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WINTON Raceway management faced a crisis yesterday as peeling tarmac sealer stuck to the V8s’ tyres, slowing the supercars.
The faulty rubberised bitumen filling the track’s cracks and the wet conditions made for a treacherous surface, sending those running the show into a flurry.
Executive officer Adam Ronke said the problem could lead to an official rule change to allocate more tyres for each of the 25 cars.
“It’s getting a coat on the tyres and they don’t have as much grip,” he said.
“If, by the end of the day it’s all gone, it will be fine, because they can put new tyres on tomorrow.
“The only problem with that is that they only get allocated a certain number of tyres for the round, so they may have to allocate another set of tyres.”
Mr Ronke said, after a similar incident last year at not such a crucial time, the raceway had employed another company to apply the seal.
Road Maintenance did the work in the past two weeks.
“But the same thing has happened,” he said.
“The company that did this has got a lot to answer for.
“It’s just not what you need when everything else is going well.”
Mr Ronke said a crew of engineers were travelling from Melbourne last night to try to fix it.
Albury’s Brad Jones said it had made it hard to rate his BOC team’s practice runs, but he hoped it would clear up later in the day so he could get a better idea.
“It’s making the track inconsistent,” he said.
“They’ve got a bit of work to do, the cars will pick it up and move it to the side of the road.”
Brad Jones Racing has two V8s racing in Team BOC and another in the development series
Mr Jones said he wasn’t concerned with the car driving in the wet conditions.
“We’ve done some wet testing and we’re pretty speedy,” he said.
Mr Jones said it was great to have been able to get some practices in before the rain set in, as differences in weather also made it hard to gauge the car’s performances.
“Team BOC, we’re very strong, we’re fast, but Brighty hasn’t has much luck this year ... but we’re hoping Winton will be the turn around,” he said.
“All going well, we should be able to fight for a win this weekend.”
Ticket sales for the weekend are down.