From Raw Ground
to Ride-Ready

A wet track turns into a mud bath fast, and water sitting under the surface will undo everything built on top of it. Sorting drainage first means every subsequent stage is built on ground that'll actually hold. Swales are preferred over pipes wherever the site allows — no mechanical parts means nothing to block or fail down the track.

If pipes are unavoidable, they go in before any earthworks start. Trying to retrofit drainage around a half-built track is expensive and never as clean as doing it right at the beginning.

Limestone compacts well and stays stable — it's the right material for building the bulk of the track up from the ground. It's laid and rolled in 200mm layers, with each lift compacted before the next one goes on. Skipping that discipline and dumping it all in at once means loose material buried in the middle that'll settle and shift under load over time.

Big features like tabletops and major berms get built up in limestone here rather than relying on the clay layer to do the heavy lifting. It's more economical and produces a better, more consistent result.

Red oxide clay with a fine particle size — under 8mm — holds its shape well and compacts down hard. It's used to sculpt all the ride features over the limestone base: the rollers, transitions, berm faces and entry/exit lines. This is the most hands-on part of the build, and features get ridden and tweaked until they're right.

Once shaping is done and everything's been signed off, the track is left to cure before the surface goes on. That just means letting the moisture even out through the material — applying the polymer mix over clay that's dried unevenly causes adhesion problems later.

Gluon is a soil stabiliser — mixed through the same red oxide clay used in the shaping layer and applied across the full ride surface. It bonds with the clay as it sets, producing a hard, consistent surface that holds up to heavy use and weather. Using the same clay underneath keeps the two layers working together rather than against each other.

The mix is blended in a 180L auger bowl and applied at 50mm. Going thicker than that creates problems — the material in the middle doesn't cure properly and you end up with soft spots. Weather matters at this stage too: the right moisture conditions are needed for the stabiliser to set correctly, so application timing is planned around the forecast.

Once the surface is cured and signed off, moisture-proofing goes on across the full ride area. Rain getting into the surface layer is what breaks tracks down over time — the proofing is what keeps it intact between seasons. It's a standard part of the process, applied after the surface is ready.

Landscaping is the last thing done on site. Revegetating the surrounding ground isn't just cosmetic — bare soil around the track erodes, blocks drainage channels and undermines feature edges. Getting groundcover established early reduces ongoing maintenance and keeps the site tidy for council and land manager sign-off.