Originally Posted by jiml

The debate over tire sauce is nothing new. It's been going on since the first on road carpet race.

Many different things have been tried (even citrus) but the best tire traction compound since the beginning has been Paragon Ground Effects. Even the folks who make the stuff heve been trying to get the smell out, but nothing has worked.

I do know the single biggest reason many people don't get into indoor carpet racing is the smell. My wife gets deathly ill just from a whiff. After a day of racing I have to change clothes in the garage before I can come into the house.

The first time I went to a carpet race (in 1988) the one thing every racer had in their tool box was a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol.

And banning Paragon doesn't work. One track had a ban on Paragon from the day it opened. We had a big trophy race one weekend and I was race director. I was walking through the pits and as I passed the "pro" pit table (just where all the really good guys were) I noticed a big can of Paragon. I told the racer he could not use it and I confiscated the contrabanned substance, returning it to him at the end of the weekend. The best part is the racer was Mike Dumas! I found out a week later that all of the pro racers (we had a separate pro class back then) had been using Paragon for several months and everyone at the table was lending Mike their Paragon for the entire race. So much for bans! Racers always want to go fast.