Steel Column Installation Underway on the World’s Largest HD Video Board

The third phase of construction began this week on the world’s largest high-definition video board, designed
and created by Panasonic, that will debut during Charlotte Motor Speedway’s
2011 May race events.

Installation is underway on the 500,000-pound steel frame that will
support the 165,000-pound video board, by crews from Granite Contracting, of
Concord, N.C., Mid-Atlantic Construction of Charlotte, N.C., and Eastern
Sign Tech of Burlington, N.J. For the third phase of the HD video board
construction, crews have started erecting six 30-foot tall steel columns
galvanized by Galvan Industries of Harrisburg, N.C. Each column weighs
18,500 pounds and is being attached to concrete footings. The construction
crews are using an 80-ton crane with a 100-foot arm to move the massive
support columns into place. The approximately 200-foot-wide, 80-foot-tall
screen will eventually rise 110 feet above the track on the steel support
structure.

A crew from EA Electric of Brooks, Ga., also began running the
electrical cables that will power the more than nine million LED lamps that
will illuminate the Panasonic video board during each NASCAR race event at
Charlotte Motor Speedway this spring, including the NASCAR Sprint All-Star
Race on May 21 and the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29.

Crews have already removed 900 cubic yards of dirt by drilling 12
holes, each 54 inches in diameter, more than 50 feet deep to bedrock level
and installed concrete piers in the holes to support the massive steel
frame. When completed, the total structure will weigh 332-and-a-half tons or
665,000 pounds. In preparation for installation, crews removed 18,000 cubic
yards of dirt and 3,000 cubic yards of concrete behind the backstretch where
the gigantic, nearly 16,000-square-foot screen will be located.

The screen will be centered along the backstretch between Turns 2
and 3, across from the start/finish line. Fans seated throughout the
frontstretch from Turn 4 to Turn 1 will have clear viewing angles of instant
replays, leaderboard updates and interactive entertainment displayed in 720P
high-definition visuals.

CMS PR

 

icon