DIRTRACKR Daily Podcast - Episode Transcript

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Why dirt racers cheat with tires, and how they do it | Daily 5-2-2023

What exactly is tire doping or soaking and why do dirt racers do it? We'll get into that, plus news from XR and more. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, May 2nd, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Back on the Friday show we talked all about the penalties levied by the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series on James McFadden and the Roth Motorsports 83 team for a failed tire test following the feature at Pevely on April 14th. As a quick recap, the team has been suspended from four World of Outlaws races, fined $8200, DQ'd from that Pevely race, and lost 500 driver and owner points. The team is appealing the decision, and they are allowed to compete until a resolution is reached. That's why we saw them over the weekend at Tri-City and Haubstadt. I was a bit surprised at all the comments I got on the show asking about tire doping, or soaking, or prep, or whatever you want to call it. I figured, I guess incorrectly, that most knew what that meant. So because I had all of those questions, I figured we could talk about it today. Following a lot of dirt races, series officials will take tire samples, literally taking a chunk of the used tires, and send them off to a lab for analysis. What they are looking at is the chemical breakdown of the rubber itself. They get baseline or benchmark samples straight from Hoosier, they test those to get readings, and then they compare samples from races to make sure they match or conform to the Hoosier baseline. The series get sent back sort of a graph readout of the tested tires versus the benchmark. If the samples don't match, then series can institute penalties. It's really common in high level motorsports to have rules against altering tires, and usually when teams are busted, the penalties are big. So what exactly can teams do to the tires? There are a few things. The most common, and what Roth got busted for was chemical alteration. There are various products out there that can be applied to the exterior of the tire or the interior of the tire to change it's characteristics. Everything from softeners or bite chemicals for added traction and grip, to conditioners for added tire life over a long run. The hardness of a tire is measured using a durometer, and some of these chemicals actually alter the physical makeup of the rubber to the point that they are softer on the durometer. In dirt racing, finding ways to grip slick tracks is a big deal, so you can see why someone using one of these types of chemicals would have an advantage over those not using them. And regardless of having heavy penalties in place, there are always several instances of teams being busted each season. In terms of the actual chemicals being used, you can buy ready made products from the big parts suppliers like Speedway Motors, or Behrents. You can even buy them on Amazon. And many of them have words like "Undetectable" right there on the labels. So the companies making these know they are often against the rules. What exactly is in these bottles and cans I don't know, and the makers aren't super keen on sharing ingredients. But they are often fairly caustic concoctions. Which makes sense since they are physically changing the rubber itself. There are those out there that make their own mixes as well. Nothing like a little race shop chemistry. There are other ways to alter tires as well, including things like needling to help control air pressures, but that's not as big of a deal in dirt racing where bleeders are legal for a lot of divisions. Bleeders and needling are illegal for example in series like NASCAR. So there is a little breakdown and explanation of altering tires. There are all sorts of pseudo-sciency explanations and rumors and bad info from internet experts about how tires can become altered on their own, or by aliens, but I'm not going to get into any of that. The labs themselves that test the tires also have come under criticism, but I'll leave that litigation up to the rationl folks on the message boards and in the Facebook groups. What exactly happened with Roth and JMac, I don't know. I have heard the team took and passed polygraph tests, and I've heard a few possible explanations for what could have happened if they indeed didn't do it on purpose. There are rumors of free stuff being passed out recently at the track to teams, and that could be the culprit. I also heard that Roth possibly bought a pre-mounted tire that could have been treated by someone else. No matter the reason though, they got busted and now we'll see what the appeals panel decides. Regardless of how it happened, the teams will be held responsible for what's on their race cars. We don't have a timeline right now of when that appeals decision will come. We do know that the 83 and McFadden are on the pre-entry list for the High Limit show at Kokomo, so we will see them this week.

Alright, I mentioned on yesterday's show that Carson Macedo is currently on a 21 race top ten streak with the World of Outlaws. It's the longest current such streak for any of the major dirt racing series right now, and I wanted to provide you with just a little bit more context. Macedo hasn't had a finish outside the top ten since a 12th at Port Royal last October. In the span of races between then and now, his worst finish is ninth, he has a win, seven podiums, and 13 top fives. It's the longest top ten streak with the Outlaws since David Gravel went 26 straight in 2020. Looking at the dirtrackr.com analytics database, going back through the 2017 season, we have had a few 20 plus race top ten streaks. Brad Sweet has a few, with his last being in 2019. Donny Schatz is in that group, and Gravel like I mentioned. Gravel actually owns the longest streak over the last six plus seasons. He went 31 straight in 2019. You can find all of this information and a lot more over at dirtrackr.com/analytics. We are currently at 1,476 races in the database between the two World of Outlaws series, the All Stars, Lucas, the Chili Bowl, all three USAC national divisions, the ASCS, Xtreme midgets, and Eldora late model special events. That section of the website includes full race results, driver pages, and a ton of stat breakdowns for the usual categories, plus some stuff you'll only find at dirtrackr.com. If you want even more, grab a subscription to DIRTRACKR Plus for $4.99 a month, or $49.99 a year. That gets you access to the Plus dashboard, extra stat categories, and five exclusive tools, including driver comparison. It's great for you fantasy and pool players, members of the media, or if you work for a series or track. Click the plus link below in the video description, or in the nav bar at dirtrackr.com.

The XR Super Series made a couple of schedule changes here recently to a pair of events. First, instead of two Kokomo races, they've combined them into one event with a bumped up purse. Originally the late model series was going to be at Kokomo on May 8th for $20,000 to win and again on June 12th for $20k, to win. But they've dropped the May 8th show, and pushed the purse for the June 12th race from that $20k all the way to $100,000 to win. This comes on the heels of the $100,000 to win race they ran a few weeks ago at Bulls Gap with that show ending up packed to the gills with race fans. So super late model competitors will run the week before at Eldora for the 29th Dirt Late Model Dream and a possible $129,000. Then they can roll to Kokomo on Monday for another $100 grand. To wrap up their season, the series has also added an extra night at All-Tech Raceway in Florida at the end of October. They'll run dual feature shows for $5000 to win both Thursday and Friday, and have $100,000 to win on Saturday to close out the season. So they will have $300 grand in purse money up for grabs, plus the $300,000 point fund. To see more details on these news items, head over to xrsuperseries.com.

Three shows today on the streaming services. DIRTVision has weekly outlaw kart action from Millbridge and DIRTVision Now. There is also FloRacing 24/7. To see the full daily streaming schedule with links to watch, visit dirtrackr.com/watchtonight.

Hope you guys have a good Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.