We head to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for a behind the scenes look at the groundbreaking new race track. Director of Technology Mike Craddock explains how a facility-wide IP network makes COTA a "smart" track, while Director of Sustainability Edgar Farrera outlines COTA's environmental measures and non-automotive uses. Then, Bradley takes his turn on the challenging course in a 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG--the official safety car of Formula 1.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: [LAUGHS] Oh my gosh. What a freaking awesome day. This is amazing. Welcome to Translogic. I'm Bradley Hasemeyer. I am driving at the Circuit of the Americas Track in Austin, Texas. I am driving the official pace car of Formula One, the Mercedes SLS AMG. There's a number of things that make this track very unique. We're going to learn about it today.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: All right, so we're here with Bruce, the Executive Vice President of the track. Thanks so much for being with us.
BRUCE KNOX: Glad to be here.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: So tell me a little bit about how this track came to be, and how Austin was the site, and all that?
BRUCE KNOX: One of our original partners had a relationship with Bernie Ecclestone and always thought that Formula One racing needed a permanent built facility in the US.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: OK.
BRUCE KNOX: Austin, conveniently located kind of halfway between the East Coast, the West Coast, proximity to Latin America. We settled on this piece of property which is about 15 minutes from downtown Austin, about two miles from the airport, and really has magnificent elevation change. So the track was designed, really, to take advantage of that.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: If you're used to racing Formula One, you know Monaco and some of the great tracks aren't just left and right turns. It's not just a bunch of chicanes and whips back and forth, but real elevation changes. The craziest thing in this entire race is turn one. So right out of the gates you're looking up at a wall. And it's like I'm seatbelted in and I'm going up a roller coaster.
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BRUCE KNOX: The elevation change is great from a driver standpoint because it gives a challenging course. But really, more importantly, for the fans themselves, being elevated, being able to see, you know, 70% to 90% of the track in some areas, it's not like your typical race course where you see exactly what's in front of you.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah, all you see is this little, kind of, snapshot--
BRUCE KNOX: Exactly.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: --and the car's like, wee, gone.
BRUCE KNOX: Right, right.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: And they're like, yeah.
BRUCE KNOX: Exactly. It becomes a head--
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Now you just wait until it comes back around.
BRUCE KNOX: Well it becomes--
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah!
BRUCE KNOX: Well, it becomes a head swivel. So I think for fans, they really enjoyed it. And I think with our inaugural United States Grand Prix, you know, the reports from the drivers to the reports from the fans, we know we delivered on.
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MIKE CRADDOCK: On the inside and the outside of the track we have fiber and any kind of wire you can think of.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: [LAUGHS]
MIKE CRADDOCK: The real key here is that this track is an IP-based facility. All of our cameras, all of our sound, everything that we do here is run through a network.
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MIKE CRADDOCK: We have loops around the facility, so every time a car goes over the loop, it transponds information back to our timekeeping system. We have 44 IP-based cameras around the facility that we pipe back in to race control.
We can place cameras on the track that people can tap into on their PDAs. And we have a lot of wireless going around here. We try to put as much permanent cabling and wiring in here for the majority of the series that are coming. A lot of these series will bring their own cabling, their own needs, and so we've designed this to accommodate those kinds of things.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Oh man. And you're moving in no time. The brakes are huge. They bite so well in this car. Going through a chicane, the car feels very flat. There's a little bit of roll but that's just me. [LAUGHS] Yeah, yeah. There was a little bit of wheel squeal. Sorry Mercedes. Take it easy, girl. Take it easy.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: This track is infused with technology. It seems like it would be a great place to do research. What do you guys have planned in that vein?
EDGAR FARRERA: We've got a couple of events coming after that are going to kick off some of those initiatives. Formula Sun Grand Prix, which is another collegiate competition where the students build solar-powered cars.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: It's all solar-powered, right.
EDGAR FARRERA: Right. All solar-powered. And that'll be here this summer and they'll have, you know, between 25 and 40 colleges participating. That'll be pretty cool.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah.
EDGAR FARRERA: F1 in Schools is Formula One's their corporate social responsibility outreach program. They design and build a small Formula One type car. And when the kids are able to come out to a facility like COTA and see what we do here, it makes the science, the physics, the math, so real for them.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: So what's next for you guys here at COTA?
BRUCE KNOX: So we have a 10 year agreement with Formula One. So Formula One's going to be here for a long time. Our other racing content with Grand-Am which is sports car racing; V8 which is a Australian Touring Car Series; MotoGP which is the Motorcycle Grand Prix; American Le Mans which-- and combined with the World Endurance Championship; so really, really great racing content.
And you look at the track, it has a lot of different uses. So we talk about testing and product launches, but also running races.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Oh, wow.
BRUCE KNOX: It's 3.4 miles long, so a 5K is 3.1.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah.
BRUCE KNOX: And turn one at 133 feet--
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: [LAUGHS]
BRUCE KNOX: Yeah. When you start the race that way, it kind of-- it's heartbreak hill very early.
BRADLEY HASEMEYER: Yeah, right.
BRUCE KNOX: You know, Austin is a very fit community, so running, cycling, that type of thing, is really utilizing this for all times of racing, from motor power to human power. An entertainment venue from a music standpoint. It's a conference center for businesses. And it's really going to be one of the racing capital of the world. That's our objective.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: That's it for our time in Austin with this amazing vehicle and this technologically advanced track. What they've done is provided an example of how motorsport could look in the future.
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BRADLEY HASEMEYER: All right. For Translogic I'm Bradley Hasemeyer. See you next week.
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