This is a topic I’ve been asked about before with email questions, and something that was an issue today at Pocono: dealing with brake dust.  As pit crew members, and tire changers especially, brake dust is an issue we deal with usually at short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville.  With the introduction of the new car though, and the handling issues that go along with it, brakes have become more important to the drivers at bigger tracks.  More brake use equals more brake dust in your face during pit stops.

As a changer, I’ve been on both the front and the rear.  Dust doesn’t usually come into play as a rear changer, because rear brakes aren’t abused as much.  It is definitely an issue for the front guys though.  When you stomp down on the brake pedal, all the car’s weight shifts to the front, and the front brakes work harder, hence more dust.  There are a few different ways to deal with the dust as a changer.

I think more and more guys these days are starting to wear safety glasses over the wall.  I know if its a sunny day, I’ll wear my sunglasses during pit stops.  If its starting to get dark or completely dark outside, I’ve got a pair of clear glasses I wear.  I never step off the wall during a race without something.  Wearing eye protection can help with keeping some dust and other debris and projectiles out of your eyes.  And when I say projectiles, I mean lugnuts.  Yeah, they don’t feel too nice when they hit your face.

Another method to avoiding brake dust is the full face helmet.  You’ll see a few changers on pit road wearing them.  When you wear a full face helmet, closing the shield will keep most of the dust out of your face and eyes. 

A couple of other ways we can help the situation is to make sure our lugnuts and studs are painted bright so we can see them through the dust, and to blow off the left front with compressed air.  You can’t do this for the right front, but if they show close up views of a pit stop on TV and its a track with excessive brake use, normally you’ll see a crew member reach over the wall and spray compressed air onto the wheel to blow some of the brake dust off the left front.  Its not easy trying to hit lugnuts with a face full of dust, and blowing some of it away helps a lot.

Besides brake dust and lugnuts, other eye dangers include speedy dry (this stuff is brutal), fuel (110 octane in the eye doesn’t feel good either), and I know a lot of guys struggled with the tiny bits of tire rubber last weekend at Indy. 

Dealing with these problems is just another part of the game though, and more reasons why we need to be 100% focused when we hit the ground for our next stop.

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