The San Diego Padres and Major League Baseball will not be in play at Petco Park anytime soon. In their place is Monster Energy Supercross. In preparation for the dirt bike racing, Petco Park is being transformed from a “Field of Dreams” to a “Diamond of Dirt.” NBC 7’s Todd Strain was on the field as the transformation began to…
Petco Park, home to the San Diego Padres, is transforming from a field of dreams to a diamond of dirt.
In preparation for Saturday’s Monster Energy Supercross, organizers dumped 26 million pounds of dirt on the Petco Park field Tuesday morning.
“We’re unloading eleven semi-trailers of dirt and my crew is building this course all day and into the night, then we’ll turn on the lights and hopefully have it all done by 9pm tonight,” said Tim Phend, Director of Operations for Monster Energy Supercross.
Supercross tracks are one of a kind layouts filled with air-inducing jumps and various obstacles.
Brandon Short, Events Manager for Monster Energy Supercross said, “Each Supercross track is truly unique to itself, it will never be duplicated. Every time a rider comes to a stadium to one of our events, he’s never seen this track before, he’s going to learn the track that day, race on it that night, then he’ll never see that track again.”
With the help of roughly twenty earth moving vehicles and an expert crew, the Petco Park layout was coming together. Jumps, bumps and turns were popping up where there previously pitching mounds, bases and green outfield grass.
Once the track is complete and the racing starts, riders will take the jumps and fly 35 feet through the air along the first and third baselines at Petco Park.
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The Monster Energy Supercross takes place Saturday, January 14th at Petco Park. Additionally, Monster Jam will return to Petco Park for two weekends of action on Saturday, January 21st and Saturday, February 18th. For more information or tickets log onto www.supercrosslive.com or www.monsterjam.com.
