Amongst the festivities of the hugely popular annual Australian Grand Prix hosted at Albert Park, Melbourne in March of this year was a special attraction. This attraction was a display for both racing fanatics and tourists – a vertically rigged Renault Formula One race car.
This unique concept was the brainchild of Carrspace an experiential marketing company, the construction was designed, engineered and built by Dave Crowson from Get Rigged. Based on engineering and wind factors, Dave quoted ‘The Eurotruss system was the only truss system that could be effective enough to vertically rig the Formula One car.’.
As per Victorian legislation for temporary structures the construction had to be capable to withstand 107kmh wind speeds. To fulfill the requiremen
ts, Get Rigged ordered a custom made HD34 15-meter diameter Eurotruss circle supplied by Showtools International.
The aluminium truss structure was 11 meters tall requiring a high level of trust, accuracy and reliability in the truss system. Additionally, Dave designed the structure with specific efficiency. The design of the build allowed the guys from Get Rigged to winch the car up the ramp straight of the tow truck that delivered it. A crane lift was out of the question due to the car ending up vertically. Get Rigged was told in no uncertain terms that they could only make attachments to the car wheels and were NOT to scratch the paintwork! Therefore some serious thought was put in to a design that not only looked great but was also practical enough to build and then install the F1 car as the client wanted-vertically.
Once the car was attached to the structure the hoists and infrastructure that lifted it up was removed to give the car and structure very clean lines and to enhance the look of the car just being “stuck” on the ramp.
This impressive structure included 14 tonnes of ballast holding it down onto 32mm steel road plates. To build this construction a team of three riggers worked 6 hours to install and only 3 hours to dismantle.
“Despite the build being quite large and involved the Eurotruss System works amazingly well,” Dave said. “Other brands of truss would have taken significantly long-er to build or do not have the structural integrity that Eurotruss provides.”
The end result was definitely a spectacular and memorable one for all involved, as well as for the thousands in attendance. Renault Australia was delighted by the impressive structure and the positive attention the brand received.
