andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Were wanting to increase traction at our local track so I thought I would get y'alls insight into the issue. If any of you have any experience with cleaning Ozite please post up or PM me. The following is a PM I sent CRC hoping they might have some ideas . . .



"Our local carpet track (Mike's Hobbyshop, Dallas, TX) is operating on CRC from a couple years ago. We share a facility with an indoor off-road track that dries out and creates quite a bit of dust. That coupled with negligence from off-road drivers walking on the track during the week leaves us with a pretty dirty and lower traction racing surface. We vacuum once a week with a rainbow vacuum-cleaner, but there is still a lot of dirt in the carpet. Several of us sedan drivers have considered hiring a carpet cleaning service to work at removing the dirt from the ozite. Our hobby shop owns the carpet, so we wanted to hear your comments/suggestions/advice before we did anything. Thanks for your help!!"

bill941

iTrader: (11)

i am not sure what to do with the dirt I would think steam cleaning wouldn't hurt but wait till you hear back from crc.I have to ask how cold is it in the track.What traction compounds are you guys using on your cars?

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Its Texas so in the summer its HOT and in the winter it gets below freezing. That is outdoors however. I suspect high and low the carpet sees is 90* and 40* Were running paragon.

bill941

iTrader: (11)

What I have noticed at the indoor champs for the last couple of years is usually anthing below 62 is too cold you usually will slip around and have little to no traction I would think on the hotter days you should have too much traction.Since you seem to have no traction either way I would try cleaning it and make sure the carpet isn't worn out...Paragon once you get a groove in the track should be more then enough traction for anyone you have some very wierd stuff going on here.

tcian

iTrader: (20)

Yea i think you best bet would be to get it cleaned and talk to the off-road racers and ask them to stop walking on it!!!!!

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Those min/max temps are experienced only after hours when the AC or heat is off. Were having problems now when its a perfect 75 indoors. Weve talked to the off road racers and the regulars are pretty good about it. We just have a lot of rookies and newbie off-road racers that come in during the week when were not there that we don't even know. The only way we even know it happens most of the time is the random chumcks of dirt scatttered around the track. Thansk for the suggestions guys.

Steve B

At our Club we only vacuum the carpet once a year but for about 120 miniutes of racing after we find the grip goes really low so this might not be helping your grip situation either.

R/C Rich

iTrader: (4)

If you think you have traction problems now do not steam clean your carpet and wash away any foam, traction compound, or any traction what so ever you may have now. Unless, your carpet is so muddy and super dirty. My suggesstion is to just vacuum it. When not running on, and dirt races are going on, tarp it or cover it. Maybe, even put up some caution tape, rope or something else to block people from walking on it. That way everyone gets the idea.

Oasis

iTrader: (38)

Something that i did notice is when you mix different brands of traction compound the track will get really really slick. The dirt had nothing to do with it..well at least at my track. As soon as we went to just one brand of traction compound it made a huge difference..really. We had guys using paragon, TQ orange, blue..and a few other brands. It would gum up on the tires sorta of looked like dirt but it wasn't.

schurcr

iTrader: (6)

The rubber backed carpet is very sesative to temp and humidity changes. Our track i in a large building that isn't climate controled. When we open on Saturday mornings it's colder inside than out. We turn the heaters on for about an hour and shut them off for the day usually. We also run Paragon. We can build a grove on a cold track with 20 cars in les than an hour. We run rubber tires out here in California. My gues would be one of two or both. You have a large amount of dirt buildup in the carpet or the carpet s worn out. We've experience the traction sauce issues. We've run it all TQ Mod (orange), Niftech, Jack the Gripper and in the end we went to Paragon to solve our traction issues. Wait to talk to Frank at CRC. If you have no traction right now then cleaning it won't make a differece, I would be concerned with pulling out mass amount of fibers with a carpet cleaner. Good luck.

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Thanks for the help fellas. Lots of good ideas. As far as I can tell the only sauce being used is paragon. I haven't seen anything else being used and I am there every weekend.

Just to give you an idea On weds I stopped my car in the racing line and walked over to pick it up. The tires had a light tan haze and when I blew on the car you'd have thought it had been in my grandma's basement for a couple years. Were pretty sure its the dust casuing the problem.

Schure,

The temp of the water and the agressiveness of any cleaning solution we use is our main concern too as we certainly don't want to hurt the carpet. Were thinking a low temp rinse might be our best bet.

Trips

iTrader: (16)

I don't want to insult you in case this seems too obvious, but I'll mention it anyway, just in case...

A track I raced at years ago used to vacuum every couple of months, and they used a vacuum cleaner that had one of those spinning rollers in it with the bristles... that thing did get the carpet clean, but it raised the fuzz up and KILLED the traction for a good few days every time they used it...

Tell Mike that David F says hello... I think he'll remember me from when I worked for him...

Mr. McGoo

iTrader: (23)

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Mike's is my local track as well - and I wanted to say I think just the dust from the dirt track is the problem. We just need to stay on top of the vacumming and it should be fine. I think Andrew has painted a picture that we have "oh my gosh unbelievably horrible traction"....we have med-low bite and we are looking on how to get traction to med-high bite.

We usually have medium bite when we spray some acetone and paragon down. We just don't have a huge amount of racers to keep traction layed down. (Average of 15-20 racers a week), but even with that small amount we have a nice groove in by the end of the race day.

With a combo of the dirt track and lack of racers seems to be our problem. When we have vaccumed and sprayed and had a decent amount of racers we were fine. I think we are just looking to get an even higher bite right now. Thanks for all the suggestions...

Mrs. CRC

Frank and I steam cleaned the carpet at our local track. The traction was down for a bit, but after a few rounds of practice it came right back. Traction is going to be tougher with a dirt track in the same area. When we vaccuum, the beater bar hasn't had a negative effect, however, we do it rarely. We only steam clean once every few years.

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Thanks for the perspective Mrac. I hadn't realized I had portrayed the traction as terrible (I edited my original post to better reflect my question). I was really just looking for experience or advice on using a steam cleaner on the carpet.

Thank you Mrs. CRC for the input. Just the kind of hands on info and experience I was hoping to hear about.