On track: A look at the importance of paint jobs

As you know, things in the IZOD IndyCar series move REALLY fast, both on and even off the racetrack. Indycars go more than 350km/h but things move just as fast behind the scenes too sometimes. Just last week, my team, FAZZT race team was bought by and merged with the Sam Schmidt Motorsports team.

We now have just three weeks to get the entire team rebranded, firesuits and crew shirts designed and made, transporters and cars painted, tests in Sebring, FL and at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, and then ready for the 2011 season opener in Saint Petersburg, Florida. And there’s no doubt we’ll make it happen!

It’s an amazing undertaking but the only change fans will really see come race day when they are sitting in the stands or in front of the TV; the no.77 Bowers & Wilkins sponsored car is going to look different.

In fact a lot of cars may look different in 2011. They are still Dallara chassis, powered by a great Honda engine and with fantastic Firestone tires for this year, but there will be a lot of different paint schemes. Not just because of new sponsors for the season, but sometimes for just a race like the Indianapolis 500, or a few Canadian races like ours did with the Hot Wheels livery last season.

But do you have any idea how much technology actually goes into a car livery? I’m going to let you in on a few of our secrets. The paint on our Indycar can affect aerodynamics and weight, which in turn can impact our competitiveness. We have to avoid putting too may layers of paint and have to strip and sand cars for each new paint jobs. It’s a very time consuming, intensive and complicated process. Even adding a paint layer for a new sponsor logo can add aerodynamic ‘drag’ if it is layered on top the base. Decals present the same problem. So what’s a good solution? Especially in the interest of time and effort?

Our amazing and beautiful Hot Wheels Bowers & Wilkins 2010 Toronto and Edmonton Indy livery wasn’t actually a paint job; it was a wrap. A very thin vinyl wrap created and skilfully applied by Mario Rainville and our friends at Lettrage ProVan of Saint Eustache, Quebec.

It’s actually pretty common for cars to be wrapped, even in IndyCar. In fact, EVERY Indycar has a wrap on its rear wing as per tech regulations for ovals. But it does require a huge amount of talent to be able to wrap an entire Indycar with all the shapes and flaps and variety of individual bodywork pieces that have to fit together perfectly and look seamless.

The wrap is also much lighter than paint and gives our engineers the liberty to position weight where they need it to be more competitive. It’s so practical and time saving that even our transporters, pit equipment, fuel rig, timing stands are wrapped in vinyl. Using a wrap even actually gives you a lot more creative leeway for the design as well so you might just see a few more creative liveries from us and our loyal sponsors this year. Gives us all a few more things to look forward to as we get ready for the 2011 season to start.
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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2011 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Tags: Tagliani; motorsports