedule. Well, it just so happened the race fell one week after the Seahawks won the Superbowl, and the stadium was needed for their victory celebration. That meant the track and floor couldn’t start construction until Wednesday afternoon, and with rain looming on the forecast for Friday. That left organizers with far less time than they would normally have. Fortunately these people are professionals and the track and floor were put together in roughly 30 hours, which is incredible. It wasn’t easy, however, and on Friday Bill Heras, Director of Operations for Monster Energy AMA Supercross, participated in a prerace press conference to fill us in on the state of the track, and what we can expect on Saturday.
It’s rare that you encounter a schedule like the one you were up against here in Seattle.
Of course. I was here on Wednesday before the actual celebration in the stadium and it was electric. The stands were packed and they were screaming and chanting. The Seahawks were there giving their acceptance speeches, and I knew in another hour or two we’d be storming the field and turning it over for supercross. They left, the parade started, and we rolled in. We went right to work. We’d gone over it so many times in our heads, and talked about it so much, and everybody just went to their places right away. It was about a 30-hour process from top to bottom. As soon as the Seahawks and their whole entourage left, we went right to work. The plywood went down and the dirt started rolling right in. The podium got built in record time. Everyone was just hitting their marks the past two days.
What does a schedule normally look like? Did the team have to work through the night due to the time lost?
We worked a little later on Wednesday, the operations team worked until about eight on Wednesday, and Dirt Wurx rolled until about ten. It wasn’t anything too crazy to get the floor pushed out. On Thursday morning Dirt Wurx was already laying out where the jumps were going, and our operations team came in about noon and continued building the finish line structure, timing and scoring tower, the start gate, putting Tuff Blocks out, that kind of stuff. Both Dirt Wurx and the operations team worked until about 12:30 at night, which isn’t really that bad. It was a lot of work, I’m not going to downplay that at all, but they were able to get it done relatively stress free.
Can you tell us a bit more about the importance of having the right people in place to make this happen, and to the standards you hold yourselves to?
Dirt Wurx has been a longtime partner of ours, building tracks for us year after year. They’re well versed at putting a track in a stadium in a short amount of time, two-three days. This was obviously a bit faster of a build, but everyone was prepared. They knew they had to hit their marks. And we had some extra people from our Feld track construction department to help push the floor out. These are all professionals who do this week and week out. The operations team is well trained, and every department has their marks that they hit. We’re there as managers making sure we’re hitting those marks and working as efficiently as possible.
Was it the first time you’ve been in a situation like this? Did you feel the pressure?
Yes. This is the first time in my 18 years that we’ve done a track this big, this fast. It was definitely impressive. I think we felt a little bit of pressure once the Seahawks were winning the Superbowl, then obviously they won the Superbowl and the streets came alive and it was like ‘Okay, here we go. This is for real going to hit.’ But again, we’d had meetings, we came to the building early in the week and talked things through with the staff here, and then came up with the best plan of action of how we were going to make it work. Everyone feels that pressure, everyone stepped up to the plate and moved quickly and efficiently, and we were able to get it done with a tight turnaround.
Is the dirt stored in the elements or is it stored in a sheltered facility
It is stored in the elements, but it’s piled up and it’s slicked off so it’s shedding water. The dirt was moist bringing it in, but it’s been sunny for the past week that we’ve been here. It’s in great shape right now. We ran a heavy roller over the track to pack the dirt in so any water would shed off of it, and of course we covered the whole track with plastic. Tomorrow on track walk it shouldn’t be a complete mud fest out there.
So right now the track is dry under that plastic?
Yes, it’s in great shape. The dirt is in great shape and we’re expecting to have a fantastic race here tomorrow.
Weather is always an issue here at this stadium. Is the track tweaked at all in any direction in case of weather?
When we plan this track in Seattle a big thing is always, how we’re going to get the plastic out and off the floor. We need a design that we can get the plastic off easily. Other than that the only change we made this year was to take the triple and make it a double so in case it is muddy, we’re able to adjust it. Other than that this track is a full blown supercross track.
