SILVER STATE: The sights of setup day

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

As no cars will hit the track until Thursday morning, Wednesday marked the calm before the storm - with a handful of teams setting up their pit areas and preparing for this week's race. The track crew did their own last-minute prep work, spraying down the track surface with a special polymer.

Here's what the facility and track looked like before being flooded with cars and people.

Here are the teams that set up today:

While drivers and mechanics were busy popping tents and arranging tables, the track crew did their last bit of work to prepare the racing surface. Here's RC Tracks of Las Vegas co-owner Chris Tocco with some of his helpers:

Some of the final track work was cosmetic, spray painting sponsor logos throughout the course.

To help hold the track surface together, and maintain a consistent level of grip, the RCTLV crew sprayed a special polymer from local company Soil Tech, called FSB-1000 - a "formulated soil binder." For the Sin City Nitro Encounter, the track was treated with a 50/50 mix of FSB-1000 and water. "The surfaced polished up a little bit," said Tocco, "and it felt like the surface did get a good, consistent coating. We tested it at full-strength after the race, and the track held together better and had higher grip." He said there are no plans to add additional solution after today's application.

The polymer forms a physical layer on top of the dirt to help hold the surface together and control dust, but it's not impenetrable. It will be interesting to see how the protective layer - and the surface itself - holds up after four days of abuse. When the dried-on polymer peels up, it looks like this:

What will the track look like by Sunday? We're one day closer to finding out!