Joey Logano participated in a NASCAR test at Richmond Raceway on Monday to further research the possibility of using tires during damp track conditions as future races. Wednesday he was asked about the test:
HOW DID THE DAMP WEATHER TIRE TEST GO AT RICHMOND AND WAS IT PRODUCTIVE?
Logano: “Yeah, it was productive. I think we learned some things. It‘s not as simple as we all think it is. Go figure, right? Everything is a little more complicated than it looks on the outside, but I think after COTA the main thing was not the tire. The tire‘s got pretty good grip, it‘s about the spray, the mist. You can‘t see the vision and that‘s what we had to fix. I texted O‘Donnell after the race and said, ‘You got mud flaps for this test tomorrow?‘ Because that was something I thought would possibly help and all three teams showed up with their version of a mud flap and all three very different, which was great to see.
We went out there and saw things I‘ve never seen before. I‘ve seen water trucks on racetracks before, but they‘ve always been dirt. I‘ve never seen a water track on an asphalt racetrack, so I feel like I‘ve seen it all now and we went out there and learned a lot. The mud flaps kind of adjust the spray, but it doesn‘t completely eliminate the spray, so we need to try to figure that out, but I think the biggest things we realized is when we put slick tires on it. Slicks were obviously very slick. The cars were undriveable, but there was no spray, so that means it‘s coming from the treads on the tires, so maybe there‘s a less aggressive tread pattern that, one, allows us to have grip. We need to have that as well, but maybe can eliminate some of the spray.
The mud flaps helped some. It kind of just changes where the spray is coming out, so I feel like we made some good gains and learned some things to go back and try again, but, still, probably a lot of work to do there to get it to where we can see. That‘s the biggest thing, and understanding how wet we can go back racing because maybe the goal is different than what we think. Maybe it‘s not that we‘re racing in downpouring rain, but maybe we can race on those racetracks when it‘s still damp and go out there and race then, and the track dry off quicker and not have fans sitting there waiting for the track to dry. The Air Titans are great, but they‘re not that entertaining, so trying to get the race back going is probably the number one goal and probably the most achievable goal at this moment.”
— Ford Performance —
