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Tale of the Tape

Duct tape is a standard NASCAR item, as much as gas cans and air guns.

By JOANNE KORTH

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 6, 2001

The 800-horsepower engines are fine-tuned. Sheet metal is shaped, buffed and polished. Spoilers and air dams are measured to quarter-inch specifications.

Then, to make Winston Cup cars go really fast, one final touch is added.

Duct tape.

"You can't run a race without duct tape," driver Jeff Burton said.

Laboring in stock car racing anonymity, duct tape has more uses in the garage than a set of Ginzu knives in a tomato patch. It can increase downforce, repair mangled fenders, even keep ear plugs in place. Duct tape -- it's the answer to any sticky situation.

"It's amazing," 1999 Winston Cup champion Dale Jarrett said. "As technical as we are about a lot of things, when we go to fix our problems, we do it with duct tape."

Duct tape can make a car go faster. Before qualifying, where a 10th of a second can be the difference between sitting on the pole and starting 29th, every team puts strips of duct tape over the grill openings. That forces air over the car, increasing downforce.

"Every little bit you put on the front helps downforce and helps the car run better," said Jimmy Fennig, crew chief for Mark Martin's No. 6 Ford. "You gotta have duct tape."

At tracks such as Lowe's Motor Speedway, site of Sunday's UAW-GM Quality 500, aerodynamics are critical. And nothing interrupts air flow like crumpled sheet metal. Hood crunched? Fender torn? Quick, grab a mallet. Pound it into shape and slap some tape on it.

There, good as new.

"It always amazes me," driver Kyle Petty said, "that you can spend hours and hours fabricating and polishing and painting and bolting together, and go out there and get in an accident and put duct tape over it and run almost as fast."

On a 3,500-pound stock car, duct tape seals radiators for maximum air flow, reinforces the bolts on the cowl cover at the base of the windshield -- you know, just in case the bolts come loose -- and closes up the small crevice in the middle of the rear spoiler where the inspection template slides into place.

Really, what else would do the job?

And not just any ol' tape will do, either. Tape used on race cars, though in the same tape family as the stuff sold in your local hardware store, can withstand G-forces up to 200 mph.

"Well, it's supposed to," Burton said.

A few years ago, duct tape came in two basic colors: black and silver. Not anymore. With custom colors to match any Winston Cup paint scheme, duct tape has become a sponsorship fashion accessory: yellow for the No. 43, orange for the No. 24, three shades of blue for the No. 26 and -- blick -- lime green for the No. 14.

"Color coordination came in with duct tape about three or four years ago. It's very interesting," said Jimmy Spencer, Sunday's pole-sitter in the No. 26 Ford. "You can hit the wall and have all this duct tape in different colors to fix your car, and people wouldn't even know there were any dents in it."

Um, good thing, Jimmy.

Though just a couple of dollars a roll, duct tape is a considerable expense for a Winston Cup team over the course of a season: 36 points races, qualifying, practice sessions, test sessions. On average, teams go through a roll a day.

"Our annual budget was so much for duct tape we went to Shurtape and got a sponsorship program with them and now we get it for free," said Petty, CEO of the three-car Petty Enterprises team. "It was an expensive line item.

"And cheap tape won't hold your car together. There are different grades of tape. And there's major differences. Don't get me started on tape. Believe me, when you start talking to somebody who's a tape salesman and their passion is tape, they can go on and on."

Tape comes in handy for more than just the car. There are practical matters, such as marking the tires so changers know where to grab the rims for fast mounting, or creating targets on the pavement so the driver can see where to stop in the pit stall.

And don't forget creature comforts. Jeff Gordon uses tape to keep his ear plugs from falling out. Burton uses it to anchor his drink hose to his belt system. John Andretti puts it on the heels of his shoes to keep his feet from burning.

Hmmm, what else?

"Duct tape does everything," Petty said. "We had a guy at the shop who said if he ever fell out of an airplane he wanted duct tape with him because he knew he would catch onto something on the way down," Petty said. "That was pretty much the ultimate endorsement."

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