CLEANING UP THE MESS

Unless you spend some time at race tracks, you don't understand that vintage motor vehicles leak oil. Oil slicks on a track can cause accidents and cars get bent up and people get hurt. So the ever present clean up crew is always on standby.

When a corner worker calls in a car for oiling, the car is black flagged and sent to the paddock, the rest of the cars head to the pits and the cleanup crew starts to work. Oil absorbing compound is spread over the spill (sometimes it goes for a long way down the track), it is brushed into the oil, in both directions,  by the brush device behind the truck. Sometimes several passes have to be made.

EXTRA: After the oil is absorbed, the residue of the compound is left on the track, which is, in itself, a hazard. So a very powerful blower moves the bulk of it off the track surface and that is usually followed by a tractor with another blower to move it even farther away from the track's surface. Then racing can resume.