Officials used a combination of science and common sense when it came to preparing the fresh racing surface at Kentucky Speedway for this weekend’s NASCAR tripleheader.
An application of lime helped draw the oils out of the new asphalt and expedited the aging process, while a generous helping of soap and water, removed by pressure washing, cleansed the surface before officials trotted out a device to measure the frictional value of the racing surface.
The 1.5-mile track will host the Quaker State 400 Saturday (7:30 p.m., NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR), the 18th of 36 Sprint Cup Series events of 2016. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and XFINITY Series events are slated for Thursday and Friday, respectively.
An off-season repaving project using a coarser type of asphalt will greet teams in all three series this weekend.
Following a two-day test at the facility (June 13-14), workers continued preparations by using a device known as the tire dragon to work more rubber into the racing surface, using tires that had come off the cars after the test, in an effort to wear off the “new” and hopefully speed up the process of creating multiple racing grooves.
“When we arrived, there was no driving line, no rubber, it was a clean sheet of paper,” Jerry Kaproth, Manager, Testing Logistics and Track Engineering for NASCAR said during last month’s test.
“The goal is not only to allow the rubber to get embedded into the track, but (create) a wide racing groove so we can … get to the point where we’re having double-wide racing. We feel very comfortable with what we see.
“When we’re done … we think it will be a very competitive race track.”
Officials measured the frictional value, or slipperiness, of the racing surface on several occasions to gauge how much rubber was able to adhere to the surface. Measurements were taken before and after the lime was applied, again once the surface had been cleaned and then again after the first morning session during last month’s test.
According to Kaproth, officials saw between a five- and 10-percent increase.
Several drivers participating in the test said rubber buildup was more noticeable in Turns 1 and 2, which are now banked higher than those in 3 and 4.
Kaproth said readings did not indicate any drastic change in the rubber buildup in different turns, but said that “the dynamics of the car handling may indicate that to the driver.
“Our readings are pretty consistent,” he said. “We break the tracks up into three different grooves — low, mid and high — and we average the readings from those three grooves.”
A key component that will determine how much rubber builds up on the racing surface will be the tires provided by Goodyear for this weekend’s races.
According to a release from the company, teams in all three series will run the same left-side tires while Sprint Cup teams will have a specific right-side tire for their event.
The tire choice was made following last month’s organizational test at the speedway and features the same left-side tire code as was used earlier this year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The right-side tire is the same, construction-wise, as that which was used at Michigan in June. However, it is a single compound rather than the multi-zone used at several other venues.