Mineral Wells clean up

[BMcCann]

Slow Thursday thought:

Has anyone thought of organizing a day where a bunch of us go out to Mineral Wells, bring some weed-eaters, and go to town on the grassy rectangle? I know MW is big enough that we don't *really* need that area, but it could be beneficial to have that open space for some mega-event down the road.

Thoughts?

[OZMDD]

The issue is not so much the grass, but the quantity of gravel and sediment that has accumulated at all the seams, which is why the grass is now growing. Those areas became unused because there are quite a few spots with big enough pavement issues to preclude mod cars from going through, and they are probably even worse now after several drought years.

My opinion is that MW is on the way out as a popular autox site, and its still plenty big for anything you'd like to run there. Attendance at MW events is light at best, and the tire shredding seems to have worsened. I don't think there is much motivation to invest significant time/labor into the site, particularly if the other tenants out there are lobbying to stop renting it to us anyway.

If you do organize such an event, I'll come help.

[jrj512]

Why would I want to clean it up if no one wants to go there? There is a reason why the NTAXS and SCCA do not have events out there. People are not avoiding it because the weeds on the top portion make the usable area too small.

[altiain]

Attendance at MW events is light at best, and the tires keep getting softer, so the shredding seems to have worsened.

FTFY

Funny, but I've heard all the rest of this somewhere before. A lot of people had written MW off a decade ago, and then Greg Lee took a tractor out there and scraped off all of the overgrown areas. The asphalt underneath was in far better condition than anyone expected, and for a few years almost the entire area was available for use.

Now the crap has settled in the low spots again, and people are predicting the end of MW again. If you had the right tools, you could make some significant improvements out there with relatively little effort.

[OZMDD]

I'm not predicting the end of MW, but it doesn't take a statistician to see that attendance sucks for the majority of events there. The. Current crop of autoxers doesn't like to drive very far for events. We had 80+ at the last ER event which was some kind of 2-3 year high, and it was buffered by the novice school and prosolo events.

While the pavement might have some great surface under there, JJ and I discovered several badly eroded areas that are beyond repair when we updated the base map before last years pro.

I'm sure you'll be right out there with your tractor though, right??

[ratt_finkel]

If we could get 3 or so of the Greg Lee tractors I think the entire site could be done in 5-8 hours? I would expect that many of the areas would "come back". However, there are several areas. Including the far bottom of the hill and the far top of the hill towards the water tower side that have some serious "cheese grater sections". I can tell you, even back in 2008 I would cringe going over those sections if I was on hoosiers. Those areas would need some type of asphault refinishing or shaving to be useable again.

That being said, if the site were shown to be "better" than it's current condition. I could see popularity increasing. While distance is important. I think most above averaged interested drivers would go a little further for a good site. MW included. Just like any site though, if it goes unused its going to deteriorate.

[Clovis]

Big effort, but could be worth it. Gregg Lee spent many days out there.

Here are a few points that might help...per an email from Gregg about 10 years ago:

I finished clearing all the brush, dirt, and small ecosystems from
the pad. I pushed the stuff near the edges off the pad…

Mowing alone just doesn't work. I used front blade with skids and trip
springs at about a 45 degree angle. Basically like a snow plow. Most came
up pretty easily, but it was beginning to dry in some places and was much
more difficult…

Gave the few damaged pavement areas a haircut with a mower…

The gravel mostly on the outside of PCA timetrial course was too small to
grade off. Too much gets under blade to be worthwhile. Really need a
vacuum street sweeper to actually remove. In the mean time blowers as
always...

Multi-club cleanup days are required to keep MW maintained and usable…

[OZMDD]

As I suspect is typically the case, I will ask the question: "who will start the ball rolling, and who will foot the bill?" Speaking for the ER board, I am confident that we can contribute in some manner, but certainly not in a majority capacity.

[ken o]

Is it owned by the City? Would they contribute to the clean up?