The racer's bond
Nascar Sprint Cup rookie Paulie Harraka crashed into a competitor's car on pit row at California's Sonoma Raceway in April, prompting this tape-intensive patch job. (Nascar)
he former Formula 1 driver collected the cars of Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Matt Kenseth in the process. As the three cars headed to pit row for on-the-spot repairs, their teams’ respective crew chiefs surely double-checked for a critical tool in their arsenal: Tape.
Not just any tape, mind. It might be referred to as “200mph tape” or the more common “Bear Bond”. In fact, Bear Bond was the original product’s name, and while that miracle substance now proves difficult to find, the name is still used to describe this specialised product the way “Kleenex” can describe any facial tissue.
These days, the brand commonly found on pit row is X-Flex Racers Tape, sourced from ISC Racers Tape in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania. It is massive, it is expensive and it is “really nasty stuff”, says Dan Northrup, a former world champion drag racer whose family owns the company.
X-Flex is 40mm thick (for comparison, your average super-duty, contractor-quality plastic trash bag is about 2mm thick), is reinforced with a layer of aluminium and is backed with a “highly aggressive adhesive that will adhere to any clean surface”, in the words of the ISC product catalogue.