Ever wonder what happens to all of the used and worn out tires that a NASCAR race creates? They have now become a great collector’s piece of NASCAR memorabilia, providing a great new item for NASCAR merchandise lovers. The NASCAR actual NASCAR race is extremely thrilling. The event can bring up to a hundred thousand fans out to cheer on their favorite driver and race team. The paid advertisers adore the races because of all the publicity it creates for their products and for the brand awareness that is built. The entire event is great for making sales and I love it. Then the race ends and the people go home.
The cars that have been racing for the last two to three hours have multiple sets of tires that have been used and abused on the track. They are worthless at this end point in their life. Most times the tires get so hot that they pick up debris from the track , making them potentially dangerous and giving them virtually no use at all. The tires are collected and placed at the end of pit row, stacked 4 high. Each race will produce more than 600 used tires.
The design of the big tires do not allow them to be used on any other type of vehicle. They are designed to fit only high performance race vehicles which are very limiting for any additional uses. They cannot get retread for safety fears that they will not be as safe and secure when travelling around a race track at speed exceeding two hundred miles per hour. These used NASCAR tires can lay in a trash dump for more than 400 years prior to completely degrading. This is something for the green conscious part in all of us to weigh in on but one that should especially be taken under consideration if you are among the many that enjoy the races, like me, and one that we needed to find a solution to in a short term time frame.
The concept was mulled over by a young man who thought that he would be able to brainstorm a way to have the issues put behind us. He began with the set of ideas that included the fact that people loved all things NASCAR, the tires should not have to be reprocessed and that the landfill should not have the tires for the next 400 years, the people should.
That is when the idea of the Race Cooler was born. He thought that the race tire looked like a cooler that he had used when he was a younger man and that the tire could be adapted to make use of the natural insulation that the rubber provided. A concept was created, a template built, then a hand built prototype was made. It was beautiful. The race cooler was made from an actual tired that raced in a NASCAR race complete with the actual race markings, a special polyethylene inner shell was formed providing dual layers of insulation to keep beverages cold, a water sprout to allow for easy draining of the cooler and lid that would keep everything cool for days. The final version of the product allows four bags of ice and up to 144 beverages to be stored inside of the cooler. The coolers have quickly become one of the most perfect NASCAR gifts for the biggest of NASCAR fans. The other terrific effect the product has is that the used tires now find a second useful life rather than taking up space in our landfills.