SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/86038
the camera once and get time lapse of a very famous logo from green grass to final coat in one day. We put our pump to white and painted white on both logos followed by yellow, red, blue and black to complete both logos before lunch. The pit road rumor mill was very busy talking about how Kenny's new laser device that was mounted on a tripod along the crash wall above the Sprint Cup logo enabled him to complete that logo in just a few hours. We decided to let the rumors run wild! After lunch, we put our pump back to white so we could make sure that all the white was second coated in the same day to ensure uniformity of brightness throughout the infield. We finished early and it was a hol- iday, so of course the only thing left to do is catch more bass in Lake Lloyd before heading back to the condo to enjoy fireworks on the beach. We had been getting occasional rain showers and the intense heat created the need for Sam to run irrigation Wednesday night. The combination of irrigation, rain and hu- midity makes it very difficult to hold some colors, especially red, yellow and black. With white second coated and stable, we decided to repaint all red, yellow and blue on Thurs- day morning. After lunch, we had to finish painting and clear the infield of all of our equipment and paint buckets since practices and time trials would begin bright and early Friday. We decided that Friday night, after the Nationwide race, we would re-paint all black in addition to repairing any logos that get hit as a result of spins or crashes to be ready for the Sprint Cup Race Saturday night. We were finally able to sleep late Friday morning to rest and recover. Since Sunday, we have loaded, hauled, carried and sprayed more than 320 5-gallon buckets of paint. At 50 pounds per bucket, that is 8 tons of paint. It was time to rest. Kenny flew back to Kansas City to layout and cut new patterns for clients leaving the three of us to deal with the logo carnage that usually results from the typical Daytona "big one" crash. While there were plenty of crashes and the "big one" at the start/finish line, only 2 logos were dam- aged so we were able to repair damage and re- paint black in all logos by 2:00 am Saturday to end the work week. Every race and every different logo has www.stma.org SportsTurf 25 been a new learning experience for me and Daytona is no exception. Working with Kenny and his crew at multiple tracks includ- ing Kansas, Richmond and Daytona, I have a new respect for this job. Our crew must make sure every logo looks perfect no matter what the condition of the turf and every track is different. Kenny and Justin have worked hard to develop and teach us new methods that reduce the amount of paint needed, minimize damage to the turf and deliver top quality logos. ■ Jody Gill, CSFM is the Grounds Coordi- nator at the Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kansas. He can be reached at 913-239-4121 or email at jgill@blue valleyk12.org.