How sweep it is (cont'd)

For Miles, the new $240,000 sweeper is like a motorized, rolling version of a Swiss Army knife. In his words, it "sucks, squirts and blows."

"Not only do we want it to sweep, but we want it to multifunction," Miles said. "We designed the sweeper with a very high-powered auxiliary engine with a high-power blower. So it's not only able to vacuum but also to blow as well, if we need to turn that option on."

Miles said it also has an attachment that helps clean and maintain SAFER barriers.

"A lot of the rubber off the race cars would go behind the soft wall and actually create a seal, so when it rained, the soft wall would hold water, causing weepers coming down the track," Miles said. "So we adapted the Kansas sweeper -- as well as this one -- with a soft-wall attachment."

Dust, created by the cleanup that follows after the track is coated with oil or grease, is a big issue, but the new sweeper has modifications to help deal with the problem, according to Miles.

"A big thing NASCAR saw years ago and helped in the building of a purpose-built track sweeper was dust control," Miles said. "When they put out the fine oil dry that goes down the frontstretch when somebody blows a motor, rear end or transmission, NASCAR doesn't want all that dust going into the stands on a windy day like [Saturday].

"So we put dust-suppression systems on this, so it's designed to spray the material as it's delivered to the hopper and reduce the dust."

But in addition to being able to perform a multitude of tasks, Miles said the new sweeper was built to be safe to both the operator and the cars on the track.

"There's a lot of safety that's involved, particularly with this one," Miles said. "There's an angle indicator and warning. They put this whole machine on a tilt test, to see when it would actually tip over on its side for safety. So when we go to the higher-banked tracks -- Daytona, Talladega, Bristol -- we want to make sure the center of gravity is staying low enough to where we're not going to create a safety concern."

Not surprisingly, what Elgin learns from operating their race sweeper is directly relatable to their other product lines.

"A lot of the ideas that come from the race track wind up in passenger cars on the street," Miles said. "We're doing the same thing on these. The soft-wall attachment might be put on a normal street sweeper. Different variations are being built every day."

Miles said the plan is to co-brand the sweeper with NASCAR official sponsor ServiceMaster Clean, the company which sponsors caution periods in the three major national series. And if a track wants to purchase this model, Elgin will continue to improve the product in the future.

"A purpose-built sweeper like this, if a track wanted to buy this at a discounted price at the end of the season, we'll sell it and build another one for next season," Miles said. "We're hoping to build another one every season, that's our goal."