Engine Ice not allowed

J

jnbbender

New Member
Asking as a novice or intermediate rider, why is Engine Ice not allowed even though standard Anti-Freeze is? It would seem as if the novices would go down easier than the Advanced group so why is water only required for the Advanced group?
 
Water probably isn’t required because less new people will sign up if the barriers to entry are higher. Also, at an advanced pace, even if you don’t go down, when something breaks and you spill coolant, it is going to be a lot more consequential for you and the people behind you.

In my opinion, anyone with more than a few days track experience, regardless of group, that just wants to do the minimum required to get on track, should find a new hobby. If someone has done a few days, he probably know why antifreeze is an issue or why people safety wire drain plugs and filters. If he is still running antifreeze and not safety wiring because it is less work for him, that is not the kind of person I want to be on the track with.
 
I'm kinda wondering if that is more a comment that those are not antifreeze replacements equivalent to water, water wetter or other non-glycol based products.
 
If you're serious about this activity why not prep your bike as per the advanced rules? If and when you get the A bump you're ready to take immediate advantage. Sure beats having to wait a session or a whole day in order to get things turned around. Safety wiring a bike in the paddock is a PIA, so is flushing the coolant.
 
The rules and reasons are clear. But, in various orgs, I see control riders running glycol-based antifreeze in their bikes. During the winter, I've been guilty of a few TDs with glycol. Simply because trailering my bike for hours, exposes it to the cold NE winter weather to GA and FL.

Also, twice this year (2023), the novice or intermediate group crashed, spilling antifreeze or oil on the track, resulting in a long delay for cleanup. That didn't occur at an N2 event, but a spill / cleanup event like that could occur with any TD org in any class (oil or coolant).

Thoughts?
 
virtualsolitude said:
The rules and reasons are clear. But, in various orgs, I see control riders running glycol-based antifreeze in their bikes. During the winter, I've been guilty of a few TDs with glycol. Simply because trailering my bike for hours, exposes it to the cold NE winter weather to GA and FL.

Also, twice this year (2023), the novice or intermediate group crashed, spilling antifreeze or oil on the track, resulting in a long delay for cleanup. That didn't occur at an N2 event, but a spill / cleanup event like that could occur with any TD org in any class (oil or coolant).

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

There are avoidable spills and there are unavoidable spills. It is impossible to spill antifreeze when you don’t have antifreeze on the track. It’s almost certain a wired oil filter is not going to loosen. Spills are dangerous. There are enough risks in this sport that can’t be controlled. There is no reason to add needless risk, especially when you have agreed with everyone on the track with you via the rules that you will not expose them to that risk.

I trailer my bike to Barber when it’s freezing up north. This year it was warm. Last year, I put antifreeze in when I left, changed to water at Barber, and put the antifreeze back in before going home. It’s not hard.
 
The Ice Water package says glycol free, it does list a form of sodium salt (NaCl) which would lower the freeze point. Typically sodium is not good for Aluminum but perhaps they have a buffer of some sort. It does say it lowers the surface tension of the water and typically this is what makes things slippery.
 
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It looks like the Ice Water does not contain any glycol products. The Engine Ice Coolant does contain the glycol product.
 
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