Shaping and Scaping

by Nick Drew | Wed 06 Mar 2019

Shaping and Scaping

Taking a look back at one of my Earthmovers Magazine articles and bringing it to life on the internet, with this look at Shape and Scape who specialise in building moto cross tracks.

Johnny Groves (37) spent much of his early childhood around trucks, machinery and motorbikes, especially during the time spent with his grandad who was running a fleet of lorries. Weekends and spare time were, more often than not spent riding motorbikes which Johnny had started doing aged just 6 years old, the bikes and bike racing was to have a big impact on his working career later in life. Having left school at 16 Johnny went straight into the groundworks industry, but seeing as though he was not too keen on the shovel, he was determined to get on the machines as soon as possible! Some years later Johnny decided to build himself a moto cross bike track to ride for himself, word soon got around with friends and people on the bike circuit and the offer of jobs just escalated from there, Johnny takes up the story, “We moved up to Bristol in 2006, while I was doing some scaffolding work for a good friend of mine and doing a few track build jobs on the side, along with some racing. We got talking one day in the lorry and my mate suggested that I should try and push the track building side of things a bit more and give the business a stand-alone name, as at the time it was all just off the back of my name and reputation”.

Johnny continued, “I’m pretty useless at coming up with creative names, so we were trying to come up with something that reflects what we do. I said I liked the idea of not just piling up some mud heaps in a filed and calling it a track, I wanted our work to be more landscaped a bit like a golf course. Within two minutes my mate Dave came up with the name Shape and Scape which I feel describes perfectly what we do! To cut a long story short, it stuck from there really, we registered as a Ltd company in 2010 and we have never looked back since”. Now covering everything from supercross and motocross tracks to drainage and irrigation reserves the company works the length and breadth of the UK from their base in Fraddon, Cornwall and have even worked on track builds across Europe including the construction of the National Supercross track in Spain, Johnny comments, “Its incredible really, I often wonder where all these track build jobs come from, but I’m not complaining, as its my passion as well as my job and I and the lads love what we do!” Earthmovers caught up with Johnny and the boys as they were preparing a track on one of the biggest jobs of the year, the Weston Beach Race 2018, in Weston Super Mare, which has been a regular highlight on the bike racing season for the past 30 years attracting in excess of 80,000 spectators over the weekend of racing. “We’ve been doing this job for the past couple of years and it takes us right into the winter months. It’s a massive job and at the end of the season we are a bit shattered to be honest, so its fair to say it’s a bit of a test to say the least!” commented Johnny.

The team shift mountains of sand to form the various sized dunes along the course, talking about the job and the preparation that goes into it, Johnny said, “I hate to think of how much sand we actually push up for the beach race, I cubed up one of the largest dunes last year and there was over 8000m2 in that one, we build 40 others dunes too, so that will give you some idea of the quantities involved in this job”. On this job Shape and Scape were using a totally Cat dedicated fleet of machines which had been hired in from K. J. Services who are also one of the many sponsors of this event, the machines consisted of two loading shovels, 966M and 980M, D6N LGP and D6T LGP dozers, a 35 tonne class 336FL hydraulic excavator and a 725 articulated hauler working to a window of 14 days to build the track then flatten it all out again.

Johnny said, “I’m very lucky to have the services of some great guys working with me behind Shape and Scape, I can call on them anytime and they all live for the work and the machines, I consider myself to be very fortunate as it’s so tough to find top quality operators these days, especially doing what we do, as when we are on an event that starts that weekend, there is no let off until the job is done, we don’t really do 9 to 5 we just have to crack on and get it done fast!”.

There is also a method in the madness that takes place on the Weston Beach once a year. It also actually helps to maintain the beach, as over the course of a year a lot of sand gets washed up or blown inland towards the beach wall. The team generally shift the sand from the high spots to build the dunes in the first instance, then when the racing is over, the mammoth task of pushing it all back out to sea begins. The sand has to be pushed out far enough for the tide to take it away but the team are careful not to go too far, as the notorious Weston Mud Flats could soon grab a machine and take it under! On the day of our visit the track was almost complete a day ahead of the first race of the weekend, the team were busy on the last bit ferrying sand from one end of the beach where the sand level was high and depositing it for the dozers to push up and shape.

Shape and Scape have a few smaller machines that they own for use on the smaller tracks and one in particular comes in for high praise from Johnny, “I’m a big fan of CASE machines, I don’t know why really but I do like the hydraulics on them and they always seem to have plenty of power. We run a 5 tonne CASE TR320 compact tracked loader and its an amazing bit of kit, once you get “in the zone” with it, its incredible how much work you can turn out with it, I would say 50% of our jobs are done with that machine and it’s become a really valuable asset”.

Photo: Courtesy of Shape and Scape Ltd. Johnny continued, “We also have a CASE CX50B mini excavator that we take on jobs for bits we cannot get to with the compact tracked loader. We also have a Lloyd Star screening bucket attachment for this machine, which has been an absolute life saver over the years as we don’t always get the best material to work with, so this gives us the scope to clean up the material to be able to make a good finish. Completing our current line up is an old Barford dumper and a little Massey Ferguson 5455 tractor that we use on our own track in Cornwall for prep work, that’s when my Mrs isn’t using it as she’s taken a bit of a shine to it!”

A full-size dozer is next on the list to add to the Shape and Scape fleet but Johnny is keen stay with CASE and at the moment their dozers don’t come up too often on the second-hand market. Johnny said, “It’s a bit of a waiting game at the moment, so for now I am happy to keep hiring as and when I need bigger kit, there are some very good hire rates out there at the moment and I often question if I really need to own one, but there’s nothing like having your own really and if the weather comes in we can just stand down and not try to fight the job just because we have a time limit on the hire. You do get attached to the machines, I get the same feeling with our kit now, as I used to with my old bikes that I had over the years, still get into my kit, give her a tap and say morning too them now”. Since this story was first written, Shape and Scape Ltd have invested in a Komatsu D51PX dozer, which has been fitted with new tracks, had a respray and been sign written.

Photo: Courtesy of Shape and Scape Ltd. Checkout our video from the beach job visit.

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