TrackBite and barbecue and top names

INDIANAPOLIS -- There's good news and bad news from the U.S. Naitonals drag race, the last event before the National Hot Rod Association makes its inaugural visit to zMAX Dragway @ Concord.

The good news is that I was able to find a VERY respectable barbecue sandwich for sale on the concession midway here. Laugh if you will, but the propsect of finding decent barbecue this far north can be daunting.

The bad news is that I asked the folks who run the deal if they'd be in Concord in a couple of weeks. They said no. Surely somebody in the Carolinas will step in and fill that void.

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It's just after 3 as I write this and there's one more round of pro qualifying to go. The big news there is that John Force is still not in the top 16 in Funny Car, which means if he doesn't go faster than 4.208 seconds in the final run he's going to fail to qualify for the NHRA's biggest race for a second straight year. (Here's the 4:50 pm update -- Force will NOT be in the show on Monday. He broke during his run in the final funny car qualifying round.)

One of Force's daughters, Courtney, has made elminations in Top Alcohol, but Brittany, another young Force, did not make the top 16. Ashley Force is safely in the field for Monday's eliminations, but John beat her in Sunday morning's first round of the U.S. Smokeless Showdown.

John's final qualifying run later Sunday will also be a semifinal matchup with Tim Wilkerson in the Showdown. It's entirely possible that Force could beat Wilkerson to move into the Showdown final but not go fast enough to make the top 16 in the overall event. That'd mean he'd run for a win in the Showdown at the end of today's program and then be done for the weekend.

People who hate NASCAR's top 35 rule point to the NHRA's cut-and-dried qualifying as an example of why letting the fastest 43 race each week - with no provisionals of any kind - would work. If John Force can be sent home from a drag race, why can't a Jeff Gordon or a Dale Earnhardt Jr. miss a Cup show?

I've said it before and I still believe it. I think NASCAR is right and the NHRA is wrong on this one. It doesn't do anybody any good for John Force not to be racing in the year's biggest event if he's healthy and able to go. The same goes for a driver like Tony Schumacher, the four-time defending top fuel champion who wasn't in the Top Ffuel top 16 until he put up a solid number Sunday morning.

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My new mission in life is to find out what's in something called TrackBite.

In trying to get ready for the first drag race at the new place in North Carolina, I am trying to ask questions about things that make me curious figuring that people who read what I write about drag racing in the next few weeks might have the same questions.

So I am watching the NHRA folks swarm over the race track here before rounds for the pro classes, scraping up bits of rubber with tiny shovels and smearing all sorts of goo here and there trying to make the track sticky. A big part of this track preparation, I've been told, is this substance called VHT TrackBite Traction Concentrate.

OK, so what's in it?

Nobody seems to know. Or, if they know, they're not telling.

The internet tells me that it's made by Bazell Race Fuels, a company based in Ohio. It is, and I quote, "a unique formula that is designed to create adhesion between rubber, asphalt, and concrete. ...It stays tacky for weeks and won't run off, even in heavy rains. Most of all, it won't harm your track, it actually seals and protects the asphalt."

And, supposedly, it's biodegradable.

I promise I will keep digging on this important story.