Super super dome

[Actor]

With the racing industry in decline this well never happen, but wouldn't a big indoor track under a dome be great? The track would always be fast, rain or shine outside. The super dome is New Orleans is 680 feet in diameter. The super super dome would probably have to be twice that to hold a mile track.

Just a fantasy.

[Steve 'StatMan']

One of the DRF Writers in Las Vegas wrote up a great story about one for an April Fool's Day surprise!

[BreadandButter]

Atlantic City had an indoor dome in the 1930s or so for greyhound racing.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Actor

With the racing industry in decline this well never happen, but wouldn't a big indoor track under a dome be great? The track would always be fast, rain or shine outside. The super dome is New Orleans is 680 feet in diameter. The super super dome would probably have to be twice that to hold a mile track.

Just a fantasy.

Pi x diameter is the formula for the circumference of a circle. (I looked it up.)
Therefore a dome would have to exceed 1,680 feet in diameter to house a one mile race track. Of course a race track is not circular, so that changes things. I think. I suppose it could be done, but the cost would be prohibitive and beyond.

But allow me to propose a different solution. First, let me say that I am neither and architect nor an engineer. Someone with expertise in those fields could tell me if the following would work or not.

We start with an existing racetrack-I'll use Arlington Park since I am familiar with that track. We use the principles used in building a suspension bridge. At the clubhouse turn we construct two parallel towers. We do the same on the far turn. We then construct two more towers in the infield, such that we have two parallel lines of four towers each. The add one more line of four towers outside the track along the back stretch.

Then string your cables between the towers. From the cables you suspend your roof. The roof is made of a flexible material, cloth, plastic or whatever they use for those indoor golf domes or football practice facilities. Finally you drop down walls from the two ends and the side along the back stretch and anchor the other side to the roof of the grandstand.

This is something what it would look like looking from above.

* * * *
*( * * ) *
*( * * ) *


I'm sure someone will tell me why this won't work.

[Rise Over Run]

Originally Posted by mostpost

This is something what it would look like looking from above.

* * * *
*( * * ) *
*( * * ) *

Thanks for including the visual of what the covering would look like from above. I had no idea where you were going in the text of the post, but the visual made it clear.....

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Rise Over Run

Thanks for including the visual of what the covering would look like from above. I had no idea where you were going in the text of the post, but the visual made it clear.....

Obviously it did not make it clear. Try and use your imagination-if you have one.

[mostpost]

The problem with trying to do a visualization on this board is with the way it is setup.
If I type an asterisk * then hit the space bar ten times then type another asterisk * , I expect when I hit post, that it will show the second asterisk * ten spaces after the first. It does not. It shows them side by side.

[Rise Over Run]

Originally Posted by mostpost

Obviously it did not make it clear. Try and use your imagination-if you have one.

Can I imagine the entire thing crashing down on top of you?

[QuarterCrack]

Is this what you mean?

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by QuarterCrack

Is this what you mean?

No, that is better than what I meant. Just add drop down walls to have a climate controlled race track. I used Arlington as my example, but this would be better for tracks which race in winter such as Aqueduct or Hawthorne or harness tracks, many of which are five eighths or half a mile.

Thanks for the drawing.
ETA: I guess I should ask, is this a practical approach? Would it work in the real world? Could it be cost effective?

[Milkshaker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

The roof is made of a flexible material, cloth, plastic...Finally you drop down walls from the two ends and the side along the back stretch and anchor the other side to the roof of the grandstand.

I believe the technical term for this is a "tent."

[Redboard]

Interesting idea but I prefer horse racing outside in the daylight in weather, sometimes nice, sometimes not, but weather nonetheless. Running in a dome 350 days a year at perfect temperatures on a consistently dry/fast surface with no track bias is tempting but I’m afraid a situation like that would become very predictable and would, before long, get figured out by the bettors. Predictable to the point where overlays would become virtually impossible to find because there would be none. The result being that every horse would go off at his absolute, correct, mathematical odds (minus takeout), which means that everyone is an underlay.
Of course this would also mean that degenerate gamblers wouldn’t have to stay up late at night watching video, buying sheets, pouring over past performances and creating their own speeds figures, because a blind monkey would do just as well. But where’s the fun in that?
Not to mention that maintaining a turf course under these conditions would be difficult unless, aghast, you plan to use synthetic instead.

[olddaddy]

Some kind of dome over AP would eliminate grass racing which is the only worth while racing there.

[rastajenk]

Maybe they could use FieldTurf. Phony grass, wouldn't that send purists over the edge?