Thanks Larry, I think we just have differing opinions of the durability a tire marketed toward club racing should provide. I think a club tire should go multiple race weekends and that was how the Hoosier was represented to us and where it fell short.
I think it’s quite easy for any tire to give great performance for only a few heat cycles, and that’s not a high bar to achieve.
Chris, I personally think the old YLC was a better tire all around.
The Hoosier seems to wear faster. Heat cycle quicker and generally have less feel IMHO. The biggest gripe I have is when running on the limit of the tire in 420 you can go from that limit to driving on ice from turn in to before apex or about 10ft. That limit was much, much more forgiving on the Bridgestone tires. Like, they would tell me for atleast an entire lap I was pushing them to hard and needed to give them a break…Also, if you look on the outside of the corners right now especially Manmaker/Barn Turn it seems to have a significant amount more marbles then the Bridgestone tires did during its tenure. I was sad to see Bridgestone is pulling out as I would much rather go back to those tires.
One thing we need to consider and I’m not sure if we are…
Compare like compounds, vs brands… Hoosier R60A is very different to say Bridgestone C or an MG SH. The R60A can be expected to wear faster.
YLC to 60B just FYI but as a “club tire” I don’t think outright speed is very important.
Does durometer give any info? In my past life we used that to measure wheel hardness and get a sense of how they would wear.
We were both discussing the R60b which is what our club changed to after running the YLC.
My experience with the R60b was in many ways positive in that I felt it was more consistent over the course of a given race or heat cycle whereas the YLC would peak early then have a more dramatic drop in lap time (within a given race). They’re also nice and easy to mount and dismount.
Where I think the R60b falls short is in terms of total life and heat cycles. You might get 8 competitive heat cycles out of them or get 10 but it wasn’t consistent. The YLC regularly could go 12+ heat cycles and still have competitive race times (excluding the 0.2sec magic first heat cycle). That means a max of 2 races on the R60b where the YLC could go 3. For a club that runs 14 races that adds noticeable cost to a seasons budget.
My experience with YLC is similar; They were very fast the first 3 laps or so. Then the lap time would drop 2 or 3 tenths and remain there for several heat cycles (2 races?) but 1 race old were not as good as new in qualifying. If qualifying wasn’t important or critical, maybe YLC could be used for a 2nd race but it would slower than a new set of YLCs
Everyone here just puts on new tires for every race. I don’t do enough testing to know if Hoosier 1 race verses new makes a big difference but a 1/10 or 2/10 does at the pointy end of the grid, so no one is willing or finds the need to run 1 race old tires. I suspect that race times may not be all that different but qualifying times might be off a bit.
I think maybe a 1 race old Hoosier might work in qualifying because our’s is a Green-White-Checkered, so there is only one lap to get it right, so there is no room for error. For me a run-in set of tires always seems to perform more consistently than new.
Good day all. My son is driving the Rotax Mini max on mojo tires . We new at this and trying to learn when and where we can .
We working in new tires and after the first day this is what the tires looked like.
Front tire cold 0.85 bar
Rear tires cold 0.8 bar .
The front left is my main worry , any help and input will be appreciated.
Thanks
OK Kartpulse hive mind… lets see how this goes. The deets: My son and I are first year karters, running 2021 Margay Ignite K3s in LO206 at Fremont Raceway Park in Fremont OH. We’re getting faster with time so we decided to run in the Buckeye Karting Challenge race when it came to the track.
There’s no substitute for seat time, especially against good competition. We haven’t had a way to time ourselves up until this event; we don’t yet have Mychrons or Alfanos yet. It turns out my son is back of the pack but competitive. I on the other hand was about 1.5 seconds off the pace for a 23 second lap in LO206 Masters (390lbs). A substantial part of that is my line but my tires look dramatically different (rubber is all glopped up) than my son’s tires or the tires of other 206 Masters drivers. Looking at my tires I assumed (I know…) and kind of felt the kart was understeering through the fast corners.
I was on the rev limiter as I entered the fastest corner at the end of the longest straight. The track was green at the beginning of the day from overnight rain; as the day wore on I moved the front tires out 5mm per session from Margay’s suggested starting point. The tires looked pretty much the same each time I came off the track and I seemed to go a little slower. The pix are the condition of my tires following the 18 lap feature (I completed 17 laps). Starting tire pressures were 14psi front and 15psi rear on Hoosier R60A tires.
Other settings were as the kart came from Margay. I definitely need to practice more and improve my driving but what changes to the kart should I consider based on the condition of the tires?
I’ll be traveling for the next few days so may not be immediately responsive to questions. I’m hoping to improve the kart setup and my driving for the next race at the end of July. TIA!
Gonna be hard to tell with all the rubber you picked up covering the actual tread wear. Maybe a better tire whisper than me can give you better intel.
On your in lap try to keep out of the marbles and on the racing line to keep the tires clean.
I ran the race line after the checkered flag. This is more or less how the tires looked after most sessions.
Hmm… then you need to try and either scrape off this outer layer, try weaving and scrub this outer layer off just before coming in, or continue to drive hard on the racing line. Highlighted in blue on the rear is normally how the tires should look while driving and when exiting the track. You can see the very defined edge of rubber picked up off the track. Front has a few spots were the tread is poking through.
If they look like that all the time it may be indicative that your are are often driving off the racing line and picking up rubber. Which besides from not being the fastest line is really hurting performance when you get this buildup on the tires. Do you have any footage?
For what it’s worth, the track has only one significant right hand turn. The rest are left hand turns at speed so the right tires get worked hard. The left tires not so much.
You’re picking up a ton of rubber, so you’re definitely not working the tire hard enough. There isn’t any “wear” to diagnose because the tire is coming in with more rubber than it has going out 
1.5 sec off on a 23 sec lap is quite a big margin so it’s likely you just simply aren’t driving fast enough yet. I don’t know the Hoosier well enough to recommend any specific pressure but you might benefit from a higher pressure to get the tire to heat up and slip a bit more.
Thanks @tjkoyen. My son’s tires started out only a pound or two higher pressure and his tires looked much better. He runs 206 Senior at 360 lbs. I’m at 390. I would have expected the extra weight to have worked the tires harder but that clearly wasn’t the case.
The weight will work the tires a bit more but 30 lbs won’t make too much of a difference.
Anyone with experience on the Hoosier, is this a soft compound? It looks like it. If that’s the case the difference in wear would be less for the two classes and the tire is capable of a lot more grip and can handle the extra weight no problem.
The R60A is Hoosiers soft karting tire IIRC.
The R60A is softish for 4 cycle, but the R55 is Hoosiers soft (shifter/tag) tire.
Orlando Kart Center, mid morning 75 degrees, 13psi, 12 laps. I was 1.3 seconds off the pace today and still dealing with some late exit oversteer. I narrowed the rear track 10mm last time out and it helped but cannot find that last second+. Times were the same as last time and I tried 1psi less today. Track wasn’t as gripped up as a month ago when it was still hot here.
Fairly normal wear. Nothing that stands out unfortunately, pretty boring wear pattern.
