24 replies to this topic

[275 GTB-4]

tar·mac [ tar màk ]

noun

Definitions:

road surfacing material: a material used for surfacing roads

transitive verb (past tar·macked, past participle tar·macked, present participle tar·mack·ing, 3rd person present singular tar·macks)

Definitions:

1. cover with tarmac: to cover the surface of a road with tarmac

2. park: to park an airplane on a surfaced area at an airport or air base

[Early 20th century. Originally a trademark]

Just interested in where the term came from....Encarta says originally a trademark.

So is the name a combination of Tar and Macadam???

why do they still refer to airport with acres of concrete as tarmacs???

when was the first use of a bitumen or tar track surface (for racing)???

EDIT: Here's a shot that shows TARMAC as a brand name!! (thanks Rob)

[Ruairidh]

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4
tar·mac [ tar màk ]



So is the name a combination of Tar and Macadam???

Aye, Tarmac is the shortened version of Tarmacadam - and the Macadam bit comes from John McAdam.

[David Birchall]

when was the first use of a bitumen or tar track surface (for racing)??? [/B][/QUOTE]


I think it was Dallas, about 1984?
David B

[275 GTB-4]

Care to explain the in-joke there Dave

[bradbury west]

Tarmac;;

I always understood that the name was in fact a registered trade/product name of the inventing company, so whenever it is written or referred to officially it has a capital T and is followed by a small capital R, rather like Bernie does with F1 descriptions and terms.

Roger Lund.

[RS2000]

The trademark owners once took action to prevent the UK "sealed surface" rally championship being called "tarmac championship".

[2F-001]

The RAC Blue Blook used to (and possibly still does) quote 'surface' along with other data for each circuit that was listed - or, at least, for those where the information was available;

eg: Tarmacadam; asphalt; fine cold asphalt; Belmac; Bitmac; friction course Tarmac; Delugrip etc.

Clearly some of these are trade names and how they differ in specifics is a mystery to me.
(Asphalt and bitumen, though, have been known and used since pre-history - and for road-building for 25 centuries or more, I believe.)

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4
Care to explain the in-joke there Dave

I am not a close follower of F1 but I do recall melting tar at Dallas (?) causing serious problems in the eighties.

[WINO]

They must have used "fine cold asphalt" for the Dallas course. When Road America was built in the mid-fifties, they used a "hot" asphalt mix [whatever that is!], to prevent the track from disintegrating on hot days. Never heard of any surface problems at RA, so it must have worked.

WINO

[RTH]

John Loudon Macadam's road building system of 1820 of course used no tar at all . It was re-inventing the roman road really supported edges, layers of graduated stone sizes (finest at the top layer) most importantly heavily cambered with a centre crown so that water flowed off on both sides quickly, and rolled, preserving the structure, simple but effective and soon in great demand.

Much later they tried all sorts of chemicals and liquid treatments to bind it , glue it together, lay the dust including crude oil which of course never dried. It was only with oil refining that bitumen a by -product was the ideal binder.

In UK it wasn't until the 1930's that the majority of the road network got sealed. Poor road surface from frequently hammered in limestone and rolled grit must have dictated much of car design with flexible chassis in the early part of the century.

A modern stiff chassis car with firm short travel suspension and ultra low profile tyres today is terrible on an unmade road with a mass of potholes .

Mind you the roads of Britain are now rapidly reverting to that condition . Anyone know what the government actually does with that £46 Billion they collect annually in motoring taxes?

Incidently for our friends in the USA who think $2 a gallon is expensive here in the UK it is now $6.40 a gallon

[WINO]

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find I could completely fill up [with 8.5 U.S. gallons] my 1969 VandenPlas 1300, for the grand sum of $21.72 [U.S.]. It sure beats those regular $40 -50 fuel bills. Unfortunately, most of the summer the car is impossible to drive because of lack of air conditioning. But its days are coming soon again, glued to the tarmac/asphalt/macadam thanks to its liquid suspension.

WINO

[RTH]

As Hurricane Katrina heads for New Orleans which is below sea level and the Gulf of Mexico where all the major oil producers have shut down their production platforms with winds of 190 mph expected.

Overnight crude oil prices went up over $5 a barrel to $71 a barrel. A major area of production of light sweet crude very good for gasoline production and a long row of refineries which may well all be flooded.

Gasoline prices are now set to go a lot higher yet and it may well last a long time.

[Catalina Park]

Originally posted by WINO
Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find I could completely fill up [with 8.5 U.S. gallons] my 1969 VandenPlas 1300, for the grand sum of $21.72 [U.S.]. It sure beats those regular $40 -50 fuel bills. Unfortunately, most of the summer the car is impossible to drive because of lack of air conditioning. But its days are coming soon again, glued to the tarmac/asphalt/macadam thanks to its liquid suspension.

WINO

Why don't you fit air con? It was an option! (I have the workshop manual for it)
The Hydrolastic suspension can't be beaten on rough roads.

[Vitesse2]

Going back to tarmac, there's a good general history of roadbuilding here:

http://www.asphaltwa.../01_history.htm

The modern use of asphalt as a sealant seems to have started with pavements/sidewalks in the middle of the 19th century.

[David McKinney]

Thanks for that, Richard
I was too lazy to look it up myself
Growing up in New Zealand 40-odd years ago, 'tarmac' was a word never encountered, except in English magazines - or perhaps with regard to airports. Roads were either tar-sealed (more often simply 'sealed') or gravel. I'd heard bitumen used in the context of road-building (without really knowing what it was) and asphalt was something used on school playgrounds
All completely beside any point, of course

[Mac Lark]

Originally posted by David McKinney
Thanks for that, Richard
I was too lazy to look it up myself
Growing up in New Zealand 40-odd years ago, 'tarmac' was a word never encountered, except in English magazines - or perhaps with regard to airports. Roads were either tar-sealed (more often simply 'sealed') or gravel. I'd heard bitumen used in the context of road-building (without really knowing what it was) and asphalt was something used on school playgrounds
All completely beside any point, of course

I understand David

[Vitesse2]

No-one's actually suggested a possibility for the original question.

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4
when was the first use of a bitumen or tar track surface (for racing)???

In early racing in Europe, they often treated the roads with chemical compounds like Westrumite, mainly to keep the dust down.

I wouldn't have thought that bitumen or tar surfaces were laid specifically for racing until after WW1, as permanent circuits started to appear. Brooklands was all-concrete, as were the other autodromes Montlhéry, Sitges and Miramas. Montlhéry's road circuit was concrete too.

Parts of the Nurburgring perhaps? Or parts of Monza?. Parts of Monaco and Pau certainly - but those were public roads.

But might the first track to be all-tarmac be Donington Park? Or maybe Mellaha?

[RTH]

96 rigs shut down in the Gulf of Mexico, 7 rigs adrift oil back above $70, gasoline and heating oil hit new highs today

CNBC is telling its viewers to fill up their tanks because prices are likely to shoot up for some time.

[Pils1989]

I've always heard the word "tarmac" used in french only for airport runways or planes parking: " Feels good to be back on the tarmac after a long flight"

Macadam is more used for roads and motorways "This mountain road has a nice macadam"


EDIT Apparently they use cement in the Georgia, USA, and in Belgium because it's cheaper and last longer BUT cement isn't really ideal in rainy countries. I miss the nice absorbent type of macadam used in France as I don't need to slow down to 60 mph or below when it's raining on the motorway.

[RTH]

The road surfaces in France are superb even byways and country roads are kept in perfect repair, in a 2000 mile round trip we couldn't find a single pothole .

In sharp contrast to the roads in England particually the south east which are a complete and utter disgrace repair now being a word unknown by county councils

[Pils1989]

Roads are more expensive to build in France for tax-buyers but they are more secure for drivers and easier on the cars.
You still have people complaining about paying too much of taxes but then they should look in other countries with what the loacal authorities and governements provide them on a shoe-string budget.
I have to say that Belgium strarted use proper macadam on motorways, I think about the motorway Brussels-Luxemburg and one that goes North from Arlons on the way to Zolder.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by RTH
The road surfaces in France are superb even byways and country roads are kept in perfect repair, in a 2000 mile round trip we couldn't find a single pothole .

In sharp contrast to the roads in England particually the south east which are a complete and utter disgrace repair now being a word unknown by county councils

The West isn't exactly pothole-less either. One of our local councillors here in Bath & NE Somerset has managed to endear himself to all and sundry by suggesting that potholes should be left unrepaired as a method of traffic calming .....

[Ray Bell]

I can answer Mick's question as far as Australia goes, anyway...

The first all-sealed racing circuit in Australia was Lobethal... but... There was probably a couple of short bits of the Port Elliot-Victor Harbor circuit were sealed as well, definitely the approaches to a couple of corners at the original Phillip Island circuit were sealed by 1934.

And they were sealed for the usual reasons... dust reduction and safety. Mount Panorama was the first circuit to be sealed in Australia as a circuit (1939). Lobethal was all sealed before there were any serious proposals to race there.

The first sealed artificial circuit in Australia is a toss-up. Mt Druitt was all sealed and had its extensions done before Altona, but it was partly an airstrip anyway. Which was, of course, sealed.

I've forgotten the details, but Aspendale Speedway had some kind of surface... not tar sealed, I don't think, maybe Terry Walker can advise on that.

And returning to Bathurst, Mike Kable once related to me how the Bathurst Council embarked on a heavy campaign of tar sealing roads to reduce maintenance costs. Constant grading of the usual decomposed granite surface was necessary, but when sealed they were allowed to remain untouched for several years.

I think the racers at Bathurst complained about that in 1946...

WINO... I doubt that it was a cold mix at Dallas. 'Hotmix' is a regular term here, and I've not seen a circuit surface that wasn't put down by that method (tip heated mixture of fine stones and bitumen, grade and roll flat) since 1960. It was being used before that, of course, but I would think that Altona, possible Port Wakefield and certainly Mt Druitt were done by the other method, which is to lay and spread the crushed stone and then spray bitumen over it, put another thin layer on top and roll.

David... in Australia it was in that time frame normal to refer to roads as 'tarred' or 'sealed' or 'gravel' or 'dirt'.

[JohnB]

There's a few comments about the road surface of the early Isle of Man circuits in the book "Tourist Trophy" by Richard Hough.

About the 1905, 52-mile circuit:
"... a loose surface that could turn into a shallow quagmire in rain, required to be sprayed with a substance called Westrumite, in order to abate the dust nuisance, if it was dry"

About the 1908 circuit (same route as the modern motorcycle T.T.) :
"... the road surface was given special attention, the entire course being swept by hand, and then treated with a new dust-laying substance, Akonia dressing, which was laid by two traction engines towing trailers. That notorious stretch between Sulby Bridge and the village was tarred, a treatment that was found disconcertingly slippery by many drivers, especially in the wet."

About the 1914 and 1922 circuits:
"For the last two T.T.s on this course the surface was slightly improved. There was macadam and even tarmac on some portions although dust was still a menace when the road was dry, and the dust-laying calcium chloride - excruciatingly painful to the eyes - an almost equal menace when the road was wet."

So according to that, the T.T. circuit was at least partly tarmac by 1914 (or at least by 1922, depending on how you interpret it), and some kind of tar surface used in 1908.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
No-one's actually suggested a possibility for the original question.

In early racing in Europe, they often treated the roads with chemical compounds like Westrumite, mainly to keep the dust down.

I wouldn't have thought that bitumen or tar surfaces were laid specifically for racing until after WW1, as permanent circuits started to appear. Brooklands was all-concrete, as were the other autodromes Montlhéry, Sitges and Miramas. Montlhéry's road circuit was concrete too.

Parts of the Nurburgring perhaps? Or parts of Monza?. Parts of Monaco and Pau certainly - but those were public roads.

But might the first track to be all-tarmac be Donington Park? Or maybe Mellaha?

An interesting site giving information about the Berliner AVUS as a testbed for different options of modern road construction: http://members.a1.ne...y/ab-hist-D.htm
See especially the link: http://members.a1.ne...istory/avus.htm - a 1939 article about the history of the AVUS (with some remarks that show the age they were written.....).