CHAPTERTWQ

THE RACING TIRE

The Formula Ford that finishes dead last at the East Friction-which are for friction between smooth bodies. It
Nowhere SCCA Regional has one vital factor in common can, and does, generate forces greater than the loads applied
with the Indianapolis or Grand Prix winning machine-it is to it. Further, it can develop an accelerative force, a
connected to the race track only by the contact patches of decelerative force, a side force or a combination of either an
its four tires. Through these tenuous interfaces are transmit- accelerative force and a side force or a decelerative force and
ted all of the accelerations and thrusts that propel the car, a side force. In the case of combined lateral and longitudinal
decelerate it and change its direction. Through them also are forces, the sum can be considerably greater than the max-
reacted all of the driver's control actions and from them imum force that can be developed in anyone direction.
comes most of the sensory information which allows the At the present state of the art a road racing tire on dry
driver to maintain-or to regain-control at high force concrete with a vertical load of 500 pounds can generate, un-
levels. der ideal conditions, a force of approximately 800 pounds.
Any discussion of vehicle dynamics must begin with an ex- The ratio of the force that the tire is capable of generating to
amination of the operating characteristics of the pneumatic the vertical load applied to it is termed that tire's "coefficient
tire-more specifically the racing tire. The subject is com- of friction." In this hypothetical case the 800-pound force
plex and imperfectly understood. We will discuss the basics divided by the 500 pound vertical load gives a coefficient of
of what we need to know and leave the more esoteric aspects 1.6. This means that under ideal and steady conditions the
for the magicians in Akron. tire could accelerate or decelerate at the rate of 1.6 g or
could develop a cornering force of 1.6 g-which is enough to
VERTICAL LOAD OR NORMAL LOAD make your neck sore.
Vertical or normal load is the amount of force applied to It is important to realize that the coefficient of friction is
an individual tire in the direction perpendicular to the road dimensionless. It is an indication of the maximum force
surface. It is expressed in pounds or kilograms and is the in- which can be developed by one tire when compared to
another tire under the same conditions. We need to under-
stantaneous sum of that portion of total vehicle weight and
stand its meaning as a concept in the study of tire dynamics,
aerodynamic downforce which is acting on the individual tire
at any given moment. Since vehicle weight is constantly be- and the tire designers use it as one of the factors in predicting
ing transferred from one tire to another, and since downforce the performance and handling characteristics of different tire
varies with the square of road speed, the vertical load on any designs.
given tire is subject to continuous change. It is important to I f you should somehow find out that the tires you are us-
note that the word "normal" in this case is used in the ing have a coefficient of 1.5, don't expect your car to corner
perpendicular sense and does not refer to the "usual" load on at 1.5 g. It won't-for several reasons-some of which have
the tire. To avoid confusion we will use the term vertical to do with tire and vehicle dynamics and some of which are
load. related to the frictional characteristics of the road surface in-
volved. The important thing to remember is that the force
that can be developed by any tire is the product of the instan-
COEFFICIENT OF FRICTION
taneous vertical load applied to the tire and the tire's max-
When Issac Newton defined the laws of friction, the imum coefficient of friction under the existing conditions.
pneumatic tire had not been invented. When it was invented Naturally both of these factors change constantly with varia-
everyone assumed that the tire would obey Newton's laws tions in road speed, load transfer, track condition, tire
and that therefore no tire could develop a force, in any direc- temperature and a host of other variables. In the lateral
tion, that would exceed the load applied to it. You may recall sense we will refer to this generated force as the tire's
that, for many years, the experts categorically declared that Cornering Power which is just another term for centrifugal
Drag Racing top speeds and elapsed times would be limited acceleration capability. In the longitudinal sense we will use
to those that could be produced by a constant acceleration of the term Traction Capacity. For our purposes we will con-
one gravity-which would correspond to each tire of a four sider the tire's traction capacity to be equal in both direc-
wheel drive dragster transmitting an accelerative thrust tions.
equal to its share of the total weight of the vehicle. The ex-
perts forgot to tell the Drag Racers who just worked away at SLIP
going faster and faster until they broke through the
"barrier" as if it weren't there. It wasn't. Slip is probably the most discussed and least understood
The racing tire does not follow Newton's Laws of of the basic tire characteristics. Much of the confusion stems

13
from the term itself. Slip implies slide and most people seem surface by a combination of mechanical gripping of road
to believe that in order for a tire to operate in a slip mode it surface irregularities by the elastic tread compound and by
must be sliding. This is not so. transient molecular adhesion between the tread surface and
There are actually two distinct types of tire slip- these thousands of tiny contact areas. This molecular adhe-
transverse and longitudinal. In the transverse plane slip is sion only comes into play at very high loads and coefficients
referred to as "slip angle" and affects the generation of the and is the reason why we are able to leave impressive black
tire's cornering forces. In the longitudinal plane slip is marks on the track when we are neither spinning nor locking
referred to as either "slip ratio" or "percentage slip" and af- the wheels nor sliding the vehicle. I make no claim to under-
fects acceleration and braking. We will look at slip angle standing the physics involved. For those readers with the
first. ability and inclination I recommend The Unified Theory of
Tire and Rubber Friction by H. W. Kummer and W. E.
SLIP ANGLE Mayer, and The Physics of Tire Traction, edited by D. F.
Hays and A. L. Brooke. The former is more comprehensive
The slip angle of a pneumatic tire is defined as "the and the latter more comprehensible.
angular displacement between the plane of rotation of the
wheel (the direction in which the rim is pointing) and the
path that the rolling tire will follow on the road surface."
This path is made up of the successive footprints of the con-
tact patch laid down as the tire rolls. In order for the vehicle
to change direction, regardless of road speed or the radius of
curvature, each of the vehicle's tires must assume some value
of slip angle. Now let's see why this is true and how it hap-
pens.
The existence of the slip angle phenomenon is due to the
fact that the pneumatic tire is elastic in twist-Leo when the
tire is turned, that portion of the tread which is in contact
with the road surface will resist the turning moment due to
elastic friction between the rubber and the road. The tread in
the vicinity of the contact patch, since it is elastic, will distort
and therefore will not turn as far as the rim does. This being
the case, the contact patch-and therefore the tire's rolling
path over the road surface-will lag behind the plane of
rotation of the wheel by some value of angular displacement.
Since the tire is rolling, the contact patch is constantly
renewed-if we visualize a single particle of tread rubber as LEADING TREAD
the tire rolls it spends most of its time not in contact with the DEFORMATION
road. When the particle in question does roll into contact
with the road it progresses from the leading edge of the con-
tact patch, through the center, to the trailing edge. The ac- CONTRACT
tual elastic deformation takes place during the time that the PATCH
rubber is in contact with the road. However, since each
TRAILING TREAD
molecule is attached to the rest of the tread, the displace-
DEFORMATION
ment actually starts before the tire to road intersection as the
portion of the tread not yet in contact is pulled sideways by
the portion undergoing deformation. This is a gradual
process. When the molecule rotates past the contact patch
the rubber "unstretches" and returns to its normal position.
Rubber being rubber, this trailing deformation or energy
release is much more rapid than the leading deformation.
The drawings in Figure (I) are attempts to visualize slip
angle in different ways. Figure (lA) also illustrates leading
and trailing deformation. It is important that we do not con-
fuse slip angle with steering angle, which is the angular dif-
ference between the tire's plane of rotation and the straight
ahead position.
Next we are going to take a brief and admittedly in-
complete look at what actually takes place at the rolling in-
terface between the rubber and the road.
Figure (1A): Tire slip angle viewed from the road
THE NATURE OF STICK with successive tread particle paths depicted on
The racing tire develops friction with (or grip on) the track tire tread surface.

14
 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SLIP ANGLE,
COEFFICIENT OF FRICTION AND CORNERING
FORCE
Coefficient of friction varies with slip angle. Therefore
cornering force varies with slip angle. The coefficient-and
the cornering force-increases with increasing slip angle un-
til, at some given slip angle, it reaches its maximum value.
After this maximum value of coefficient has been reached
any further increase in slip angle will result in a decrease i~
coefficient, and a corresponding decrease in cornering
force-the tire "breaks loose" or loses traction. If we make
a graph of coefficient of friction vs. slip angle we end up with
something like Figure (2) which shows a typical-if
idealized-curve for racing tires plus one for a street tire.
The maximum value of coefficient reached on the curve
will determine how much cornering power the tire can
generate. The shape of the curve will influence vehicle con-
trollability at high force levels. What we need (and what
Akron gives us) is a curve in which the coefficient increases
rapidly and almost linearly with increasing slip angle until
quite high values have been reached (say 80% of the max-
imum coefficient). This will allow the driver to build corner-
ing force quickly and with confidence as he enters the turn.
After this point the slope of the curve must flatten. The curve
should remain reasonably flat for a considerable slip angle
distance on each side of the maximum coefficient value so as
to give the driver a reasonably wide tightrope on which to
balance the car on the edge of adhesion. This flat area at the
top of the curve, where increasing the slip angle will not in-
crease cornering force, is called the threshold range. When
the coefficient inevitably begins its downward plunge it
1.75 r - - - - . - - - - - - - , - - - - - - - , - - - , - - - , - - - - - - ,

I
-...... \
1.50 ~----il__-/-I--II-----'L..\-+---+---+-----j

, .~...--~ --- .......

/./ V ~ \
Figure (18): Tire slip angle with tread particle
paths projected on to road surface.
§1.251----+,-/h//'---''I-------+-l\-\--'\\r--!-\r-.,.*\-\-l---------1
ff: 1.001-----h-- --jl---+-----+----+I.-
,,'<--+-------1

~ f/ ,/ -----"--~-,
~ 0. 75 t---J,f-t-l------jf"---+---+-----+'''-.,:-----I
u::
U. /
' V '
,'J
A--OBSOLETE F 5000 FRONT',
"
~ /,' B---LESS OBSOLETE F 5000 REAR

!I //
u 0.50 1---+-'-+---If-'---+-:::------->--I--..j.I---t--I--I
C----- STREET TIRE I
, I D--- HYPOTHETICAL TIRE

o'v
'I I

a 4° 8° 12° 16° 20° 24°

SLIP ANGLE
Figure (1C): Tire slip angles and tire paths on road Figure (2): Tire coefficient of friction vs slip angle
in plan view. curves.

15
 should start off reasonably gently so that when the driver tion of the turn applies side forces through the chassis to the
does exceed the maximum he will not necessarily fall off the rear wheels which then develop their corresponding slip
road as he falls off the top of the slip angle curve. This angles and cornering forces and the vehicle, after some
characteristic curve makes possible smooth and efficient minor hunting, steadies into the turn. Side forces and slip
transitions between the various tire functions of braking, angles are also caused by road irregularities (one wheel or
cornering and accelerating. If, for example, the curve looked diagonal bumps), side winds, uneven power to the driven
like Figure (2-D), then human limitations would prevent the wheels, uneven braking and the striking of curbs and/or
most skillful and daring driver from utilizing the maximum other cars.
potential of his tires, and we would have a very inefficient So far, for simplicity's sake, we have been considering the
race car which would do a lot of sliding-but not much tire under investigation as a single entity with its load cons-
sticking. tant and vertical to the track surface. In reality, of course,
What is actually happening to the tire as we build increas- that tire is one corner of the vehicle and is subject to all of the
ing cornering force with increasing slip angle is that the constantly changing loads and forces that occur in real life.
elastic deformation of the contact patch is steadily increas- Don't worry about it-we'll get to the confusing parts soon
ing. As we approach the maximum value the rolling contact enough.
patch is beginning to run out of its elastic capability and Surprisingly enough, racing tires operate at smaller slip
some actual sliding starts. We now have a combination of angles than passenger car tires. Of course the corresponding
elastic friction and sliding friction at the contact patch. If we values of coefficient and cornering force are much higher.
increase the slip angle further, the portion of the patch which There are two reasons for this. First, over the past fifteen
is sliding increases while the area which is still in the elastic years or so (Mickey Thompson started the fat tire revolution
mode decreases until eventually the whole thing is sliding. At about 1962), we have gradually decreased the aspect ratio of
some point between where sliding begins and where it the racing tire (length of the contact patch divided by width)
becomes complete the coefficient reaches its maximum to the point where the footprint is now many times broader
value. At any point, if we stabilize the slip angle, the coef- than it is long. Passenger car tires have been moving in the
ficient and the cornering force will also stabilize and the tire same direction, but at a much lesser rate. Intuition tells us
will enter into a steady state cornering mode at that value of that it is not going to be possible to hold a tire with its major
cornering force. axis in the transverse direction at as high a slip angle as a tire
The contact patch itself is roughly eliptical in shape. Due with its major axis oriented fore and aft. This is why For-
to compression of both the tread and the sidewall the unit mula Fords go through the slow turns at higher vehicle yaw
pressure over its area varies and so does the contribution angles than Formula One Cars and why the old Formula
made to cornering force by each portion of the patch. This One Cars assumed larger angles to the road than the present
unit pressure is near zero at the leading edge and builds to a generation does-nowhere near as fast-but more sideways.
maximum somewhere just ahead of the trailing edge. It also There is, however, another reason. High slip angles
varies in the lateral sense, depending on side force and generate more heat than low slip angles. Heat, beyond that
camber angle. When the contact patch begins its transition necessary to get the tread up to optimum temperature, costs
from elastic friction to sliding friction it does so at the most power, deteriorates the tire and does not contribute to per-
heavily loaded portion of the footprint and, as the slip angle formance. The racing tire is designed to run at a given
increases, the transition spreads progressively across the temperature and is efficient over a limited range of
patch toward the more lightly loaded areas. The point where temperatures. The lower the tire designers can keep the slip
sliding friction first begins corresponds to the end of the angles for a given coefficient, the more thermally efficient .
linear portion of the slip angle curve. The point where the the tire will be and the softer the rubber compound that can
whole footprint slides corresponds to the point on the curve be used. The softer the compound the stickier the tire will be
where the flat top starts downhill and things go to hell in a and the more force it will be able to generate. Naturally this
hurry. gets all mixed up with sidewall stiffness, vehicle weight,
It is important to note that even when we have exceeded available power, track characteristics and God knows what
the slip angle capacity of the tire and therefore have gone 'else. Also, the slip angle at maximum coefficient must be of
beyond the point of maximum stick, the tire is still sufficient magnitude to allow the generation of a usable
generating cornering force. It doesn't suddenly lose all of its curve. As I said, this is a complex subject.
grip on the road-regardless of what it may feel like. When Just to put some numbers on quantities, a Formula 5000
the tire has totally exceeded its elastic capability and is com- or Can-Am rear tire of a few years ago (no access to current
pletely sliding, it still has considerable cornering force and, if information) reached its maximum coefficient of about 1.4
we can somehow reduce the slip angle, we will regain the lost at a slip angle of approximately IO degrees, and the curve
grip. We'll go into this in more depth later. was very flat from 9 degrees to 14 degrees. This is, of course,
It is also important to realize that, although we have been one of the curves shown in Figure (2).
talking about generating slip angles by steering the front Every vehicle and every driver assumes some value of tire
wheels, a slip angle is generated every time a tire is subjected slip angle each time that the vehicle is displaced from
to a side load of any description. In entering a turn the nor- straight line motion. AJ., Nikki and Mario on their way to
mal sequence is for the driver to initiate the turn by steering fame and fortune deliberately assume very high slip angles
the front wheels in the direction of the turn. After a very indeed-and operate at these values constantly and con-
short delay the front tires develop slip angles and the vehicle sistently. Aunt Maude on her way to the Senior Citizen's
starts to turn. The centrifugal force developed by the initia- Center also assumes slip angles-infinitely lower and much

16
less consistent-but slip angles nonetheless. Genius consists slow corners. It is just a bit difficult to achieve with any
not of operating the race car at high values of tire slip angle degree of consistency. Just watch the exit of any slow corner
but of balancing the vehicle consistently at the slip angles at a Can Am or Formula One race. The corner doesn't have
that will produce maximum useful total tire thrust. to be really slow-just slow enough so that available engine
torque exceeds the rear tire's traction capacity. The fastest
SLIP RATIO OR PERCENT SLIP corner exit will always result from just a taste of rear
In the fore and aft sense slip ratio or percent slip bears the wheelspin-but the fastest drivers will get no wheelspin
same relationship to the tire's traction capacity as slip angle more often than they will get smoking excess. The slowest
does to the tire's cornering power in the transverse sense. corner exit will belong to the man who confuses wheelsmoke
The mechanics of friction between the tire and the track sur- with speed- first cousin to the King of The Late Brakers.
face are the same in each case-a combination of
VERTICAL LOAD-AGAIN
mechanical gripping and transient molecular adhesion that
build up until the whole footprint begins to slide. As with slip A tire's coefficient of friction decreases slightly with in-
angle, any given tire will develop its maximum coefficient creasing vertical load. However, up to the design limit of the
and therefore its maximum traction capacity at some value tire, its. traction capacity-its ability to actually transmit
of slip ratio. After that value is reached both coefficient and force to the road, as opposed to the dimensionless coefficient
traction capacity will decrease. Again this does not mean of friction, increases with vertical load.
that the tire must be visibly spinning in order to develop This apparent contradiction works like this: As the ver-
maximum acceleration-or locked to develop maximum tical load on a given tire increases, the area of the rolling
breaking. In fact, visible wheelspin-or brake lock up-are contact patch remains virtually constant, and so the unit
evidence that the maximum has been exceeded and more tor- pressure of the footprint must increase. As the unit loading
que is being applied than the tire is capable of transmitting rises the rubber has less resistance to frictional shearing
under the prevailing conditions. In both acceleration and forces and so the coefficient decreases. This is illustrated by
retardation, maximum traction is developed just short of Figure (4). However, the curve is so gentle that the increase
visible spin or lockup. At this point considerable sliding fric- in vertical load overpowers the decrease in coefficient. The
tion is taking place but adhesion still has the upper hand. result is a curve of increasing traction (either transverse or
The slip ratio vs. coefficient of friction curve (Figure 3) is fore and aft) with increasing vertical load. Figure (5) il-
similar to the slip angle curve but it is steeper and the flat lustrates.

---
area at the top of the curve is somewhat broader. If we can 1.50
keep the slip ratio on the top of the curve we will be able to
realize the maximum acceleration possible. Naturally this is z
o i
a problem only when available torque exceeds the traction
capacity of the driven wheels-as in coming out of relatively u
t=
ir. 1.00
, ~
u..
u..
1.50 o

v
I-
Z
~ UJ
c:; 0.5
1.25 u::: ,
u..

z
o
t= 1.00
/ '\ UJ
o
u

o 250lb 500lb 750lb 1000lb 1250lb

I \
u
ir. VERTICAL TIRE LOAD
u..
u..
00.75 Figure (4): Coefficient of friction vs vertical tire

II
I-
z load.
UJ
c:;
u::: In simple arithmetic, if each rear tire of a car were to sup-
tli 0.50
port a load of 500 pounds and if the tires had a coefficient of
o
u friction of 1.35, then the pair of tires could generate a force

0.25
, of (1.35 x 500) x 2 = 1350 pounds. However, if we add 100
pounds per wheel of rearward load transfer, we find that,
I although the coefficient has been reduced to 1.33, we now
have a traction capacity of (1.33 x 600) x 2 = 1596 pounds. If
we now bolt the rear wing on and get the vehicle going fast
o 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% enough to generate 400 pounds of total rear wheel downforce
PERCENT SLIP we end up with a coefficient of only 1.26, but (1.26 x 800) x 2
= 2016 pounds of traction capability-which is why we wear
wings in the first place. We will see later that it's not quite
Figure (3): Tire coefficient of friction VB percent that simple, but the point is that increasing the vertical load
slip. on any given tire will increase the traction capacity of that

17
 1400 or pair of tires. Lateral load tr~nsfer between a. pair of tires
will, however, always result In a decrease In the total
1200 1---f---+--~---j---i7":c.-.--t--~
capacity of the pair.
Eventually the curve of traction vs. vertical load will peak
and fall off-if the tire doesn't blowout first. Under normal
conditions, assuming that the tire is designed for the type of
10001---I----+---+-..----7''l----f----f-----i
vehicle on which it is mounted, we don't have to worry about
this eventuality. It is, however, possible to get into trouble on
w those tracks which feature high banks. If you are going to
~ 8001----+-------,P---..,.---_\-_--+_ _-j
ou.. Daytona or Pocono, check with the tire company first.
w
~ 6001-----I-----101~----_--'-----+-- CAMBER AND CAMBER THRUST
Coefficient and cornering power vary with camber angle,
400f---+----/-----'-----~---t-- relative to the surface of the road-not to the chassis. In-
variably, maximum cornering force will be realized at some
small value of negative camber. This is due to "camber
200 thrust" caused by the straightening out of the arc of the con-
tact patch as the tread of a cambered tire Tolls over t~e
ground. If the tire is cambered in the ne~atIve sense, thIS
force acts in the direction of the center of curvature and in-
600 800 creases cornering power. If the tire is cambered in the
VERTICAL LOAD positive direction, it acts away from the center of curvature
Figure (5): Tire force vs vertical load. and decreases cornering power. Figure (6) applies. Another
way to visualize this effect is to push a standard rubber
tire. Conversely a decrease in vertical loading willl~ad to a eraser across a wooden surface with the eraser held vertical-
decrease in traction. This is why dragsters are desIgned to ly, then try it with the eraser held in a negative camber posi-
transfer great gobs of weight to the rear and why we [Link].'t tion. This is another elastic deformation phenomenon, and
object violently to rearward load transfer on corner eXIt In we don't need to know much more than that.
our road racers. What is important to realize is that with a wide. and flat
This relationship is a curve, not a straight line, and it must tire if we allow much camber to develop, we are gOIng to be
be noted that when we consider the case of a pair of front or ridi~g on one edge of the tread and lifting the ?ther off the
a pair of rear wheels, the vertical load on each of the pair will track. This will both reduce the total footpnnt area and
be affected by lateral load transfer during cornering. We'll radically change the pressure distribution. It wil~ not do
get into the nature of this lateral transfer with its causes and anything good. This is unfortunate because, as we wIll see, at
effects later. For now we will state that under lateral ac- the present state of our art we can't control dynamic camber
celeration a portion of the load on the inside wheel is very well and we have to live with some degree of adverse
transferred to the outside wheel. The curve of Figure (5) as- camber change-usually about the time that we really don't
sures us that, even though the total load on the pair of wheels need it. Fortunately the tire designers realize this and have
under lateral acceleration remains constant, a pair of wheels gone to very clever carcass construction with controlled but
with lateral load transfer between them is not capable of floppy sidewalls so that the footprint stays on the ground
generating the same amount of cornering force that .the sa~e
pair of tires could if they were equally laden. ReferrIng agaIn 1.60
to Figure (5) with the assumption that each front wheel of
the vehicle in question supports a vertical load of 400
pounds, then the maximum cornering force that can be z 1.40
o
generated by this pair of wheels is (1.4 x 400) x 2 = 1120 i= F=- ---.
pounds and, if the vehicle's total cornering force is limited by
()

R:u.. 1.20 ...... ~~ ~ ~

-'V
front wheel adhesion, the car could corner at 1120 pounds - - - REAR TIRE
divided by 800 pounds or 1.4 g in a steady state condition. o 1.- .....
I- - - FRONT TIRE
However, if we assume an eighty percent lateral load
transfer, which is not unusual for the front wheels, then the
Z
~
()
1.00
v
./
outboard tire will have a load of [400 Ib + (400 Ib x .80)] = u::
u..
720 Ib, while the inside tire's load will be only 80 lb. Re- w
entering the graph we find that, under these conditions, the 80.80
outside tire can now generate 936 Ib of cornering force and
the inside 120 pounds. The pair of tires can now develop 0.60
1056 Ib of cornering force and the vehicle can corner at 1.32 +3° +20 +1° o -1° -2° -3°
g. POSITIVE CAMBER NEGATIVE CAMBER
So either lateral or longitudinal load transfer will always
increase the traction capability of the more heavily laden tire Figure (6): Camber angle vs coefficient of friction.

18
 most of the time. In other words the tire engineers have been !ake full advantage of t~e tir~s or the d~iver isn't doing his
forced to compensate for the inadequacy of suspension JO? C?n the other ~and, If t~e J~dder beginS with throttle ap-
system design. They have done a superb job of it. The plicatIOn and continues ~ntd either the car is going straight
amount of sidewall deflection that the modern racing tire or we have run out of ~vallablet~rque~ then e~erything is just
will accommodate is amazing-as witness Figure (7). Of fine. The power required to achieve Judder limits it to Can
course, like everything else, we pay for it. We pay for it in the Am, Indy and Formula One cars, so don't expect it in your
knowledge that when we do finally get too much camber on Formula Ford.
the tire we lose our grip in a big hurry, and we pay for it with Naturally all of this judder and vibration doesn't do the
tire judder under a combination of hard cornering and hard wheels, drive shafts or crown wheels and pinions any good at
acceleration. We first ran into judder in the late sixties when all, which is why the really quick drivers are hard on those
drivers of Can Am and Indy cars began to report really parts. I guess that it is part of the price of speed.
severe rear end vibration coming off of corners. As usual we
TIRE TEMPERATURE
had no idea what was happening and went through a typical
witch hunt looking for suspension or drive shaft deflection, The next factor which influences tire performance is
faulty shocks and other such ills. Finally, after everybody temperature. Any process that involves friction produces
had about decided to place the blame on Pete Weismann and heat. Additionally, a portion of the energy involved in com-
his differential, it was discovered that under certain com- pressing and distorting the tread at the contact patch is not
binations of very heavy lateral loads and very high accelera- restored to the tire when the tread straightens out at the trail-
tion the tire was assuming a dirty great wave shape ahead of ing edge but is converted into ~eat. Some of the heat so
the contact patch and the release of all that stored up energy produced is radiated into the airstream but some of it is
at the trailing edge was enough to rattle the driver's eyeballs. stored in the tire. If all goes well the tire temperature will
Only the best drivers were into the problem because only the raise until a thermal balance is achieved and will then
best were capable of extracting the maximum corner exit stabilize. Of course the temperature will vary considerably at
performance from the tires. The high speed photos of these various points on the track depending on what the tire is
antics were enough to make a man think seriously about doing-or what is being done to it-at the time. With open
changing professions. wheeled cars the driver can actually see the change in surface
By modifying the construction of the tire the judder has appearance as the front tires heat up on corner entry.
been reduced to more or less manageable proportions. In Most road racing tires are designed to produce maximum
fact we now use it as a sort of a yardstick. If the rears aren't traction with tread temperatures between 190 and 220
juddering on corner exit then either the chassis isn't set up to degrees Fahrenheit. Rain tires, with their softer compounds,

19
reach their maximums at 140 to 160 degrees while stock car ten inches wide.
tires are designed to operate at much higher levels. If the tire It has been my experience, not necessarily agreed to by the
is operating much below its designed temperature range, it tire companies, that operating on the low side of the safe tire
wiIl lack stick. If it is operating very far above it, it is in pressure range pays off in lap time-probably due to better
danger of blistering or chunking due to local destruction of compliance. Eighteen psi hot is about as low as I am
the rubber compound's internal cohesion from excessive prepared to go-even with safety studs. The low limit is nor-
heat. If you continue to run on a blistered or chunked tire it mally reached when the tire temperature at the center of the
wiIl come apart. You wiIl not enjoy the experience. tread is five to ten degrees F. hotter than the cooler edge. In
So two things are important in the tire temperature no case do we want the inside cool. Since the optimum
picture-first to be sure that your tires are operating at a temperature pattern in this respect varies with the construc-
temperature of at least 175 degrees Fahrenheit and, second, tion of the tire, long conversations with selected tire techni-
to be very sure that you do not exceed the compound limit. cians are in order here. Anyway, too much pressure leads to
You will only exceed the compound limit if you: too much crown and reduced compliance, and too little gives
(I) run too much negative camber and burn out the in- sloppy response, reduced footprint effective area and too
side edge of the tire. much tread temperature.
(2) run too Iowan inflation pressure or run with a slow For sure the ever popular idea that the hot tip is to run
leak. hard tire pressures at circuits with long straights is a fallacy.
(3) run too soft a compound for the track or run rain You won't pick up enough top speed to read on the tach, and
tires on a dry track-which amounts to the same thing. your elapsed time is going to suffer seriously due to
decreased bite and compliance. Cornering power, accelera-
If the tires are designed for the type of car on which they tion and braking will all go to hell in a hurry with artificially
are installed and they are not reaching operating tem- high pressures.
perature, it usually means that the driver is not going hard There are a couple of points to bear in mind about tire
enough. Seldom, if ever, will this be due to intent. In most pressure. The first is that racing tires tend to leak a lot. The
cases the driver involved lacks either the skill or the ex- sidewalls have just about enough rubber to stick the cords
perience to use all of the chassis and tire at his disposal. The together-and no more. Cast wheels are porous to some ex-
only cure is an honest appraisal of the situation, more car tent, and the life saving wheel safety studs wiIl leak if given
time and a really serious effort to improve. half a chance. Each time that a tire is mounted it is absolute-
Occasionally the ambient temperature and the frictional ly necessary to first check visually that the beads are fulIy
characteristics of the track will both be so low that no one seated and then to check the whole assembly for leaks.
can get their tires up to temperature. This is one of those The quick way is to spray a complete covering of Fan-
"everybody in the same boat" situations. It is also a situa- tastik or 409 cleaner on the tire and rim and look for bub-
tion where the team that can effect an improvement will have bles. Tiny leaks in the sidewall are not a cause for concern,
at least a temporary edge over the rest. Assuming that a but any leak in the wheel means that you must either seal a
softer tire compound is not available-and it probably won't porous area or scrap the rim due to a crack. Obviously there
be-the tires can be heated by dropping inflation pressure to cannot be any leaks on the tread or from the safety studs.
the allowable minimum and by increasing the static toe-in to Next, time permitting, inflate the tire to some reasonable
a pre-determined figure that wiIl not cause the car to dart. pressure and write both the pressure and the time of day on
An increase in negative camber may also help. If the day the tire. Recheck in an hour. If it leaks down more than
warms up or the track gets enough rubber down to bring the about 3 psi per hour, you are not going to be able to race on
temperatures up, remember to change back. Usually these it. You can, however, practice on it if the leak rate is less
conditions only exist early in the morning on the first day of than 5 psi per hour. Just keep checking it and pumping it up.
practice and go away very rapidly as the day warms up and Before knocking off for the night, inflate all tires to the same
the rubber is laid down. pressure and check them in the morning. Before you return
TIRE PRESSURE to the manufacturer a new tire that is leaking badly, find the
leak and make damned sure that it is in their tire and not in
In the days of skinny tires and high tread crowns the coef- your rim. It pays to check the valve core for tightness
ficient of friction increased with tire pressure, and notable yourself, daily, and it is essential to run a valve cap-
performance increases could be realized by raising the tire preferably a metal cap with a rubber seal. It seems that the
pressure to the point where the decreased compliance with centrifugal force associated with tire rotation tends to push
the road balanced out the increased tire capacity. Most of us the valve open.
didn't have a lot of power in those days-nor brakes. The All air is not the same-some contains more water vapor.
pressure to run was very much a function of surface This can be due to ambient conditions, lack of moisture
roughness and driver preference. Actually, tire pressure was traps in the compressor lines or to somebody forgetting to
one of the few methods we had for the adjustment of the un- blow the compressor down. The more water vapor contained
dersteer/oversteer balance of the car. in the air which you use to inflate your tires, the more pres-
This is no longer true-none of it! The present generation sure buildup you will get at a given tire temperature.
of racing tires depends upon inflation pressure to achieve the Sometimes, if enough moisture is present, the difference can
designed (and necessary) tread arc profile, and we don't get to be notable. Since you are looking for a given hot pressure
play the pressure game much of any except with skinny tires, (cold pressure is meaningless, except as a starting point), you
and I don't have any recent experience with rims less than must determine, at each track, what cold starting pressure

20
 decrease rapidly about half way up the slip angle curve
towards maximum coefficient of friction (refer back to
Figure (2) which is for the same tire). Trail reaches its
w
::>
oa:
II ~l minimum value just about the same time that the coefficient
starts to drop off. Through the steering wheel this decreasing
I
pneumatic trail gives the driver perceptible warning of front
o
Ii ~
~ tire breakaway and is the reason why understeer breakaway
Cl
z I is often described by the neophyte driver as, "It went all
Z light and funny."

I ~
Cl
::J
<l:
u.. i I CONSTRUCTION AND COMPOUNDING

~
i

I
....J
W
C/)
! Although we cannot do anything about the construction or
!
I
I
I
i ! I the compounding of our tires, we should be aware that vary-
,I ing the carcass construction is one of the methods used by

II ! ! i
I i
I
i I the designers to change the characteristics of the tire. The
! I I
i I I I carcass must be strong enough to withstand the loads, both
o 2° 4° 6° 8° 10° 12° 14° 16° vertical and horizontal, that will be imposed on the tire. It
SLIP ANGLE must keep the tread from expanding and/or distorting its
profile with centrifugal force of rotation and it must hold air
Figure (8): Self aligning torque vs slip angle. pressure. It must also provide adequate puncture and abra-
sion resistance. On the other hand, it must be flexible enough
will result in the desired hot running pressure. Again, the tire to accommodate the distortions-lateral, radial and
companies don't necessarily agree with this and usually circumferential-that are necessary for the development of
recommend a cold pressure for the fronts and one for the accelerative and side forces. At the same time it must
rears and say to leave it at that. The cold pressure necessary provide adequate stability and response. None of this hap-
to achieve a given hot reading won't vary more than a pound pens by accident.
or two from one track to another but can easily vary by three The cords that actually provide the structural strength of
or four pounds due to moisture in the air. Dry nitrogen the tire may be arranged in any fashion the designer fancies
solves this little problem but it's a pain to carry around, ex- and may be of virtually any material. Presently all racing
pensive and not necessary. tires are constructed with nylon or similar synthetic cords
I usually set the tires a couple of pounds higher than I which offer excellent strength, flexibility, resistance to heat
think I need and bleed them down the first time the car and are light in weight. If the cords are arranged radially the
comes in hot. If the pressures were set evenly left to right the tire will provide the softest ride possible with maximum self
outside tires will have higher hot pressures. This is normal dampening but will have virtually no lateral stability. This is
and is due to load transfer and to the predominance of cor- why radial tires require circumferential belts, preferably of
ners in one direction. I almost always run equal left side and steel. Racing tires, at the time of writing, cannot accept
right side hot pressures which means that I have to make either the weight or the rigidity of the belts. On the other
note of four starting pressures. My thinking is that we are hand, if the cords were arranged circumferentially the tire
looking for optimum tire usage, and every little bit that we would have excellent lateral stability, a very harsh ride and it ,
can do is going to help. would be impossible to hold the profile shape. So, borrowing
a page from the tailors' and sailmakers' books, the cords of
SELF ALIGNING TORQUE the racing tire are arranged on the bias, thus providing
When we apply a side force to a rolling tire the point of strength in three planes simultaneously. Racing tire cord
resistance to turning (the effective center of the contact angles are closer to the circumferential than passenger car
patch) is actually located at some distance outboard and to bias tires in order to provide smaller slip angles for a given
the rear of the geometric center of the footprint. This is due cornering force and a more efficient tire-as well as to
to the elastic deformation of the rubber and is referred to as provide more support for the wide profile.
"pneumatic trail." Since the side force generated by the tire The minimum number of plies necessary to provide the re-
acts through this dynamic center, the actual trail distance is quired strength and stability are utilized, and tread depth is
a moment arm, and the tire's resistance to turning through also held to the minimum. This is in the interest of reducing
this moment arm becomes a torque which tends to return the heat generation. Sidewall construction is a compromise
tire from the direction in which we are trying to turn it back between radial and lateral stiffness which gives lateral
to the direction in which the tread is actually rolling. stability and flexibility which allows the tread to conform to
Pneumatic trail is part of the "self aligning torque" picture. the road surface despite load transfer and attendant change
The other parts are positive castor and scrub radius which of camber and also allows the circumferential distortion
will be covered later. The three are additive so far as steering necessary for the development of high traction forces.
resistance is concerned. However, scrub radius is a constant, It is necessary to avoid sharp corners and/or heavy tread
and castor almost is, while self aligning torque, as shown by shoulders lest we build up enough heat in these already
Figure (8), is a variable function of slip angle. The initial overloaded areas to cause the shoulder to chunk.
resistance to turning builds very quickly but starts to Last, but far from least, the designer must so arrange his

21
cord angles, spacing and intersections so that the inflated tire THE APPEARANCE OF THE TIRE
will have the desired profile, so that the profile will not be The racing tire that is giving all that it has t~ give will have
destroyed by centrifugal force and so that the tread area will a characteristic texture and appearance whIch we should
resist the hernia type injuries caused by running over stones learn to read. The color will be a very dull black with no
and such. shiny areas-if there is a shiny area it will normally apP7ar
Tied in with carcass construction is the tread compound. on the inside shoulder and tells us that we are overloadmg
Racing tire compounders are the late twentieth century the inside edge. Unless the driver had done a cool off lap
equivalent of the medieval alchemists. By varying the there should be no "pick-Up" evident on the tread surface; if
chemical ingredients and percentages of the rubber com- there is the driver isn't working hard enough. If the tire is
pound, the compounder seeks to provide the most grip that workin~-or being worked-as hard as it should be, the
will safely survive the punishment that the tire is going to tread surface will show a very slight wavy grained texture.
take. Ideally, I suppose that a different compound and con- Ideally this texture should be uniform over the width of the
struction would be developed for each circuit-or at least for tire. In practice it will probably be more pronounced in-
groups of similar circuits. The same, of course, can also be board. This texture is the beginning of "rolling" or "balling,"
said for suspensions, engines and aerodynamics. Thank God a condition which tells us that the tire is getting too hot.
it hasn't quite come to that-yet. In tires, however, at the We want to keep the tire just at the edge of the tread rolling
top levels of racing, we do find tires for tracks-depending condition.
on prevailing turn speed, vertical load and the track surface If the front tire shows more signs of abuse than the rear,
mix. Unless you are running USAC Champ Cars, Formula it is telling us that the car has too much understeer-
One or NASCAR's Grand National Circuit, you won't run regardless of what the driver says. Conversely, tortured rear
into this. The rest of racing gets a standard tire with excellent tires signal excessive oversteer. Tire temperatures
compromise performance characteristics that is safe significantly higher at one end of the car than the other are
anywhere. another indication of chassis imbalance.
The basic tools of the alchemist include styrene butadiene Excessive camber, or camber change-in either
rubber which is the primary ingredient. It has good abrasion direction-can be better detected by the tire wear pattern
resistance, bonds well to the cords and has very high than by temperatures across the tread. It is normal to wear
hysterisis or energy absorption characteristics. Carbon black the inside a bit (say ten to fifteen percent) more than the out-
is used to improve tensile strength and wear properties and side. More than that says "too much negative." Less than
to color the rubber for resistance to ultraviolet light. The that says "too much positive-or not enough negative."
third basic ingredient, believe it or not, is oil. The more oil in We can tell a lot by just looking at things ...
the compound, the softer and stickier it will be and the less it
is going to be upset by oil on the track. There are also a TIRE DIAMETER
bunch of chemicals to assist the vulcanization process and
then more magic ingredients about which no one outside of It is very important that the left side tires on your racer be
the compounding fraternity knows anything-which is just the same diameter as those on the right side. If they are not,
as well as we wouldn't understand it anyway. When the tire then the static corner weight and the load transfer
man tells you that they have changed the compound or the characteristics will not be what you have planned. More im-
construction of a tire he is not talking about a minor deed. portant, under power and, to a lesser extent, under the
brakes the thrust will be unbalanced and the car will not
proceed naturally in a straight line-assuming a limited slip ,
differential or a locked rear end. It will also affect the un-
WIND UP-OR TANGENTAL SPRING dersteer/ oversteer balance of the vehicle-a larger diameter
Drag Racers talk about "getting the car up on the tire." outside rear promoting understeer. It is true that we
We have all seen photos of drag tires all wrinkled and funny deliberately use tires of slightly different diameter to alter
in the sidewall as the car leaves the line. We have also wit- the balance of the car (changing the stagger), but that comes
nessed, at least on the tube, the remarkable sight of the rear later. For now we want to avoid spending hours chasing an
end of the dragster raising about six inches straight up just apparent chassis problem only to find out that it was a tire
before it comes out of the hole. For a long time I had a lot of diameter problem all along.
trouble believing what was happening there, but they finally Despite everyone's best intentions and efforts, all sup-
convinced me that it was all desirable and even planned. posedly identical racing tires of the same size, construction
What happens is that, when the power is applied, the axle and compound are not created equal in diameter. Unfor-
and wheels start to turn but the tread compound is so sticky tunately the only way that you can tell is to mount them and
and the sidewall has so much tangental spring built into it measure their circumference-at equal inflation pressures;
that the tire lags behind. This stores up a whole bunch of To compound the misery Goodyears are directional, so, once
energy, just like stretching the rubber in a slingshot. Even- they are mounted on the rim, you can't switch them from
tually this energy is released and literally catapults the car one side of the car to the other. At the front I will accept a
out of the hole. Believe it or not, road racing tires are now maximum difference (in diameter, not circumference) of two
designed to do the same thing-to a much lesser extent- tenths of an inch, and I would strongly prefer less. At the
and that is what Ongais is talking about when he says that rear what you can live with is a function of what type dif-
you have to get it ,up on the tire coming out of slow corners. ferential you are using and how much power you have. With
The human being can be a marvelously sensitive device. a spool or a Weismann locker, unless you are intentionally

22
running stagger, you don't want much more than one tenth much in American Road Racing and since USAC and
of an inch difference, and the big tire must be outside. With a NASCAR don't race in the rain, we have tended to lag
cam and pawl or a clutch pack you can live with more, and behind the English in rai~ tire design and development. As
with an open diff it probably doesn't make a lot of difference near as I can tell we are Just about even in compounds but
except from the corner weight point of view. our tread patterns don't drain well. The judicious use 'of a
Anyway, this problem of stagger can lead to the mounting grooving iron can work wonders. Basically the tread must be
and dismounting of rather a large number of tires until you divided into a number of circumferential bands separated by
end up with a set that is within your tolerance. This is very generous channels into which the water will be forced. The
liable to make the tire busters cranky. It is possible to stretch idea is that the bands stay in contact with the track surface
a tire's diameter by two or three tenths of an inch by while the water runs in the channels. In order to be effective
overinflating it ten pounds and leaving it in the sun for an the channels should be at least three eighths of an inch wide
hour. and as deep as practical. The tread bands should be no more
Not only do we have to check the diameter of the tires than one and one half to two inches wide. In order to allow
when they are first mounted, but we also have to check them sideways drainage at the contact patch the circumferential
again after they have been run. All tires increase in diameter channels must be inter-connected with open transverse sipes
when they are first run but some increase more than others. at least three sixteenths of an inch wide. They must com-
To our good fortune the outside tires usually grow more than pletely connect adjacent channels and should be no more
the insides. The whole diameter bit is a pain, but there is no than two inches apart.
alternative. To my surprise and delight it now looks like all of this may
have changed. 1977/1978 Goodyear rain tire tread pattern
SHAPE OR PROFILE
looks like being a very good one. I have not yet run it, but
Very rarely a racing tire slips through inspection that does those who have say that it is magic. Maybe I can throwaway
not assume the proper tread profile when it is inflated. This my grooving iron! I will not, however, delete the foregoing
will be visible as either excessive crown or, more frequently, paragraphs.
as a depression in the center of the tread. Check all of your What we think happens at the contact patch on a wet track
tires when they are first mounted. As I said, this is unusual, is that the leading one third of the footprint forces the mass
but it does happen. Nothing that you can do will make the of the water out of the way and into the channels, the center
tire work, and, if you have run it before you notice it, you one third squeegees the contact area dry and the trailing one
own it. The tire company, rightly, is not going to take back a third provides all of the grip.
used tire. If the circumferential channels are not connected by
transverse sipes, or if the sipes are too far apart, then the
SPRING RATE middle third of the footprint cannot effectively do its
Every pneumatic tire has its very own spring rate and its squeegee bit because the channels are already full and the
own self dampening characteristics. Except for drag racing water under the tread band has nowhere to go. This is the
tires the spring rate is pretty high (1000 pounds per inch and area where the American rain tires need help.
up) and they dampen themselves pretty well. It is just as well Because the rain tire is going to be very effectively water
that they do, because the shocks can't do it for them. We cooled and because the friction will be drastically reduced by
don't have to worry about this rate as we cannot do anything the presence of lubricating water, the tread compounds are
to alter it other than to adjust the inflation pressure. Higher very soft. This means that you cannot run them in the dry.
tire pressure gives a higher spring rate, less dampening and They will disintegrate.
less compliance. Since the tire's ride rate is so much higher When the rain clouds appear the racer gets to make a lot
than that of the suspension it doesn't really enter into any of of decisions-not just about tires. We'll cover racing in the
our play areas. rain in a separate chapter later on.
THE RAIN TIRE TIRE BALANCE
Slick racing tires don't work very well on a damp race Due to the care taken in construction and to the very thin
track. The wider they are the less well they work. They do tread, the racing tire is a lot more round and a lot closer to
not work at all-even a little bit-on a really wet track. The being inherently in balance than the average passenger car
reason is that the design has no provision to allow the water tire. It must still be balanced after it has been mounted and
to be squeezed out from between the rubber and the track. before it has been run. It is not absolutely necessary to
The water has no place to go so the tire rides on a film of dynamically balance racing tires-again the light construc-
water with little-if any-actual contact with the track sur- tion and extreme care in manufacture saves us-but it is
face, and the car is totally out of control. For a given vehicle definitely preferable. At our very high rotational speeds a
weight, the wider the tire the worse this condition will be. very small imbalance off the rim centerline can become
The condition is called "aquaplaning" and is no fun at all- many pounds of force. However, there is seldom a dynamic
at any speed. balancer available at the track. We therefore get to use a
In order to avoid the aquaplaning phenomenon, the tread static bubble balancer and, in almost all cases, a good static
of the rain tire is designed with circumferential drainage balance is adequate. It helps to split the weights evenly
grooves and connecting side sipes. The whole idea is to give between the inboard and outboard rims. It is necessary to
the water someplace to go so that it will not be trapped clean your own rims and to mount and tape your own
between the footprint and the road. Since it doesn't rain weights-if you don't want them to come off. Clean the area

23
for at least two inches around where the weight is going to Don't leave the pits until your tires have been cleaned of
live with acetone and Scotchbrite, stick the weight on, and whatever stones, pop rivet nails and scraps of metal they
secure it with a cross of racer's tape. Inspect frequently. may have picked up.
If a tire checks out on the static balancer but is out of Don't transport your car, or even leave it overnight, on
balance on the car, either you have a dynamic balance race rubber-it flat spots easily. A set of tow wheels from
problem, a bent rim, a tire that is out of round or a tire that the junkyard mounted with trash rubber may require a lit-
is out of true (tread band not on straight). This does happen. tle ingenuity but they are worth it.
The only way that you are going to isolate the problem is to Don't store race tires in the sun or, if possible, at
either mount it on a spin balancer, where the condition will temperatures over 70 degrees F. Dunlop ships their tires in
stick out like a sore thumb, or spin it on the car and indicate a black plastic drawstring bag to protect the compound
it. The tire companies will take back out of round and out of from ultraviolet light-neat idea.
true tires, but you must prove to their satisfaction that they
are out. Don't get oil, fuel or solvent on the tread-the com-
pound will deteriorate.
When a spin balancer is available at the track I pay the
difference and dynamically balance my tires. I also stand Don't store tires overinflated.
there myself and watch each tire for out of round or out of Don't try to clean the tread surface with your bare
true. Finding them on the car is going to cause a lot of mis- hand. An old hacksaw blade works just fine, or a rag will
ery and cost a lot of time. This is one more reason why you get the job done. If you do it with your hand, sooner or
cannot race on a tire that has not been run on the car while later you will gash yourself to the bone on a sharp bit of
mounted on the rim it is presently mounted on. metal imbedded in the tread.
BREAK IN Don't try to qualify on worn tires. You will be one half
to one second slow. The second and third laps that a set of
New tires, like new anything else, require a break-in road racing tires do will be the fastest laps of their life.
period before they will function at maximum efficiency. The
reasons are two. First, in order to separate the tire from the
mould in which it was made, release agent is applied to the There is a somewhat shorter list of "does":
mould. This leaves a very thin coating of slippery release Do cultivate the acquaintance and ask for the help and
agent on the surface of the tire. The coating must be worn off advice of the trackside tire engineers. These are very
before the tire will stick. Second, it is necessary to knowledgeable people, and they are there to help you.
"roughen" the surface of the tire so that we have those thou- Human nature being what it is, unless you are running up ,
sands of tiny contact patches mentioned earlier and to round
off the sharp edges-which shouldn't be there to start with.
front, they are not going to come to you-you have to go -j
to them._~
We used to have to wear them enough to get them "camber Do learn to say thank you to the tire blHlters-and t o '
cut" or patterned but that isn't necessary these days. get your clean rims to them in plenty of time.
However, if you are changing the position of a tire on the
car, it will take a few laps for it to wear in and get happy in Do inquire as to the availability of used tires in excellent
its new location. condition. In those classes of racing where some teams are
It used to take several laps to scrub in new tires. Present supplied free tires, some of those teams, in an apparent ef-
compounds come in after one or, at the most, two laps. It is fort to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, take advan-
all downhill from there-although the decrease in capability tage and turn back tires with ridiculously low mileage. i'

is very slow indeed. For qualifying you need all of the heIp These can usually be purchased (legally) at vastly
you can get and a set of brand new tires is a real advantage. reduced rates from the dealer servicing the race. Make
Do not punish a new tire for the first lap-build the heat sure that they are not old used tires.
up gradually-the tire will last longer. Above all, do not Once you have scrubbed a set of tires, do use them up as
start the race on new tires. If you do, you will be faced with quickly as practical. They die in storage and will be stone
two choices-either go slow on the first lap to scrub them cold dead two months after they have been scrubbed.
(disheartening and embarrassing) or run a very real risk of Keeping them away from sun and high temperatures
falling off the road when the tires don't stick. helps, but it is best to use them up.
THE CARE AND FEEDING THE TRACTION CIRCLE
OF THE RACING TIRE
We have seen that the racing tire is capable of generating
The modern racing tire is a very delicate animal indeed. almost equal force in acceleration, deceleration or cornering.
To get the best out of them a fairly extensive list of "don'ts" If we plot the maximum forces that a given tire can develop
must be adhered to: in each of these directions we end up with Figure (9}-often
referred to as the "traction circle." Mark Donahue used to
Don't drive-or push-your racer through the stony call it "the wheel of life." Contrary to current opinion,
paddock on race rubber-especially not on hot race rub- neither the concept nor the visualization is new. It is not a
ber. It can go to and from the pits on rain tires which are circle due to the fact that the tire's longitudinal capability is
not so puncture sensitive. Besides, since the rain rubber slightly in excess of its lateral capability. We'll consider it to
will be cold, it won't pick up every stone and bottle cap on be a circle anyway.
the way. Looking at the diagram, two things become obvious:

24
 ACCELERATION ing force, then accelerate in a straight line," we are going to
waste a lot of our tires' potential and a lot of lap time.
What we need to do-and what every racing driver in-
1.5g
stinctively does-is to continue our braking well into the
corner entry phase so that, while the tires are in the process
of building up cornering force they are still contributing
braking thrust-we don't have to give up much cornering
force in order to develop meaningful amounts of braking
thrust-and the resultant tire line of force follows the boun-
dary of the traction circle. We must also start to open up our
LEFT exit line from the corner-or to "release the car" early so
[Link] that we will have excess rear tire capacity available for early
hard acceleration. Never forget that he who gets the power
1.0g down first-and is able to keep it down-will arrive first at
the other end. If you are using all of the rear tires' capability
in cornering force, there is none left over for acceleration-it
is that simple.
All of this calls for some pretty careful choices oflines and
LOg some reasonably delicate control on the part of the driver.
The task is not simplified by dynamic load transfer, chang-
ing aerodynamic loads, available torque, variations in the
1.5g road surface or traffic. The full use of the potential of all
four tires is probably not humanly possible-at least not
BRAKING consistently. This is especially true in the case of race cars
with very high power to weight ratios in slow corners-
Figure (9): The traction circle-showing vehicle which is why we are treated to a fair old bit of pedal stabbing
and frantic steering when the Formula One circus comes to
accelerating while turning right.
Long Beach each spring, but see a lot less of it at Watkins
Glen in the fall. The corners at the Glen are faster, so
(I) The tire can generate either 104 g of acceleration available torque is less and the fast way around is smoother.
thrust or 104 g of cornering force (we can substitute brak- This is also why a Monza is smoother through a hairpin than
ing thrust for acceleration thrust). It cannot, however, a Can Am Car.
develop 104 g of both at the same time. If a tire is Figure (10) is an effort to show what should be happening
generating both a longitudinal thrust and a cornering to the tire forces as a race car progresses through a typical
force, it must develop a lesser amount of each than it could corner. For simplicity's sake we will consider the traction
of either one singly. This is illustrated by the vector circle to represent the sum of the efforts of all four tires. The
marked FT which shows the tire generating a cornering forward direction, or acceleration, is always at the top of the
force of 1.1 g while accelerating at 0.8 g with a resultant traction circle. The large traction circle inset into the
force vector FT of 104. Due to the geometry of the traction diagram shows the results of three ways of taking the corner.
circle and of the resolution of vectors, the tire can and The line which nearly follows the rim of the circle represents
does generate forces in each direction the sum of which is what Mario and A.J. are doing and is labled "possible." The
greater than the total g capacity of the tire. In other line marked "probable" is the resultant of the efforts of a
words, the tire can simultaneously generate an amount of very good club driver. The heavy line marked "classic" is the
braking thrust and an amount of cornering force which, old way of braking, cornering and accelerating in three dis-
added together, will total more force than the tire is tinct phases. It is pretty obvious what we have to aim for.
capable of developing in anyone direction.
(2) If we are going to utilize all of the performance
potential designed and built into our tires, then we must CONCLUSION
keep the tire operating at very high combined force level at This chapter has been mainly devoted to the whats, the
all times while the car is turning. We must "ride the rim of hows and the whys of tire dynamics with little time spent
the traction circle" by balancing the brakes, cornering describing what we can do with the tires in a practical sense.
force and throttle so as to keep the tire's resultant line of This has been deliberate. We'll discuss what we can do to
force just inside the boundary of the circle. help tire performance as we go along. There is precious little
If we follow the prehistoric dictum, "Do all of the braking
in a straight line, go through the corner at maximum corner-
that we can do with the tire directly other than to not abuse
it. I
I

25
'I~
 ACCELERATION
POSSIBLE

RIGHT TURN

PROBABLE

BRAKING

Figure (10): The traction circle and the tire force vector as the vehicle progresses
around a corner.

26