Tire wish list

[Tom Johnson]

Just in case anybody missed that...

"We will be running Goodyears at a cost of $360.00 a set."

$360
$360
$360

[Purple Frog]

Michael should get kudos for all the work he has done to establish a CFC class out west.

Although I'm not a big proponent of spec tires, $360 a set does catch my eye. And if it gets a class going, great.

Should I go to another thread to ask about 600s? Will they ever warm up? Or does the track temps need to be in the Death Valley range? [img]smile.gif[/img] I was even going to ask if they are DOT legal? [img]smile.gif[/img] Maybe I could call Tirerack...order some z-series tires...

OK Tom, $360 does catch one's attention.

[BrooksHall]

Mr. Frog the only thing we asked Goodyear was they take the Fred Flintstone logo off the side wall. Actually the weather out here does tend toward the hot side.

MH

[dennis]

I can only say from club ford experience where the R600/R60 adds about a second and a halve. Not terribly bad but I do not know what difference there would be for you, but I don't expect to much difference. Dennis...

[El Guapo]

Froggie,

I know you were being facetious when you posted that remark about Death Valley, but you may be closer to the mark than you think! Las Vagas Region has a new track in Nevada, close to the California border called Pahrump. Pahrump is about 20 miles from Death Valley. Hot racing, and legalized prostitution all in one place.

EG

[Tim T.]

That track is called Spring Mountain Motorsports Park and it's a wonderful track. The guy who built the track (Rupert Smith) copied all the hardest corners from tracks all over world that he'd raced on and put them all on one track. It's great fun. I think there is only one Apex on the whole track that isn't blind! You will have fun. What the track lacks in trackside ammenities (none) it's makes up for ontrack and in town!

Tim Tullio

[Avon Racing Technical]

I guess this will teach me to keep up to date with the FC site, I am amazed at the number of responses to this discussion topic.

I won’t pretend to have digested nearly all of the responses, but I think that I follow the general gist of things. Avon, like any other tyre manufacturer is involved in both ‘open’ and contract ‘areas’. There is a degree of cross-fertilisation of technology between the two and it is certainly not one way. For example, contract or spec tyres help you develop long lasting, consistent product AND service. Open areas help you work towards speed. Both areas are essential to us.

In my experience there are lots of ways of policing spec tyres, from a paint / pen signature, to a bar code or a unique sequential number. It is possible to have different colour shapes on the sidewall for different compounds / constructions. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

There are lots of ways of making rubber compounds, most of them not actually using rubber. No-one will give away secrets of their compounding process’ suffice to say a durometer reading at the trackside is not really reliable:- we mould a sample block of a finite size and shape and leave in an air conditioned environment. It is then placed on a thick glass plate and tested. If one were to test a tyre, ignoring the temperature and shape of the test piece, you would also be measuring the compliance of the tyre construction. Who says a durometer reading is always an indication of potential speed anyway?

I am very interested to see how this topic goes. Please feel free to respond on the site or post questions directly to me.

Regards,

Pete.

[Tom Johnson]

Thank you, Pete. Now we have heard from a rep from each of the tire mfgs. We have heard from the tech side of one of the major players who has presented a number of different ways that policing can be done.

And last night, I received an unsolicited e-mail, an excerpt from which I am posting verbatim. You be the judge. He writes far more succinctly and directly than me:

"On a different note, you have my full support on the tyre discussion on the web. As I have not yet turned a wheel in FC I don't feel it is my place to comment on the site but the tyre situation is one that had me considering not joining your ranks.
I raced in a class that had spec tyres and it still gives the big budget teams the opportunity to spend more (by using new tyres for every test session it meant they had a set up advantage) but it was controlled in that you could use a max of 6 slicks (any number of rains). It was policed by having individual numbers coded on the tyres and submitting your 6 at tech first thing in the morning. If someone had a puncture they were not punished as they had 2 extra to use.

If the formula wants to keep the manufacturers involved someone on the site had the smart idea of the producers submitting 3 similar compounds (preferably harder) to use for the year.

Keep up the good fight (and the humour) as the class has to remember that to be successful it does have to encourage new people in. For people like myself who given their age have the goal of just making the run-offs for a year but who will regularly support regional races too, having to spend half their weekend budget on tyres to have the chance of being competitive is quite a negative."