Just looking for some basic tire maintenance. What is your process for a new set of tires? I’m really interested in understanding heat cycles. Also I see some people wrap the tires after a day at the track, what does this do? Any help and advice is appreciated
Depends on the tire, but with a typical sprint tire there’s no special tricks. On a soft tire, I do a half a lap at 75% to warm it up and then go hard from there. Any other tire, I just go hard right out of the gate. A tire will obviously get a little harder every heat cycle. Nothing much to it.
Some guys wrap the tire in plastic to keep the air from getting to it or whatever, but it really doesn’t matter.
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So directly from a Dunlop tire engineer that I worked with when I raced KZ.
He said you want to run that outlap unbelievably slow, so that you very slowly raise the heat of the tire during the first heat cycle. After that blast it. It is supposed to make the tires last longer, and since he told me that I’ve been too scared not to do it.
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That’s basically what I would do on Evincos or MG Yellows. Not “unbelievably slow”, but definitely off-pace.
I crawl round lol. You can still see the line on the tires half way round the the lap.
I cannot speak for top tier racing, I’m at club level and on a budget. This advice could apply well to 206 and Junior racers, anyone on a tight budget.
My experience is thirteen years sprint enduro road racing four cycle on Hoosier and Dunlop tires. I believe it applies to any racing tire as proven on other brands of tires we have run such as Vega.
Our goal is a consistent performance over a one half hour race, two to four races in an event plus practice.
The factory recommendation from the Hoosier website is a gradual warming with progressively faster laps. Next the tire is given a twenty four hour rest in a cool dark place… not next day but twenty four hours. It has to do with cross linking polymer voodoo. We carry two sets of tires so we always have a set broken in or breaking in.
After every end of event the tires are lightly wire brushed and inspected, heavy pick up from some tracks removed with heat gun then the tire once cool is wrapped in stretch wrap over the entire width. We never allow new or good tires to be stored unwrapped.
With this practice we get a minimum of two race weekends of racing from a set of tires. I have gotten as much four. We have put on a new set right at the start of a race - it works but the tire life quickly fails and is a one event tire, they just don’t work after that… can’t explain it we have tried several times.
So take it for what its worth, if your top tier you will be on new tires almost every race… some guys more. I don’t have that sort of goal or budget but do run respectable when I have my head in the game. Your mileage may vary but I assure you it will improve over simply blasting the tire right out of the gate.
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This prettymuch sums the recommendations made to me by Hoosier also.