Hey everybody. I've been watching this thread for a bit and I thank you for the props. I have been to over 30 tracks in the last year promoting our LC6 traction compound and have learned a ton. There is no one way to prep a track. Each track is different. Some like more dragging, less dragging, heavier spray, less spray. Some tracks like a quick mist and a drag in the middle of the event. Some don't want to be messed with at all. Here's what I tell the guys that I work with at the tracks. Now this may sound funny, but here goes. When you are prepping a track you are basically making bread dough. The compound is the water and the rubber from the tires is your flour. When tires mix with the compound they make a "dough" You want this dough to have two properties. Adhesion and Cohesion. Adhesion is the dough sticking to the concrete at the first part of the track and on the asphalt downtrack. Cohesion is the dough sticking to itself so it doesn't pull apart from itself. You want the mixture to stay stuck to the concrete and not pull up or feather ( adhesion) and to stay together and not get gummy or greasy ( cohesion). When the dough gets pulled and stretched and there are peaks and valleys in the rubber mixture it's time to drag. This generally happens a couple times or more during an event. The drag in this situation just smoothes the dough and makes it ready to run on again. The Adhesion and Cohesion also is used to describe the Traction compound itself. Adhesion is the sticky feel to your feet and Cohesion is the tire staying bonded with the dough on the track. Our products don't have the super 'Adhesive" stick to you shoes effect that you've all come to know. Here's the deal. A vertical up and down stick on your shoes isn't going to tell you how the track is going to work. A tire doesn't work up and down, it works horizontal, front to back. It's an old wives tale that the compound sticks the tire to the track. Adhesive stick is good down track when you get out of the groove and need to pull the car back to center. It generally isn't going to matter on the starting line unless it is really cold out. Then some adhsiveness is needed. Anyway I'm rambling..... I will tell you this. It takes a track prep guy that gives a shit. If you expect to spray some glue and have the best track in the world you're gravely mistaken. Like it was said. Track prep is like painting a car. All the body work and prep before the spray is the most important. Once all the hard work is done then you can spray. I have been to quite a few tracks that I have switched from our competiton. Racers and track owners tell me how much better our LC6 works while I'm there. But when I leave the track goes to crap. they say the VP sucks and they switch back. Most of the time this is due to a track worker pushing back and not doing the work involved to have a great track. I don't want tracks like this on my product. They give it a bad name. I will also tell you this. Our LC6 is far superior on a hot track then any other traction compound. I just had a track in Texas try it last weekend and the track was 147 degrees. They loved it. PBIR in Florida switched two weeks ago. This past weeked the track was 157 degrees. Guys were setting personal bests in the heat. The House of Hook and Jeff are users of our products. Ask him how it works. Talk to Wade at SGMP and get his opinion. Again sorry I'm just rambling.
As far as putting rubber on a track. Doing a drag behind a tractor will put a minute amount of rubber down. But you really have to hot melt rubber to get it to stick to asphalt down track. The NHRA has a crazy machine that has 3 top fuel tires on it powered by a 350 chevy. It spins the tires backwards and the machine is lowered down to the track surface and pulled down the track. It puts rubber down. It takes cars and lots of passes down a track to put rubber down. See traction compound has to stick to rubber. It won't stick to bare concrete or asphalt. You can spray all you want but the tires won't "Stick" to the surface as I stated before. In a perfect world if you could lay slicks end to end all the way down the track and run on them you would have the best surface possible. Again a drag is great for moving and smoothing the dough around, but it isn't the most effective means of putting rubber down. Hope this helps Charlie, but I do wish you guys good luck this weekend.
If anyone has any questions, shoot me a pm or an email. Or you can call me on my cell at 812 878 2026. I'll help you all I can.
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Jason Rueckert
Director of Motorsports Development
VP Racing Fuels Inc.
812 878 2026
jason@vpracingfuels.com
