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| Valvoline Tech: Bottling High Performance | ||||||||||
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When race teams sign on with Valvoline they get more than some money, decals, shirts, hats and some free oil. Just ask Ray Evernham.
Evernham, president of NASCAR's Evernham Motorsports and now a Valvoline partner in Valvoline Evernham Racing, has seen first hand how Valvoline technicians go about developing high performance products. "When we got the assignment from Dodge (in 2000) to return to racing in NASCAR many companies talked about the marketing and the money that they would give us," Evernham recalls. "But I needed a technical partner. The first thing Valvoline did was bring me to their New Product Development Laboratory in Lexington, Ky."  Evernham had already experienced Valvoline technology. Valvoline was an associate sponsor and technical partner at Hendrick Motorsports when Evernham won his first NASCAR championship with a young Jeff Gordon.
In Lexington Evernham huddled with Dr. Fran Lockwood, Valvoline senior vice president of technology, who oversees Valvoline's research and development worldwide. Dr. Lockwood's team has developed such consumer hits as MaxLife® motor oil, the first such product developed specifically for high-mileage engines; Eagle One's Wax-as-U-DryTM appearance product, and the SynPower® line of premium automotive chemicals. Most important to Evernham, however, were Valvoline developments in the areas of high performance lubricants and coolants.  Dr. Lockwood and her racing group have been working for years with race teams to create products that would allow them to push their engines harder and protect them from heat and stress-related failures. Central to that effort has been Dan Dotson, product development and technical services manager at Valvoline. Dotson is a talented lubricant formulator, holds several patents, and has developed all of Valvoline's current racing oil formulas. He's also a recent recipient of an Emerald Honors award sponsored by Science Spectrum magazine. The Emerald Honors are the most celebrated of all awards for minorities working in the research sciences. These honors provide high-profile recognition of scientific research accomplishments. Recipients have shown exceptional talent and notable achievements in their particular field. Dotson's field is high performance and Valvoline's race teams have his cell phone number.
Ask Dotson about racing oils and he'll tell you that the oil that is poured through race cars is not always the same oil you buy to put in your own car or truck, although they carry many of the same properties. Race engines have special needs and even have needs that can vary according to the race track. "When you have qualifying a team might want to use an ultra-low viscosity motor oil," Dotson says. "Lighter, more efficient oils produce more horsepower. In some series for qualifying runs, teams simply run a few quarts of oil through the engine, drain it out immediately and then go qualify," Dotson says. "The idea being that a film of oil can get to the engine that allows it to last for two or three laps, but the car does not then carry the extra weight of five quarts of oil." Conversely, according to Dotson, race teams can use a thicker oil on shorter tracks where air flow is reduced and the engines run hotter. Longer superspeedways allow for a lighter oil, while road courses and intermediate tracks have their own demands. "NASCAR is becoming a very advanced engineering sport," Evernham adds. "No longer are you going to see the guys like Junior Johnson that can run something out of their garage. We're turning 9,200-9,300 rpms, the engines are going very fast and things are under tremendous stress in these engines and when they fail, they fail in a big way. Because of Valvoline's assistance, we could make gains throughout the year without much worry." But Valvoline's technicians are asked to develop solutions for racers in other series, too. As an official NHRA contingency sponsor the familiar red, white and blue Valvoline race hauler is a fixture at NHRA national events. In fact, for the past 10 years, more racers at these events have used Valvoline than any other motor oil, according to Valvoline starting line surveys. Dotson points to the special requirements of NHRA Top Fuel dragsters. They put out as much horsepower in one cylinder as an entire NASCAR power plant, creating a new problem for oil technicians. "We had to make a zero-weight oil for NHRA engines, because the fuel flow through the engines was so great that it would literally wash the oil right off the cylinder walls," Dotson says. "It took us a while to find something that could hold up." Valvoline's racing oils are holding up quite well, if 2005 results are any indication. Not only did Rod Fuller win at Memphis and finish in the NHRA Top Fuel top 10 with his Valvoline/David Powers Motorsports dragster, Valvoline-lubricated teams swept all seven NHRA Sportsman classes in 2005, a satisfyingly ironic twist since Lucas Oil Products sponsors the series. Dotson and his team can build countless different combinations of oils when you factor in all the different formulas and additives that go into a motor oil. As with a passenger car motor oil, these special oils start with a base stock that can be lighter or thicker depending on need, along with detergents to keep engine parts clean. Detergents are not as prevalent in racing engines but they are vital in passenger cars. According to Valvoline Brand Technical Manager Thom Smith, formulators have to balance additive packages. "Everything interacts with everything else in formulating an oil," says Smith. "That is why we have both the New Product Lab and our certified engine testing facility in Ashland, Ky., because too much of a good thing can inhibit the performance." The testing facility includes a dyno for running engines at speeds up to 10,000 rpm for extended periods, as well as myriads of equipment that measure everything from friction coefficients to durability and everything in between. With the move to Valvoline Evernham Racing in 2006 the engine lab is installing a new Dodge NASCAR Nextel Cup Series engine to continue research relevant to Evernham's program which is under the direction of Evernham Motorsports' Mark McArdle. But the Ashland/Valvoline engine lab keeps current on more than just racing technology. The lab also has a 4-cylinder Honda engine for testing and new Valvoline SynPower full synthetic motor oil is one result of that effort. These oils are featured at the hugely popular Hot Import Nights events throughout North America. According to Lockwood, Valvoline would not be involved in racing if what it learned could not benefit consumers. "In that respect, working with Ray Evernham's group is a tremendous help because they are interested in trying new things," she says. "We're always learning and taking what we learn from the track to the street." |
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