Ryan Martin is no stranger to demanding high performance from the products he uses. The same goes for the concrete coating materials for his garages and auto shop floors. After building a brand-new 3,200-square-foot workshop and garage, Ryan decided to purchase and apply a Nohr-S® Polyurea coating system from Legacy Industrial.
For those not familiar, Ryan owns, drives, and is a fan favorite of the red Fireball Camaro featured on Discovery Channel’s Street Outlaws. He’s also a two-time No Prep Kings drag racing season champion.
When we learned about his new shop build, we thought our readers would enjoy learning why he chose Nohr-S® Polyurea and what he thinks of the coating. Always the gentleman, Ryan was happy to take time out of his busy race schedule to talk with us by phone and share a few details.
Ryan’s new shop is located on a property where he is currently building a new home. He initially plans to use it for his own “personal stuff.” However, at 3,200 square feet, he admits he may eventually move his race car operations from the center of town to the new shop to reduce distractions.
Once the building was erected, he wanted to get a floor coating system applied before lights or any other work was completed. He knew he needed a durable, high-performing coating, so he called Scotty at Legacy Industrial to ask what he recommended.
For background, Ryan originally reached out to Legacy Industrial a few years ago. He was looking for a solution to a problem with a floor coating a contractor installed in one of his older shops. Though the original contractor eventually made good with the issue, Ryan was impressed with Legacy Industrial’s customer service.
After Ryan told Scotty the shop’s intended purpose, Scotty recommended their Nohr-S® Polyurea Coating System. Nohr-S® is a single-part polyurea coating that is extremely durable and easy to apply. You can read our review of Nohr-S® here.
The full kits include one coat each of Nohr-S® Color Prime, Nohr-S® Polyurea with color packs, optional color flakes, and Nohr-S® clear coat with optional anti-slip media. You can find the Nohr-S® kits here.
The specific Gray color applied was created by combining approximately 1/2 light Gray and 1/2 standard Gray pigment packs. In addition, Ryan wanted light color flake coverage with some red for the Fireball Camaro theme.
As a result, Scotty created a custom color flake blend with red in it that Ryan liked. It is now offered as the Martin Fireball blend with the Nohr-S® kits.
Application of the Nohr-S® Coating System
When I spoke with Ryan, he quickly pointed out that he didn’t install the coating system himself. He was busy filming Street Outlaws at the time and could only stop by when he was free to check on the progress.
Instead, he had a good friend from New York who was in town to see some races, and he insisted on installing the coating for him. He had done contract work for him before and was experienced with coatings.
In addition, Scotty sent a gentleman named Gus to lend a hand. Gus used to work for Legacy Industrial’s install division. Light color flake applications can be tricky for the uninitiated on such a large floor. Because it was a custom blend, Scotty wanted to make sure it was applied correctly.
The first step was to properly prep the concrete surface to accept a coating. Grinding the concrete was the best option since it had been power troweled very smooth to obtain the flat, level surface Ryan specified for the shop floor.
A floor maintainer with a Diamabrush attachment was used to do the grinding. However, Scotty was not happy with how it looked when Ryan sent him pictures. So, he sent him their HD357 concentrated salt-etch to finish the process.
Not wanting to wait for the etch, Ryan had his friend make another grinding pass on the floor. This time, he went over the concrete at a slower pace, and Ryan said they used a more aggressive Diamabrush pad.
Diamabrush offers two different attachments. One is a concrete prep attachment, and the other is a coating removal attachment. We suspect the wrong attachment (coating removal) was used first. Regardless, the concrete prep looked good after that and was ready for the coating.
As a side note, Ryan stated that he used the HD357 etch when installing Nohr-S® in the garage of his current home. He said it worked great and was easy to use.
The first coat applied was the Nohr-S® Color Prime. The industry often calls this the Ugly Coat. In addition to the typical advantages of an epoxy primer, Nohr-S® Color Prime is similar in color to the Nohr-S® Polyurea color coat. This prevents concrete color from bleeding through and lets the polyurea color coat achieve its full rich color and gloss.
After waiting 4 – 6 hours for the Color Prime to cure, the Nohr-S® Polyurea color coat was applied. Though Nohr-S® Polyurea has a long pot life, it typically begins to cure within 10 minutes of being applied to the floor.
This is where Gus’s experience came into play. As the polyurea was being applied, Gus followed along shortly after, carefully tossing in the custom blend of color flakes. A 2-man job is highly recommended when doing large floors like this one.
Nohr-S® Polyurea is ready for recoats in approximately 2 hours. If you wait more than 12 hours, it will need further prep before you can apply another coat. Careful planning should be made with recoat requirements in mind when planning your own garage floor coating project.
Once the Nohr-S® Polyurea color coat had cured for a few hours, a final coat of Nohr-S® Polyurea Clear was applied. The clear coat locks in and protects the color flakes and the color coat. It essentially acts as a sacrificial layer for the coating.
One of the advantages of a clear coat is that years later when the coating begins to look its age, you can make it look brand new by roughing up and sanding the surface to apply a new clear coat.
From start to finish, the coating installation took about 4 days. One of those days was due to the extra grinding required to achieve the proper profile. Regardless, 4 days is still pretty good for such a large shop floor.
Ryan’s Thoughts on the Nohr-S® Polyurea Coating System
I asked Ryan what his overall impressions were of Nohr-S®. I also asked if he had anything he would like to share with our readers about it.
He said one thing he liked, in particular, was the ability to adjust the base coat’s color tone using the color packs. He also said Legacy Industrial has always been great to deal with, and Scotty’s customer service is fantastic.
He is very happy with the way the floor coating turned out. He admits he hasn’t had much vehicle traffic yet. When I spoke with him, he had just finished installing lighting in the shop.
However, once his schedule frees up, he plans to load the shop up and start moving vehicles inside, and the coating will be put to the test. He has a Nohr-S® coating installed in the garage of his current home and has been very happy with its performance.
If you are interested in a Nohr-S® system for your garage or workshop, we suggest visiting Legacy Industrial or calling them for more information.
Yeah, I’ve chatted with him before at a race, he acts just like he does on tv. It’s fun to see a behind the scenes article like this. Is this coating much better than the stuff you can buy at Menards or Home Depot? It’s definitely more expensive.
Hi James. There is no comparison between Nohr-S polyurea and the inexpensive coatings that you can buy at your local home improvement center. This is a commercial quality coating system that will last 10-15 years before you may need to add a new coat. Rust-Oleum brand coatings and the others you can buy locally usually peel or wear out in 3 – 5 years.