Why were some muscle car guys spraying some kind of fluid on their slicks while waiting to stage and what was it? They weren't spraying the whole tire.. just forward and back facing surfaces. The spray smelled sweet like candy...

 

I see this often also when we go to the track. I assumed it was some type of vht.

There is a tire treatment that's been around for years, and it actually works. It's called Formual V. It's not an additive, and doesn't make tires "stickier". But it keeps the tire in like new condition.

As a tire wears, heat makes the outer surface of the tire dry. As the rubber gets drier, it gets harder, makes less traction, and wears out faster. This stuff reacts with the rubber, opens it back up, so to speak, and allows the natural oils and stuff from the rubber to come back to the surface. It was originally developed for karting and road racing, but many domestic drag teams use it to get triple and four times the usual number of runs out of a set of slicks. Used regulary, you can run the slicks right down to the wear indicators and they will hook like new all the time. Doesn't make them "better than new", just keeps them fresh.



Here is a thread on this forum with a product.

https://my350z.com/forum/drag/500726...rack-bite.html

 

thats weird that they werent spraying the whole tire. formula v is a good product and a few others like it, but its applied to the tires a couple days before running them to fully penetrate.

 

Were they spraying in grid or as they pulled up? Formula V is more of a softener. It won't do much except revive older(harder) slicks. More than likely it was VHT. I know there is an old kart trick to spray heavily sugared water on slicks as well. It dries through evaporational cooling and leaves the tacky sugar on the surface. It wears away in the first 1 or 2 rotation of the tires, though.

 

Yea they only sprayed a small part of the tire and the ground around the tire. I should have asked what it was... they were spraying in the staging lanes about 5 minutes before pulling up to the water box.

 

Yup VHT. Some hardcore street racing guys use it for the big races.

 

Sound like trackbite or at least what we call it around here....bubble gum smell. Never used it, apparently makes the trires stickey as hell.
a lot of street cars I've seen use it with full slicks, broke axles.

 

Yea we were in the no time lanes (my buddy was no time so I did too so we could face off) so I'm sure they were hard core, bubble gum was the exact smell.