Dear all,

I shall be doing a track day in a few weeks time.

Providing it is dry I was going to use a set of well worn tyres with the view of scrubbing them off completely.

Can anyone tell me if a set of tyres with only one or two millimetres of tread will perform worse than a newer set with say 8mm?

Would a tyre nearing the end of its life act as a slick or would it get too hot?

Any informed views appreciated.

Korky

 

As long as its dry tyres with 2mm will outperform tyres with 8mm, and will act more like slicks, and probably like slicks by the time you been on track a while

and im pretty sure that the heat issue works the other way around, i.e. tyres with 8mm will get hotter than the ones with 2mm due to the extra tread flexi and moving generating more heat.

Mark

 

Korky

Mark is spot on. The lower the tread the better for dry track days. Pump them up nice and hard (at least 5 psi harder than normal, I usually use around 40psi). Check them after your first track session and drop them back to 40 psi again. Keep doing this after every track session and eventually they will stabilise at around 40 psi. Good old bridgestone re010 are a good track day tyre as they don't wear very quickly, and I find them to be fairly predictable. The better road tyres (like F1's, Toyo T1S etc) tend to be too soft for track use,i.e you will wear them out very quickly!

Stuart

PS part worn slicks and a spare set of wheels is your best option (and can be picked up fairly cheaply if you can find a race team that uses the right size!)

 

Thanks Gents,

Just the answer that I wanted - now to get those RE010s out of the garage!

Cheers,

Korky

 

I have not always subscribed to this "give them more preassure" thing.

I tend to run my tyres at nearly recommended preassures when hot.

I tried 40psi at the ring the other month and it felt I was driving on ice, 35psi felt much better.

 

Tyres with a large amount of tread will overheat very quickly and de-laminate. As everyone above has said you are better on well worn tyres.

however, if it's wet (and I do mean 'wet', not 'damp') then ignore the above advice and go for the tyres with better tread.

 

Might be worth getting some semi-track day tyres ie drive down there with them on, get them hot & watch them perform

Michelin Sport Cups (4 mm of tread road legal)
Toyo R888

Pirelli do a trackday Corsa, though all above are good track day options; downside is expense.....