Beauty and the Beast: Floor Coatings that are Tough and Beautiful

In April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave Texas Motor Speedway® the green light to offer racing again – albeit with no fans present. Nonetheless, the announcement was welcome news to fans, drivers and speedway managers.

“Texas Governor Greg Abbott has given NASCAR® the green flag to race, and our sport is eager to get back on track,” said Eddie Gossage, TMS president and general manager. “Our sport is unique because the competitors are inside the race cars with no body-to-body contact like most other sports. That is a distinct advantage over other sports and why you will likely see auto racing as the first live sport returning to action.”

Floors Built for Performance

While the empty stands may be a new experience for drivers and their teams, they will find at least one consistency from past years: the NASCAR-branded garage floors installed by Intertech Flooring three years ago, still beautiful despite the rigorous demands that have been placed on them.

Intertech’s race-car garage floors were unveiled in November 2017 at the AAA Texas 500 NASCAR tripleheader weekend. The new floors, a first in NASCAR, cover 22,000 square feet (2044 m2) per garage, and house 48 individual service bays per garage, plus the Technical Service Inspection Station where every team sends their race-car for an intensive inspection before racing.

Intertech’s work included designing and installing more than 90 feet of custom logo embedded in the resinous coating. The LATICRETE® SUPERCAP System includes products designed specifically for commercial garages, warehouses and airplane hangars where performance is a factor because of elements like hot tires, hazardous fluids and the regular use of heavy equipment within the area.

“It’s been three years since we installed these floors and they have really held up nicely,” says Richard Garcia, Intertech’s project manager overseeing the job then. Garcia now works with LATICRETE.

Where Speed Matters: Tough and Fast Floor Coating

The key to the garage floors’ longevity is the super-tough and fast-drying LATICRETE SPARTACOTE®polyaspartic coating that Intertech applied. Unlike an epoxy coating, SPARTACOTE is made to go on thinner, but it dries harder and faster. “One of the big advantages in using it is how fast the customer can get back onto it,” says Grant Imhoff, project manager with Intertech. “We were able to do each one of those bays in a week. Epoxy would have taken 10 days to two weeks because, after each coat, there’s a certain amount of time you have to wait to put on another coat.”

The polyaspartic product also requires less floor prep. “Since you don’t have to grind as deeply on the concrete to prepare the floor, the client achieves both time savings and cost savings,” he says.

To complete the project, Intertech used SPARTACOTE FLEX PURE to deliver a zero-VOCs top coat.

“These floors are the ideal solution for the spaces being used by race teams,” says Garcia. “They deliver moisture-free, flat finished concrete with resinous coatings providing excellent chemical resistance and non-slip traction properties critical for garage and high-tech services spaces like this.”

Multipurpose Uses for Floor Coatings

The Texas Motor Speedway project is one of many that Intertech Flooring has installed using the specialty floor coatings, some involving moisture mitigation as well. “We did a 14,000 square foot job for a major university, where we had to remove the existing terrazzo floor due to moisture issues, pour SUPERCAP on top and the add SPARTACOTE,” says Imhoff, of the award-winning project for general contractor Alpha Construction.

Epoxy floor coatings are popular in lobby areas, bathrooms, commercial kitchens and large event centers where ramps must bear the weight and abuse of heavy equipment.

‘Ultimately, these specialty coatings are becoming a preferred choice for customers who need speed – they need us to get in and get out quickly – and who are looking for a flooring system that will last them for years and can withstand the harshest of environments,” he says.

Looking for flooring that will stand the test of time? Intertech can guide you in the right floor coating products for your needs. Learn more about polyaspartic coating.