Dog Days of Summer

The thermometer shows a number somewhere in the high-90's. By mid-day it feels like it's in the triple-digits. Here you are, standing next to your car, in the middle of hundreds of idling engines, with your 3-layer Nomex suit (and underwear). You swear that your race shoes are melting to the surface of the track and your $$ race tires are turning into pools of rubber goo. Ever ask yourself, Why am I here?

Here we are again - the hottest time of the year. All we can hope for is to get the car moving so at least a tiny semblance of a breeze starts to come through the window. Will relief ever come? Even though the only sure way to stay cool on track is to wait for the Autumn months, there are ways to try and beat the heat. Here's a short and hopefully helpful list:

1. Fitness & Health (Free!!): The big concern with racing in such high heat is taking care of yourself and making sure you don't succumb to heat stroke. We all hear the warnings and all know the precautions, so stay properly hydrated (hydrated meaning with water, not beer). One should also stay in shape, especially during the racing season - activities in such extreme temperatures places a huge burden on the body; staying physically fit gives a huge advantage in overcoming such physical duress. Read more here: http://racingfitness.com/blog/

2. Fresh Air Systems Cool Suit (complete systems start at $398.00): The Fresh Air Systems Cool Suit is a simple t-shirt worn under your driving gear. The shirt is lined with 50 feet of small water tubing sewn onto the front and back. This tubing is connected to a remote cooler that circulates plain old tap water through the shirt. The shirt creates cooling zones on the body that help lower your core temperature throughout your race. Fresh Air Systems also offers kits with fresh air helmet attachments; a blower fan takes air from outside, shoves it through the same cooler (yes, like an intercooler) and blows fresh, cool air into your helmet.

3. Technical Underwear (balaclavas start below $50): There was a time when all Nomex underwear was constructed from the same, itchy waffle-weave fabric. However, the future is here and new technical fabrics are being engineered for every sport out there. It's about time they came into the motorsports world! 2BKool, a company from New Zealand, has released a complete line of Nomex blended underwear with a very unique quality. Tiny polymer micro-capsules permanently embedded within the fabric absorb and store excess body heat as it is created, dispersing the excess heat when necessary. It might sound like something made for astronauts, but this stuff really works!

If that's seems a little over the top, Sparco offers 2-lines of technical underwear, ICE and Carmyth. Both are treated to the same X-Cool chemical treatment that also helps draw heat away from the body (and it smells minty-fresh.) Carmyth has the added bonus of offering the highest flame resistance of any driver underwear AND the convenient side-effect of true wicking properties. Yes, sweat WICKING from driving gear!

4. Lighter-Weight Driving Suits: By reducing the weight of your driving suit, you're going to stay much cooler during the summer months. It's sort of like choosing between a light t-shirt VS a heavy wool sweater in the middle of summer. Lightweight doesn't necessarily mean a compromise in protection neither. The 3-layer Sparco X-Light HC Driving Suit ($1595 retail) is 25% lighter then many other similarly rated driving suits on the market. Plus, it is already treated to the same Carmyth and X-Cool breakthroughs as listed above.