What do NASCAR teams put in tires instead of air?

NASCAR is a motorsports sensation that has taken over the hype in America. Every American automobile enthusiast is flocking to their nearest oval in search of the adrenaline brought by racing. The sport is saturated with great names and exotic venues which make it one of a kind in the motorsports category.

NASCAR has attained international glory through drivers like Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Gordon. The Daytona 500 race is one of the biggest motorsports events that even non-NASCAR followers know about. NASCAR is more than oval racing, it is a culmination of strategy and speed on a variety of tracks.

NASCAR has a variety of differences that makes it stand out in its genre. The cars are essentially based on their production counterparts but they are heavily modified. Even the tires supplied by Goodyear to NASCAR are nowhere close to the tires used on the road. NASCAR cars are V8 beats that run on 18 inch tires.

The tracks on NASCAR calendar may be repeated twice but they differ from each other in many ways, this includes their length, banking and the overall shape of the tracks. The biggest detail that many people do not know about NASCAR is that they use Nitrogen in their tires.

Nitrogen in NASCAR tires

There are many sports that use different gasses in their tires replacing the conventional air for better efficiency or performance. Cyclists use Carbon Dioxide instead of air for example. NASCAR is widely known to use air in their racing tires. NASCAR tires are 18 inch racing slicks, which are smooth and sticky. They can easily reach temperatures of 100 degrees during the race.

In the racing world, heat dissipation is an important issue which if not addressed properly can easily lead to bigger blunders later on. Nitrogen has better heat dissipation properties than regular air. In racing series like NASCAR, Formula 1 and IndyCar, Nitrogen is filled instead of air to make use of its heat dissipating properties and keeping the crucial element of a vehicle’s performance in check. Nitrogen also diffuses slower than regular air, thus the tires de-inflate slower in case of Nitrogen. This is just one of the many ways in which NASCAR vehicles are different from regular cars.

ALSO READ : What tires do they use in NASCAR?

Why doesn’t NASCAR use rain tires?

NASCAR, like pretty much every mainstream motorsports racing series, has different sets of tires for different racing conditions. NASCAR cars also have rain tires much better than the regular slicks but they are hardly used. In fact, NASCAR doesn’t use rain tires in any race generally.

This is the primary cause that leads to NASCAR races getting postponed in case of rain or bad weather. It’s not that rain tires aren’t compatible for NASCAR cars. NASCAR has its own rain package which it utilizes on road courses in case of rain. However, as stated by many experts, racing on oval tracks in the rain is extremely difficult and dangerous. The cars reach horrifying speeds which can’t be handled by the rain tires on ovals.

Unlike other motorsports, where the cars regularly slow down for turns and are better controlled in rain. NASCAR are unable to slow down to safe limits on ovals, making rain tires an unnecessary risk to take. NASCAR doesn’t use rain tires on ovals due to these reasons and instead keeps them limited to Road Courses.