Crews tear down rest of walkway; another race scheduled Wednesday

Tuesday, May 23, 2000 | 2:54 a.m.

Speedway officials worked on how to move fans from parking lots across U.S. 29 to the track, with the collapsed walkway and another one now out of commission. Qualifying races for the Coca-Cola 600 begin Wednesday. The headline NASCAR race Sunday is expected to draw more than 190,000 people to the track.

The state DOT's Bridge Maintenance staff was instructed Tuesday to contact the owners of all privately owned pedestrian bridges over state roads and conduct immediate inspections of those bridges, the department said. There are 10 privately owned bridges over North Carolina roads, including the two at the speedway.

"We believe that immediate inspections of these facilities are in the best interest of the public to ensure their safety," said Transportation Secretary David McCoy.

An 80-foot section of the 320-foot walkway at the speedway fell 17 feet onto the highway after Saturday night's The Winston, a NASCAR all-star race, as fans crowded the bridge, trying to reach their cars. Corrosion is suspected as the cause of the failure, but engineers are puzzled that rust could have weakened a bridge that was just five years old.

Another, four-year-old walkway 500 yards away was closed Monday after a rust spot was seen on exposed steel, meaning race fans will have to use crosswalks on U.S. 29 to get from the parking lots to the track.

Forty-eight people remained hospitalized Tuesday with injuries from Saturday night's collapse. Two were listed in critical condition.

Tindall Corp. of Spartanburg, S.C., which made the slabs for the walkway, has dispatched an engineer and a private firm to investigate the collapse. The track's own engineers also are investigating.

William Lowndes IV, Tindall's chief operating officer, said a "double-T" design was employed in the construction of the failed walkway. Wet concrete is poured around stretched steel cables to make slabs. After the slabs dry, the tension on the cables is released, strengthening the concrete.

The design is widely used for all kinds of structures, engineers said.

"We don't believe there was anything in the design or manufacture of the double-T itself that in any way contributed to the cause of the failure," Lowndes said. "We don't know exactly what did, but we are fairly confident that that was not a cause."

"I have never heard of a double-T cracking in the middle like that," said Dan Falconer, engineering manager at the American Concrete Institute in Farmington Hills, Mich. "It is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen."

All 11 cables buried in the concrete were corroded, causing the bridge to bow and then snap, said Don Goins, the state's chief engineer.

Officials said the walkway was designed to withstand 100 pounds per square foot. The collapsed section, 16 feet wide by 80 feet long, should have been able to bear 128,000 pounds.

Speedway president H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler said no more than 150 people - about 22,500 pounds - were on the section when it failed. "Weight had no bearing on this whatsoever," he said.

Federal highway bridges and North Carolina state pedestrian and highway bridges are inspected every two years, but the speedway was under no inspection timetable. Track officials have been unable to say when the bridge was last inspected.

The state transportation department will now require owners of bridges over state roads to have the bridges inspected every two years at their own expense, DOT officials said. The department will require owners to submit copies of the inspection reports.