From its home in Wisconsin, the Crandon International Off-Road Raceway hosts World Championship Off-Road Races, as well as a variety of motor races, R/C races, concerts and other entertainment throughout the summer season. Recently replaced, its old audio system struggled to compete with the track’s noise levels, and had deteriorated from exposure to Wisconsin weather.

In search of a replacement, the raceway contacted Kevin Mullins of Arrow AV Group in for a quote on a new system. Mullins knew the set-up as he had provided live production for entertainment at the track and had served as a flagger and spotter for motor races. His solution was a design based on Community R-Series loudspeakers. ‘We’ve used lots of Community for outdoor events and installations and I knew they would do a great job for Crandon,’ he explains.

The system uses 30 R.5HPTs located at spectator points around the track, at the bleachers and at the pit building. Four R.25-94TZ loudspeakers supplement the sound outside the concessions barn and four Community Distributed Design Series DS5 surface-mount loudspeakers are installed inside the barn.

Electronics are installed in the announcement booth near the bleachers and include a Biamp Nexia DSP, which provides mixing and DSP services, and Shure wireless microphone systems. The system has five spectator zones and a press feed for racing network productions. Each zone has its own volume control. Arrow AV Group programmed the DSP with an AGC block to avoid amplifying motor noise when the cars pass by the announcers’ booth.

Mullins reports that the owners are satisfied with the new system – race announcements are intelligible even when motor racing noise is at its peak and it receives compliments from spectators and pit workers who can now hear the announcements anywhere around the track.

More: www.communitypro.com
More: http://biamp.com
More: www.shure.com