Trash on the track
The new softer tires created a mess at California. There were little chunks of rubber everyone - on the car grills, on the windshields, even on the roofs.
But what was up with all of the trash on the track? I'm talking hot dog wrappers, paper and plastic bags and all of the other junk that came flying out of the stands (or the infield) and got lodged in the grills of the race cars. Sure, it was windy, which whips up a lot of garbage. But maybe California race fans are a lot messier than those of us back East?
We've got better manners than that, right? Right?
Speaking of trash, I'd love to know which Busch driver created his own caution during Saturday's race by tossing a water bottle onto the track. Any driver tempted to blame a fan had better think twice: There aren't any stands on the back stretch, so there weren't any fans to blame. Unless, of course, Barry Bonds was at the race and decided to test out his arm by seeing how far he could heave a plastic water bottle.
Nah.
Seriously: Would any driver be dumb enough to toss a water bottle out his window during a televised race? I wonder if that bottle had -- oh, I dunno -- his name, car number or sponsor's logo on it.
Comments (4)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
How do you make the tires softer? And how does that impact the car?
Posted on February 28, 2005 5:13 PM
Man, Maggie. You're such a talented journalist who knows a lot about a lot, and I'm sooo disappointed that you can't give me the chemical composition of a Goodyear-made racing tire. ;)
Seriously, I don't know how they're made. It's some sort of Goodyear trade secret. But "soft" is race-speak for a tire that wears quicker than a "hard" (or "harder") tire.
When tires wear down -- think of driving through a rainstorm with tires that have 50K miles on them -- the cars become harder to drive. That puts a little more emphasis on a driver's ability. Or so the thinking goes.
But things sort of balance out. Because softer tires wear out faster, they lay more rubber on the track. (There's that race-speak again.) You see those black lines on the track, especially in the corners? That's rubber, which give the cars more traction (a.k.a. "grip"). This rubber helps cars stay at the bottom of the track (where the white line is).
And remember: the shortest distance around the race track is to hug the bottom. But it's not always the fastest. That's for another post.
Posted on February 28, 2005 10:32 PM
Of course, even in the old days of 20 years ago, tire bits were pretty much a given at a race track. I remember the little black bits floating in my lemonade at one race. That's why I drink cola now, it hides the little tire pieces better.
Posted on March 2, 2005 1:55 PM
Little pieces of rubber have always littered race tracks, Dick. What was surprising last week was how much of it there was, especially since Goodyear and NASCAR had gone with a harder tire compound over the past few seasons.
At one point during Sunday's race, one of the pit reporters held up a tearoff from (I think) Mark Martin's car. The thing was practically opaque. I get freaked out when I'm trying to drive into the sun with a dirty windshield. But I'm only going 70-some, not 200 mph into a corner.
Posted on March 3, 2005 8:34 AM