Most of us love to keep our cars clean. We spend time washing, waxing, polishing, the works. However, no sooner than you’ve put the detailing supplies away, your car is already beginning to get dirty again. Dust from your garage and the outside air will start landing on it. As soon as you go for a drive, bugs, and other road debris will inevitably hit it. A long standing question for many of us has always been, how to keep our cars clean when we want it to show off on race day, or at a cruise night, but can’t wash it again as soon as we arrive at our destination.
One solution that we’ve recently come across is Driven Racing’s Race Wax product. In recent years NASCAR teams have moved away from custom paint jobs, which can tie a car up in the paint operation of a NASCAR shop for days at a time. That leaves other work that may need to be done to the car waiting until the paint shop has completed their work. Replacing custom paint have been vinyl or decal wraps.
Vinyl wraps go on while other work is being performed on the car, and they can be done relatively quick when compared to a full paint job. However, vinyl wraps can look dull or matte in their appearance. The vinyl material may also allow rubber to more easily adhere to it, and can be harder to clean without damaging it. “We needed a solution so that our cars with multi-million dollar sponsorships looked good for the entire race weekend. That solution was Race Wax” says Diven Racing’s Lake Speed Jr.
According to Speed, Race Wax is really not a wax at all, but a cleaner and protectant. An additional complication that came up in a NASCAR application is the variety of different materials on these cars. “There’s painted surfaces, Lexan windows, chrome, brushed metal. We needed something that wouldn’t damage those surfaces, wouldn’t fog or streak the windows, and wasn’t damaging to the surfaces around the car” says Speed.
Driven sent us some Race Wax to try out on our own car. We had recently washed, and waxed this car, and also driven it about 100 miles running various errands prior to trying out Race Wax. We sprayed our front bumper and a few other areas on the car that were already showing dirt, bugs and road grime.
Using a soft towel, we were able to clean away the buildup that was already accumulating quickly on the bumper. We liked that Race Wax easily removed the gooey bug remains, and only left behind a shiny finish. It didn’t take much elbow grease, and the product wiped clean easily. We were also impressed at how small an amount of the product we needed to achieve our desired outcome.
We treated the car’s rear quarter panels as well, since this is an area on our car that is troublesome for grime buildup. We also used Race Wax on our headlights to clear off the bugs and dirt accumulating there. We’re curious to see how well Race Wax repels additional buildup as we continue to drive our car.
Speed says that Race Wax is great on windows too, something we’ll have to try out, and it can be used to clean virtually any surface on the car’s exterior. He also mentioned that it won’t strip away the coat of wax you probably spent several hours rubbing onto your car.
We’re impressed with Driven’s Race Wax product, and it has now become something that goes along with us for cruise nights, race days, car shows, and road trips.