SHS track getting resurfaced

Sidney High School's Weymouth Field track is set to be resurfaced in 2018.

"We've lost a little crumb rubber," Mike Brockhaus, SHS activities director, said, "so we're looking at options of putting on a structural spray, or a thin layer of new rubber and a structural spray over the top, to help maintain the track."

The track was last resurfaced seven years ago, Brockhaus said.

"We put a new base mat down, new rubber, and now it's seven years later and we're trying to keep the maintenance up on it," he said.

The school's athletes will benefit from an improved track.

"It will last longer and it will give us more life out of the track," Brockhaus said. "It will also hopefully improve our athletes' performance, so they have a great facility to practice on and compete on for home events."

The deterioration has so far not affected the athletes' performance.

"If the spray is done right and weather conditions are okay they can have better times," Brockhaus said. "When we first did the base mat the first thing the athletes noticed was that their legs didn't hurt because the surface beforehand was so hard. When they worked on the new surface, their legs didn't hurt, so therefore it improved their performance because their legs were always healthy."

The track is scheduled to be resurfaced next summer.

Already, Sidney Public Schools district has received two bids, one at $50,000 and another at $61,000, Brockhaus said.

"We're waiting for the third company who was here on Saturday to look at it to put a proposal together," he said. "The school board and (Superintendent Jay) Ehler and I will have to sift through the information and see what we want to do."

Brockhaus said the project is a necessary one.

"It's time to have something done," he said. "As long as we keep maintaining it, babying it, for as long as we can, we resurface it now or do the structural spray, or what have you, it could give us another possible seven to 10 years before we have to do anything again to it."

He added, "We keep it in great shape and it will give us longevity."

The track, though, will require greater work in the future, Brockhaus said.

"Hopefully the base doesn't wear out," he said. "The base was put in '92 or '93, so it's 25 years old. Eventually, I don't know if it's during my time here, everything will have to be torn out, which will be a major project. That's something 15 to 20 years down the road we'll have to worry about."