Race Tire

Race Tire
what modifications did Travis Kvapil’s team do to those tire Valve Caps? what does that do for his race car?

would it have caused Travis to go faster or what?

It wasn’t a different “valve cap,” but something else entirely.
They used an device called a “bleeder valve” that are an item tyically used by short track dirt racers (sprint cars, late models, etc), and are on NASCAR’s list of “illegal equipment” and are a clear violation of the rules.
They are installed by drilling a seperate hole in the wheel (so they can not be installed by accident like they claimed) and are mounted independant of and in additon to the normal “tire valve” used on automobile tires to add or adjust the airpressure in the tire. The valves are adjustable, and allow one to “preset” the air pressure in a tire, and they allow the air to bleed off if it gets over a predetermined level (which is a common problem, and something the teams battle) as a tire heats up during the course of a run and pressure builds up and makes the handling go away. These valves allow that built up pressure to vent itself automatically.

These were not installed by mistake, and had to have been installed in a manner to disguise their use – as in on the backside of the wheel, and covered with tape or something – so as to evade detection by NASCAR inspectors.

The reason they got caught was that these valves tend to leak over time, so their air pressure has to be kept an eye on, and at a recent race during a pre-race rain delay rather mysteriously the team’s car lost air pressure – not one, but all 4 of them – and they requested to change the tires. Since this was done in view of NASCAR inspectors, and they were curious as to why all the tires lost pressure on just their car (and nobody else’s) they saw the bleeder valves.

SO all their “excuses” are just BS.