As part of the SMI technical team, Point Source began planning for renovations prior to their acquisition of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway property, just before the 2008 racing season. This venerable facility, built in 1990, remains New England’s largest and most celebrated sporting venues, hosts more events annually than any venue we serve.
To say that the existing systems were ‘dated,’ would be the highest of understatements. Suffice it to say, it had served hard time in the harsh New England weather and was time to start over. In a three-phase design-build effort in concert with SMI’s development team and other members of the technical team have thoroughly modernized the facility. Initially, Point Source renovated head-end and core audio distribution systems, abandoning the waterlogged copper infrastructure and installing a new digital mixing and fiber-optic distribution system. Next, following the first SMI-operated event, our team renovated the Media Center, Press Box and broadcast distribution systems. Finally, the main loudspeaker systems were completely upgraded from ancient paging horns to purpose-built three-way loudspeakers, powered by fully integrated, network-controlled amplifiers.
The systems operate in two discreet modes – “Cup” and “Club.” In the ‘Cup’ configuration, used for major events, all operations are manual, mixed by an operator in the control booth. Because the track is used extensively (read..exhaustively) by motorcycle and road-course racers, the systems also operate autonomously, allowing the track operations personnel to simply hand off a couple of wireless microphones and allow the facility to operate on its own.
