Posted on Monday, 5th July 2010 by Ken Friend
Long time Michigan Intl Speedway find will find this interesting…….
MIS reconfigured the Infield area for the 2010 race season and the new configuration allowed the first row of RV’s to be closer than ever before. To make this happen, guard rail was removed within the infield. The guard rail (Armco barrier) was first installed in the infield at MIS about 20 years ago to provide a safety lane for pedestrians and emergency vehicles. So, I began to wonder where that infield guard rail came from to begin with.
Longtime friend & MIS Director of Operations Barry Gibson has been at MIS for over 30 years and has been very instrumental in the speedways growth. Behind the scenes through these years he’s been very frugal when it comes to dismantling different aspects on the MIS property. He rarely threw anything away and that’s where this infield guardrail comes into play. I wrote Barry asking about the guardrail.
If you remember, guardrail served as the outside retaining wall at the 2 mile oval until it was replaced by a concrete wall ringing the outside of the race track in the 1980′s. Well, Gibson saved that guardrail when the concrete wall was installed & shortly after that, the guardrail was re-installed in the MIS infield until it was ripped out early in 2010.
But …. Gibson didn’t throw it away….. The MIS infield guardrail was trucked to Watkins Glen International, another ISC owned facility, and is now part of the legendary road course.
MIS Infield fans are closer to the racing surface.
Ken Friend – GetRacingInfo.com
Posted in NASCAR News, Race Track News | Comments (0)
