Well, I guess sharing a few "milestones" would not hurt... As I have posted already prefabrication offsite is HUGE with this GC, and if the structures are precast concrete they may well be 50% complete "somewhere' that they would not share. Featherlight is a big precast plant right there in Austin. East Texas PreCast is over in Praire View....
Food for thought: The Austin GP said they could complete construction in 18 months. This was already a tight deadline, but they said the construction infrastructure in the USA would allow that to happen. Compared with the other recently constructed tracks (from a report I read): -Chinas track, completed in 2004, took 18 months. - Turkeys track, completed in 2005, took 24 months. - Abu Dhabis track, completed in 2009, took 30 months. - South Koreas track, completed in 2010, took 33 months. - Indias track, projected to be completed this July, will have taken 21 months The only two tracks with shorter construction schedules were Bahrain which took 16 months and Malaysia which took 14 months. But when you're the King of Bahrain and have unlimited money and no regulatory hassles, that greases the wheels just a wee bit. The Austin people acknowledge they wanted to start construction last year, and actually started a few *months* behind schedule. Also, AFAIK they are still haggling over the cost of road improvements. The claimed completion date is May, 2012. Anyone still believe there will be a USGP in Austin in 2012? If so, please PM me... I have a bridge I've been trying to unload - letting it go cheap!
No one is denying they appear to be behind schedule Mike, but just as Tex said (someone with actual knowledge into the sector and this project in particular, something you don't) a lot of it is prefab. If this is true then you posting pictures of construction sites has about as much meaning as your theoretical and hypothetical situations, while they may be based on something meaningful they don't tell the whole story.
If I'm not mistaken I've been on the hill that this picture would have been taken from, that's something to get the blood boiling
Being a privately held concern, they don't HAVE to... I know in these days of airport cavity searches and all, that really goes against the grain of "we have a RIGHT to know everything".......that the American public has been bottle fed to believe. But in Private business ventures, loose lips sink ships, and can certainly expose you to loss of profits if vendors get the idea they have the upper hand. Always take "three quotes".....and never haggle after the fact.
No that's a rendering, there's no hill of that vantage point on the East Side. It's MUCH more level terrain than the hills leading out to the Lake to the west of town. No mountains were exploded, in the making of this venture.......
Of course they don't have to. Just as we don't have to take their predictions as gospel without proof.
The site is east of the airport, which is east of Downtown Austin. That's why you heard Tavio sucking up to the schools of Dalle Valley, its a poorer bedroom community of Austin, that has never had anything above a Liquor Store robbery for excitement, until now... Was primarily Air Force non-com serviceman's homes, when the current Public Airport was actually Bergstrom AFB.
It's odd, the drive I have made to Austin all my life (since 1976 anyway).... From the flat Coastal Plains of Houston Galveston you drive more or less flat until leaving I10 for Hwy 71 at Columbus. From there it's 'uphill' thru LaGrange ( ahow how how.......*guitars*) and on to Bastrop, where you start to see the glow of Austin's lights, but not the skyline. Then just west of Bastrop you crest a hill and THERE it is!!!! (12 or more miles away still)...then you go down thru the Colorado River valley and zoom past the former Bergstrom AFB and meet the SE corner of Austin. I always cut off northbound at Riverside Drive (again along the Colorado) to head into the heart of downtown where my old UT buddy lives. Grab some Jim Beam and some Shiner Blonde and you are READY for Jesse Dayton's Thursday night gig at the venerable Broken Spoke. Austin has always been a wacky (State Legislature) yet magical (Music and culture) place. I really hope EVERYONE on this thread comes there to see me, not saying I can afford to feed ALL of you, but Texas hospitality being what it is, we'll party 'till the cupboards are bare, and there's a grocery store right up the block. (South Congress and Oltorf) Listen to Joe Ely's "Cool Rockin' Loretta"........that's exactly how Austin feels......My my my.
Did anybody record the 'special' who can provide a link aka Youtube that I can share with some idiots on another forum? I recorded it but do not have the 'puter/tv transfer option.
And there's only one proof, but you have to wait for it. I worked in planning and I will never forget the elected official, who when presented with an array of possible futures said, "I just want to know which is the RIGHT one." Well yes, that would be nice. Kinda take the guess work out of everything, wouldn't it?
I know it was a rendering and the hill isn't quite that high but what I was saying is that I believe I have seen the complex from this direction
Tex actually specifically said he isn't aware of what the electrical infrastructure was - I was right on that point. That's something I happen to know a little bit about. The situations I talk about are neither theoretical nor hypothetical. We have pictures on the ground in Austin, and little is being done. We have pictures of other tracks that took longer to build and have a lower capital outlay, and much more was being done there. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots. The Austin GP isn't fully funded and that's why very little is being done. There is simply no other explanation. All I've heard on the contrary are excuses... like "well, they will just build the buildings off-site and bring them in" or "how hard is it to build a few miles of paved road anyway?". On the one hand we have evidence, data and critical review. The other has unicorns and broken dreams.
I will sell the bridge for $397 million. The last 2 million you can use for a McLaren F1 to drive back and forth across it. ...still a million less than the mythical Austin F1 debacle
Usually when spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the cart goes before the horse. I've started numerous businesses, and I've never said "Hmmm, well we have this big building, now what should we put in it to make money?". Generally it goes the other way around... a need is identified, then filled for a profit. Those AustinF1 guys must be business geniuses to be able to identify so many unfilled needs and fill them all with this one venture. ...kinda makes you wonder how Tavo only ever promoted failed small-time races before he cracked the F1 nut!
