THE FINE ART OF SURFACING

The PJ1 Trackbite compound that was applied to Texas Motor Speedway in the fall of 2019, to aid passing opportunities for NASCAR cars on Goodyear rubber, has hurt the racing at the 1.5-mile oval ever since. The Firestones used by Indycar have been incompatible with the surface, and drivers have compared turning into Turn 1 on the wide line as akin to hitting black ice.

Recently, TMS officials have covered these patches with a resin in the hope of improving the show once more, but Will Power was convinced that forcing drivers to use the second lane in practice would open it up to allow more passing. Indycar agreed, and so scheduled a 30-minute session after qualifying, in which drivers could apply Firestone rubber to the higher groove. Only seven took up the invite – Power (below), Ed Carpenter, Pato O’ward, Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal, Takuma Sato and Helio Castroneves.

How much difference their efforts made remains open to question. Most drivers felt that yes, the septet did clear dust from, and add rubber to, the higher line, but it remained slower than the inside line because those in the second lane needed to back off the throttle sporadically to make it through, where those down low could just get hard on the power, at least while on fresh rubber.

It was probably the newly applied resin, therefore, that opened up the second lane and helped foster the intense racing witnessed last weekend, which should have reminded everyone how vital it is to retain TMS on the schedule.