Racing to AU: Pushing Construction Boundaries with Autodesk Construction Cloud at Formula 1 Speed

CLIFF COLE: Good afternoon. How's everybody doing today?

[CHEERING]

Yes. Day three Autodesk University. Is everybody having a good time so far? Awesome. Awesome. Well, we're so glad and privileged to be here to discuss our project that we've been working on for the last year and a half, the Formula 1 and Las Vegas Grand Prix. You might have heard about it.

We are-- just so housekeeping, we are live streaming. So we'll hold all questions to the end. If you do have a question, please make sure you have a microphone for the online audience to be able to hear.

MATT RODGERS: All right. All ready? Maybe not.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. Because today, we're diving into an exhilarating journey of construction in the world of Formula 1. I am Jonathan Stirling. And welcome to the Las Vegas Grand Prix construction extravaganza.

First, let's meet the dynamic duo responsible for this high-octane venture. It's Cliff Cole, VDC director, and Matt Rodgers, VDC project manager of F1 from the PENTA Building Group. These guys tackle construction challenges like F1 drivers take on hairpin turns.

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CLIFF COLE: So my name is Cliff Cole. I'm the Virtual Design and Construction director. I've been with PENTA for 18 years now.

MATT RODGERS: My name is Matt Rodgers. I'm the VDC project manager for Formula 1. I've been with PENTA for about the past year and a half, since the kickoff of Formula 1, and been in the AEC industry for about 25 years bouncing around different markets.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Now let's peek under the hood of PENTA Building Group and check out their typical projects. It's not just bricks and mortar. It's an art form.

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CLIFF COLE: So the PENTA Building Group, we were established in 2000. We are a general contractor mostly in the Southwest region. So located locally here in Las Vegas with our regional offices in Arizona and California. We have a dedicated VDC department of about 11. And it continues to grow. So we're excited to see the future of construction.

The learning objectives today, I'm not going to read them. You can see them online. But we're going to get into a thrilling detailed explanation of the F1 project and how we utilized all Autodesk Construction Cloud to help facilitate bringing this project home to fruition.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Our journey starts at the starting line, exploring the specifications and design of the pit building. It's like inspecting our tires before the race. Hold on to your helmets.

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MATT RODGERS: Some interesting facts about Formula 1. Let's start off, so is there any Formula 1 fans here? All right. Pretty good amount. How many people in here don't know anything about Formula 1 and this is the first they've heard of it? All right. There's a lot of that going around.

But some interesting facts about the construction side of things for us, where we started was the pit building, which is the main grandstands, the start line, the finish line. In the news, they say a lot that the pit building is 300,000 square feet, three stories with a roof. I say it's 400,000 square feet. The whole roof is occupiable. And they have temporary structures up right now for clubs for different hotels in the area.

The racetrack is 3.803 miles long, has three main straights, 17 turns, and two DRS zones. For those of you who have no idea what a DRS zone is, there are certain portions of the track where the cars can open their spoilers for maximum efficiency.

So for the infrastructure of the track, we installed over 3,500 crash fence barriers and have 37 traffic openings that will be closing off tonight, as you'll see. The 244 barriers in the closing and 243 fence panels and over 300 Tecpro barriers, which are for the overruns for the high-speed turns.

The 11-month construction schedule for the pit building alone, we had 92 subcontractors and 2,400 construction workers. The grand opening is the opening ceremony is going to be tonight. I believe at 11 o'clock they start. And if you go outside, they're going to be flying like 500 drones in the giant shape of an F1 car around the track. So that should be pretty cool.

Tomorrow is the practice rounds. And then Friday is the qualifying rounds. And then Saturday is the only Saturday night race in F1. And it's Saturday night at 10:30.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- We're making a sharp turn into turn one, showcasing the importance of planning and communication via CDE cloud applications, connecting teams across different continents, much like a global broadcast Formula 1 racing.

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CLIFF COLE: So Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world. We're used to building facilities like the Sphere, Allegiant Stadium, and, as you can see, all the amazing, beautiful casinos we have right now. But I truly believe there is no product like this F1. It's been amazing to get this thing done from foundations to completion in less than 11 and a 1/2 months.

The amount of effort and time it took to get all the planning in place, all the coordination with all the different entities, all the properties, Metro, the Regional Transportation Commission, it was a lot of coordination in this project. For us to be successful with that, we had to have a platform that allowed us to be able to organize all our information and communicate that to effectively all these individuals. At the height of construction, we were probably 500 people on site.

MATT RODGERS: Yeah. There would be 400, three shifts, so 1,200 people a day.

CLIFF COLE: Yep. Running 24-hour days for the first seven months, went to 20 hours a day after that. So the last few weeks, they were back to 24 hours a day trying to get everything complete. At that speed and pace with all the information and all the design changes that we'll get to here in a little bit that has happened, we had to be able to be organized and make sure we're diligent in facilitating the information out to the project team members.

So with that being said, Autodesk Construction Cloud was definitely a tool that helped us to be able to do that. For us, in PENTA, we use Autodesk Construction Cloud a lot of different ways. So we're Assemble users. We're Autodesk Build. We're Docs. We are Model Coordination. We just went over to Building Connected. We also are a Design Collaboration as well.

So on this project, we utilized all of those applications. A lot of it was for the first time for a lot of the individuals on the project. So there was definitely a learning curve. And again, with the speed of the pace of the project, we had to figure out how to get that learning curve done pretty fast.

So we started out with something basic that we already knew and the team members already knew. So Plangrid, we were a former Plangrid users. And then we transitioned over to Autodesk Build. So luckily, we had a good foundation set with a lot of our project team members internal to PENTA and also external to our trade partners and to our design partners as well.

So to be able to have that collaboration of the documents and share it in a location where everybody can see it has been tremendous for us. So now bringing in stuff like meeting minutes, RFIs, punch lists, incomplete lists has been a challenge. But our team was up for it. They knew we needed something to be able to have all this information in one location.

Being an early adopter of Autodesk is a little bit scary to try something new on a product of this magnitude. But we had a great team on the back end with Autodesk and the customer success in addition to a lot of our team members who have experienced in using Autodesk Construction Cloud and our old Plangrid users and people who were new to the software as well.

We sat down and went through and had a very diligent plan, as you'll see here in a second. But the key to a lot of the success is basically making sure that the team members understand the value of why we're utilizing this technology and also making sure that they were being trained by having them onsite meetings, a lot of good documentation in place, and support 24/7 for that team.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Turn two, folks, site preparation is kicking things off in June 2022. It's the green light for construction.

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MATT RODGERS: So when we first got access to the site, we initially realized we did some drone capture, some high-accuracy drone capture, and some survey data and realized that we had a 25-foot swell from the northeast part of the property to the southwest part of the property. So utilizing some of the technologies, we were able to go out there and, for one, use cut-fill analysis from the civil files and then kind of do a progress tracking weekly to kind of track our progress.

And we had determined that we needed 270,000 cubic yards of fill in order to level out the pit building from the southwest side. And you can kind of see that transition along there. It looks really large there because we had a 70-foot pad for cranes around it. But once that work was complete, they graded that back down to the track level. Then we kept using some of our layout tools and coordination tools. We're using the high-accuracy mapping to do some layout coordination and some verification of our foundations.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- The chicane turn three, we're accelerating into the creation of the VDC management plan utilizing the power of Bing and CDE. Precision is our fuel.

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CLIFF COLE: So as we mentioned, to be able to implement a software like Autodesk Construction Cloud, we would have had to go in and have a very detailed plan. So our superintendents were switching over from one daily report software to our forms and our daily reports and our inspections in Autodesk Build.

So we sat down with that team, the lead superintendents, made sure we had a plan in place that they were comfortable with. We put together a template that was specific for the F1 project. We had a great team. So it really made our jobs a lot easier. But to be able to deliver that to them, we had meetings onsite and training sessions onsite with the teams.

We had three different crews going in at the beginning of the job site. So we were staggered basically two trainings a day to overlap with the trades and make sure they were comfortable with the forms.

Our design partners were great to work with. They were able to upload their models to Autodesk Build, Autodesk Docs side. And we set a folder structure up with them at the beginning of the project that worked for them. And we allowed us to be able to grab that information easily.

And as Matt mentioned, some of that information was able to be aligned with our drone images to be able to capture and do comparisons between the design and the build out in the job site. So to me, it's critical, when you're talking about a race strategy or what we call a VDC management plan in our group, where we teeter that between document management and VDC trying to blend those two worlds together, having a plan in place that is really more focused on the end user and understanding what their value is-- what they're trying to accomplish, the pain points they're going to achieve, making sure that we have a strategy in place. And we provide the software and support to help implement it on the job site.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Turn four, we're receiving BIM models from architect, structural engineer, and MEP engineers. It's like receiving telemetry data during the race.

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MATT RODGERS: Oh. Yeah. Sorry. This is totally me. So here's an example of our folder structure. It's great to be able to have-- for a long time, it was the VDC folks really just having access to the model, right? One of the key strategies that we had is we got to get this information out as quickly as possible and make sure, obviously, the information is accurate.

So to be able to have model-based information, drawings information, photos from every crew-- so in the evening, the crew in the evening would go look at the photos from the morning crew. And then the morning crew would look in the photos from the evening crew, have that information flow.

Any daily reports that they took, they understood well the problems they had. Obviously, there was a crossover meeting between the two, like a direct communication. But anything they needed to reference back and forth, almost like a playbook right in a digital form right in their hands, so they can go back and reference that information.

Our teams took to it. It's amazing to see that the field folks who don't always love technology and don't always understand why we're using it, when you sit down, take the time to go through it in detail, understand what their pain points are, these folks are talented. They're smart. It's just critical for us to make sure that we simplify it enough so they can do their job effectively.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Hard right into turn five takes us to the world of model management for subcontractors, all managed seamlessly using Autodesk Construction Cloud. Our pit crew is precise.

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CLIFF COLE: So being in the VDC, obviously, a lot of our primary focus is BIM and model coordination and model management, as we call it, or BIM model. As we here, we call this the car setup. This is getting everything in line. So we're doing the coordination. We probably-- I don't remember the exact number of how many revisions we had on this project. But it was definitely north of 40.

MATT RODGERS: Oh, there was quite a few. And a lot of the revisions were coming-- I mean, some of it was even built as the revisions were being issued. So we were building the building as it was being designed.

CLIFF COLE: Yeah. We had the building about halfway done. And then we decided to put an underground tunnel underneath the building, facilitate pedestrian traffic. So these type of changes are critical when we're going through it.

And typical model coordination process had to be we had to think outside the box and really understand what it is. So there are strategies-- a little bit of strategies that we had. And Matt's going to go into a little bit more detail about how we did that in collaboration with our trade partners and our design partners.

MATT RODGERS: As you can see up there on the left, those tunnels there on the right-hand side of the building, those came mid-construction. And those are VIP tunnels. Just in case a paddock member gets lost and ends up in the other side of the grandstands, they have a way to access the paddock without having to go around. So you can imagine the kind of money that was spent in something like that.

But so when the initial plans were in schedule-- were created for construction, the field team decided to break the building into two. And if you look closely on the left, there's an expansion joint right at our 25 column. And we basically started two crews and built two separate buildings and then connected.

We kind of did a very similar approach on the coordination side. But we ended up basically breaking the building up into five action areas and went from one area to another to another. So five areas per level, four levels, we had 20 different areas that we would focus on our coordination efforts in that area and then move on to the next and keep in line with our schedule.

So it didn't actually-- it's not like we started on the left-hand side and just worked down the building. We started in A and then D, then B, then F, then C, and kind of moved all around. But it worked out really well in the end. You can see that. That's kind of how we broke it out by level.

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- High speed turn six, we're mastering BIM coordination with ACC model coordination. Think of it as drafting in the slip stream for maximum efficiency.

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CLIFF COLE: So our model coordination plan, we had to align our schedule and our model coordination plan together. And we're going to see examples of what that looks like here in a second. Again, part of this is the strategy and the execution of bringing this product home in the timeframe that we had.

We had to make sure that we were achieving, as Matt mentioned, how we broke the building up, the specific items we wanted to identify. Some things, we just didn't have time for. So we just had to make sure we get that information out to the field as fast as possible.

Sometimes that came in sketches. And we just posted that on Autodesk Build, pushed it out to the team. Some of it was through the shop drawing process and the coordination that we typically have done.

So but to me, having to be able to communicate this to our teams and understand that, again, not just our own construction team here at PENTA, but to all our trade partners and our design partners, we have to receive information in a way and a format that made it easier for us to better coordinate these projects.

MATT RODGERS: I think one of the real blessings in this project was our subcontractor teams. Everybody's local. Everybody had very high-end detailers. And they're very used to processes similar to this, kind of more of the old-school process of everybody's going to do their detailing for a week and work on their model and then throw it into a coordination. And we're going to look at all the clashes and try and figure things out this way.

This project was moving so fast. It quickly evolved into a cloud collaboration, where all of our subcontractors and detailers were creating their fabrication models within ACC. And instead of our coordination meetings quickly evolved from clash-detection review to realizing that we were able to figure out more design issues and constructability issues rather than things running into each other. Because the teams, as they were fabricating things, already had access to all the other subcontractors' detailed models every time that they were uploading, which was happening frequently. So we were able to really coordinate in real time.

Then we were able to assign our issues by area, reviewing by area. And having some of the clash matrix within Build was really helpful just to isolate, not so much reviewing each individual clash, but more so finding out what our problem areas would be or what our problem trades would be in that particular area.

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- Turn seven, we're navigating through the city survey, mapping out the course like seasoned drivers looking for the perfect racing line.

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MATT RODGERS: This is some of the fun stuff that I've never really got to experience before. And I don't think I really ever will again. But we started with the track layout, receiving our survey data.

We started with a manhole cover survey of the city. They went and got geolocated every single manhole along the entire track. And then taking that data, we were able to scale our BIM models, our coordination models, everything off of that.

Next, we were on to track layout. We're going to have to forego our cool sounds and stuff. But so the next thing we worked on was the track layout. And basically, after receiving the design from the design team, we were able to geolocate all those elements, place them into our survey data that we had.

And that way, we had an exact location for every crash barrier, martial fence, pylon, curb installation. And we were really able to coordinate a lot of the different track elements that way that you really couldn't find just in an engineering drawing.

CLIFF COLE: Yeah, I think when we went through it originally, we thought it was going to be a lot of coordination. And we even underestimated that on how much coordination it took with all the existing layout of the city, with the traffic lights, and the pedestrian bridges, and all of that we had to take into consideration and that the design team-- we had to inform the design team on. So it was one of the most impressive things that I saw that we've done in the past 18 years I've been with PENTA.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Turn nine, we're taking a virtual pit stop to create a 3D scaled model of the city. It's like creating a digital replica of the track before we hit the asphalt.

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MATT RODGERS: All right, so using that same data, we were able to--

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- Full throttle through turn 10 ensures we're up to speed with drone mapping to ensure current conditions. It's like our aerial reconnaissance before race day.

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MATT RODGERS: So one of the things that we realized right away once we had that scale model is our photogrammetry model was outdated. It was from 2020. And if you guys know Vegas, Vegas changes at the speed of Formula 1. So a lot of like the Sphere here and just a lot of little things like curbs, sidewalks, traffic patterns, things like that evolve in the city so much that's where we came in with our drone content, our aerial mapping, and things like that and really got a clear picture of the real-time existing conditions.

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- In turn 11, we're tying our rapidly evolving schedule to visual sequence exhibits. It's like synchronizing pit stops in a high-speed race.

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MATT RODGERS: So being such a high-profile project, one of the things we were tasked with is the schedule was changing daily. It was very fluid. And a lot of the exhibits that we had to create were for public consumption.

And not everybody has the ability to look at an engineering drawing or a design drawing and really understand what they're even looking at. So we used a lot of our visual representations to just make it a lot easier to visually consume all of our different plans that we had for opening and closing the track, when we're going to be installing barriers, at what time, and what area, things of that nature.

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- Onto the iconic Las Vegas BLVD. At turn 12, we're diving deep into our manpower and crew matrix. It's like assembling the perfect pit crew for the race of a lifetime.

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MATT RODGERS: And once we were able to establish all of our different openings from all the aerial content that we were able to capture, our team really started to refine how many laborers that you'll see tonight. And we have 90 minutes from the close of the strip. We close off the fencing. They have 90 minutes to move 244 barriers.

Each crash fence weighs over 10,000 pounds. So we have 75 forklifts out there. And it's, I think, 22 crews, 210 laborers. And they'll have the whole place shut down within 90 minutes.

CLIFF COLE: And then in the last month, we worked with the product teams to be able to put this information into the Asset Module of Build and assign each crew and each opening to each opening as an asset and then put in custom attributes for crews and and equipment as well. So that they can then have basically what we call a hot and cold track.

So when it's red, it's hot. When it's cold, it's green. So the teams can see where, at any point in time, where they're at in the status of opening and closing these. Because if you were here this morning, it's critical to get that open to get people into the work on time. And that 90 minutes is a tight timeframe.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Reaching 212 MPH at turn 13 zooms in on high-res photography of mission-critical locations. It's our way of capturing every detail, just like scrutinizing an F1 car for performance. Reaching--

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MATT RODGERS: So here's another thing with our coordination with our aerial mapping. So one of the tasks was to create a visual representation of the traffic pattern and how all of our different properties were going to be able to have customer access, employee access, services access, things like that.

So we went and photographed every single opening and then used the BIM models to do camera matching to create renders and an interactive map. So you were able to just click on the opening and see the open configuration, see the closed configuration.

What it would look like to protect the public is design scaffolding and barrier systems on all the pedestrian bridges around town. And they did a film screen. So you can't-- trying to prevent people from hanging out and trying to watch the race from one of the overhead bridges. Because in the event of a crash, you don't want a wheel from an F1 car ripping through a bridge at 212 miles per hour. So we were lucky enough that they tore down all the plastic or the film on it over by the Sphere. But they were able to replace it and get the barriers up in time.

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- Turn 15 brings us real-time sequence and installation path animation. It's akin to choreographing an intricate pit stop dance for our construction team.

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MATT RODGERS: I'm going to play a little animation here. So we were tasked with creating a construction sequence of how they were going to close off the track. And like I was saying earlier, in the engineering drawings, you weren't able to really take into account some of the potential hazards.

So this is the intersection at Spring Mountain and Las Vegas Boulevard, just on the corner of the Palazzo here. And we've labeled over the pedestrian bridges. And at this time, for closing the track, they're going to be having three different crews working simultaneously.

So once the first close or once the first set of barriers is out, there's going to be three forklifts and three crews of eight men working in the same intersection. But from the drawings, you can't really-- it's kind of hard to see in this also. But there's some overhead. Not only the bridge is an overhead hazard, but the traffic lights that come out, they're at like 17 feet-- are forklifts rigged up on the crash fence.

The top of our rigging is over 19 feet. So we had to determine a path of travel for all three forklifts avoiding all the traffic lights while avoiding each other. And this is kind of a 90-second animation. Each second represents a minute in time.

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- Turn 16 is all about repeated trial runs. Just like F1 teams conduct offsite testing, we want to be sure our construction process is as efficient as a well-oiled race machine.

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MATT RODGERS: You want to take this one?

CLIFF COLE: Yeah. Excuse me. So if you've gone down on Flamingo and Koval and on Koval and Harmon, they have these massive, massive vehicular bridges. They are an amazing feat. When I first rode on it, we couldn't tell that these are temporary, that these may potentially be removed after the race.

We also have vehicular-- I'm sorry-- pedestrian bridges as well to be able to keep the flow of the normal traffic going throughout the days in preparation for the F1 race. So selective cars will be able to, I think, drop over-- sorry-- to be able to drive over the bridge during the race. But they're going to pretty much shut it down.

But this allows us to have better traffic flow and continue to be able to build but also be able to prep the tracks for the race. So if you get a chance to get out after this, go check them out. They are definitely an amazing feat, for sure.

MATT RODGERS: One of the nice things about having our practice area, Trop 38, was we simulated closing off the track in all the different problem intersections, all of our major intersections. At first, in our crew matrix, they were allotting five minutes of time per barrier, per each barrier installation. Move it with the forklift and install the helix to unitize the whole system. After practicing over and over and over, we were able to whittle that time down to three minutes, which removed our laborer team from 400 down to 210.

CLIFF COLE: And Trop 38 is a-- Trop 38 is Tropicana Avenue. And then there's 38 acres of land. So that's why we call it Trop 38. Now that's basically our practice field as we prepared for all of this.

So I think in addition to that, we also were filming them practicing putting all this together. And then we were utilizing that video for safety orientations, getting the teams up to speed on how to new team members that are coming on board now that we've done it before previously.

MATT RODGERS: Yeah, instructional videos on how to install the helixes and a lot of different things.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- The end in sight, turn 17 keeps the adrenaline pumping with more visible simulations. Making the final turn, the driver can all but taste the victory. Pedal to the metal.

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MATT RODGERS: So a lot of the challenges were not only were we tasked to build what is now the largest paddock building in the F1 circuit worldwide, we were also tasked with building a nearly four-mile track right in the middle of one of the busiest cities on the planet Earth that never stops and also right next to, thank to this event, one of the top 10 busiest airports on the planet.

So we did it just tons and tons of visual sequencing, installation, demolition. Working with all the different properties around town, we had other projects at some of the different fan zones where we're building grandstands over a volcano and a lake and things of that nature. Just more and more, it was never ending.

CLIFF COLE: So what was cool about that last image, that's actually a drone image that we flew overlaid a lot of the images that you see here. We modeled in some of the bridges and some of the temporary structures that were going to be in and help our teams plan. And these are all aspects that our teams actively asked us for and for projects and is a critical aspect for them to plan their jobs accordingly from a safety standpoint and a sequencing standpoint as well.

And then we also utilized, like Matt said, this information to communicate with property owners, security, and our other trade partners as well. So they can understand what our plan of action is to get these structures done as quickly as possible.

MATT RODGERS: Well, sound went again.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- And finally, we reach the finish line for the checkered flag, our project summary. It's time to celebrate our achievements in constructing the Las Vegas Grand Prix pit building and track.

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CLIFF COLE: So working for the last year, I think it was July of 2022 when we took over the pit building site. It was a existing old nightclub that I may or may not have been through numerous times. And then there was another building on site. Once we tore that down, we basically the clock started for us.

And I'm proud to say that our team has done an amazing job over the last 14 months from that time to now to get ready for tomorrow's F1 race. It's been amazing. Matt has done an amazing job with the rest of the team. It's been tremendous to be able to work with Autodesk and have their support through this effort to get to this point today.

So hopefully, if anybody gets out there today, enjoy yourself. It'll be a little cold. Bring a jacket. Make sure you have your walking shoes on. It's going to be a hike. But thank you for everybody's time coming to our presentation. And I hope you enjoyed it.

[APPLAUSE]

Oh. Sorry. These are some other images that we took that we-- some of our marketing stuff. Our marketing team wants to show our products off. But our teams love this kind of stuff. And it's been a great, great project. In addition to that, last slide is-- unless you got something.

MATT RODGERS: No. No. I was just going to point out here, like we talked about many times, as you can see from the drone image, this is Vegas. It never closes. You can get anything you want whenever you want.

And that kind of goes for construction too. We were building this thing day and night. And the crews never stopped. And it was pretty impressive to see.

So our first foundation was poured on November 18th last year. And the race is November 18th this year. So if you guys see all the different elements going on, a year ago today, none of this existed.

CLIFF COLE: And then one last thing, if you can, at the end, complete the survey, please. We updated our slides. So we will update those, reupload those to the site after today. Because some of the-- as Matt just said, some of the images that we showed weren't available when we were putting this presentation together.