I’m not really a motor sports fan, but I happened to find myself watching a Nascar race on television over the weekend. The Bud Shootout, Nascar’s first big race of the season, was on tv and I saw something pretty amazing.
It appears that these million dollar race cars use lowly duct tape to control the amount of air flow to the cooling system. How’s that for a low tech solution to a high tech problem!
Apparently, Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet was having overheating problems and was not getting enough air to the radiator. These cars have sophisticated front bumpers designed to provide maximum down force, and thus holding power. The design of these bumpers restricts air flow to the engine area, as this sort of air deflection causes aerodynamic problems.
A close up of the front bumper during a pit stop showed that the crew had removed a piece of color-matched duct tape about the size of the palm of your hand from the bumper in order to improve air flow the the engine.
This minor change appeared to be all that was necessary to solve the cooling problem so that Gordon’s car could continue the race.
Pro Tapes offers a full line of racing tapes. I wonder if it was a Pro product on Jeff Gordon’s bumper?
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