Racetracks are not a friendly place for your car's appearance. Rocks are kicked up, even thrown by sticky tires. Brake dust from your own pads, bits of rubber from other cars, lots of dirt when you go off, and of course broken bits laying around from your competitors mistakes. How do you protect your car?
There's been a trend developing in track events for the past several years: tape, and plenty of it.
Years ago (and this is my 28th year in this hobby), we were required to tape up headlamps because they were made of glass. Imagine that, given today's plastic lamps. And the lenses were thick; if they were broken during an event the pieces would literally slice open a tire.
But that changed in the 80s. Plastic lenses became the practice and glass was no longer a problem. And then an odd thing started to be seen... one or two people would put tape right onto the paint of their cars. Leading edges of hoods and trailing edges of wheel well openings got the treatment. Back then, only a few people did this, and most of the rest of us smiled at the absurdity of it. We carefully waxed our own cars, so what would all this tape be needed for?
And now it's a new century... and my observation is that tape is becoming even more predominant. Almost a regular practice. That raises a question - how much is enough? How much is too much? And how much is absurdity? Lets talk absurdity.
I'll start that discussion with this picture of a couple of Chevrolet Corvettes. There musty be half a roll on this first 'vette. No amount of track debris would get thru this stuff:
A psychologist would probably attribute these corvette examples to the unique psyche of your typical corvette owner... but not being a corvette owner myself (too young, too much hair on my head, etc) I can only make the supposition.
Being a computer geek myself I'd equate the lack of symmetry in this next example to a poorly patched operating system: any number of attacks will get thru these defenses.
And then there is the question of color. Surely lime green doesn't make the car go faster, as yellow is known to do to Japanese cars...?
Clear is a little more livable... but I'm sure you can imagine the screech when this stuff gets pulled off. Kind of like when stock C5 brakes go thru their tiny little pads?
I'm not sure I see the point of this one - except maybe posing. Only the outside edges of the headlamps would be protected.
Here's a better example... note the car has protection but the passenger does not. How'd they get out on the track?
Another clear example. Perhaps the the yellow and chrome wheels are part of how this tom struts. Either he is trying to impress a potential mating partner, or warning the flock of a predator in the area...
And speaking of predators, note this Lotus Elise. Notice the element of color coordination. Very proper, in the British sense.
Archaeologists will dig up this Honda S2000 in a thousand years and find an intact leading edge. But unfortunately, given the aero charactertistics of an S2000, most of the rock hits would take place half-way up the hood and in the windshield. So this does little to protect the car.
And it isn't always tape. Here's a vinyl bra put on for protection. Seriously, tech inspection should have required the removal of this.
I'm not sure of the purpose of the tape on the lower spoiler... perhaps the driver is planning on going off the track into the dirt?
And then there is tape just to look cool. These yellow stripes serve no other purpose... unless they are some sort of retro throw-back to historical corvette driver identification?
This Mazdaspeed3 uses tape sparingly. And conveniently the same tape can be used to provide for numbers.
Here's some more bright color contrast - or else the driver was going for the official colors of Spoon from Japan? Note the CR front spoiler... somewhere underneath all that tape.
Finally, lets look at the Buffy end of the spectrum. They're not immune either (although it's usually M badges stuck on non-M models). Apparently, though, in this case the rest of the car has been thoroughly waxed. Which provides more protection in the end that any amound of tape. And certainly less damage when you have to remove the paint for the drive home.
I'm of the position that lots of tape is pointless. Track events are hard on your car, and that's the point of it. If you're out having a Sunday cruise, you aren't driving hard enough. Spend some money on a good wax job instead. And especially on windshield coatings so that you can see where you're going despite the dirt, oil, and brake dust.
And if you have to use tape, put it over your license plates so that your insurance company doesn't find out what you're doing with their car on the weekends!
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