List 1B / Track Day tyres to go? Impact on race series?

[andy97]

Anyone else seen the article in Evo magazine stating that Track Day tyres are to be banned for road use from Nov 2012?

There's new legislation planned, apparently, with tyres having to have a minimum standard of performance in the wet; the current crop of List 1B/ track day tyres will not meet this new standard so all the Yokohama A048s, Dunlop Direzza, Toyo 888, Michelin Pilot Sport tyres etc will no longer be allowed in their current form on the road.

Why I have I posted this in the National & Club racing secuion, i hear you ask. Because many National & Club racing series use these tyres to race on. I doubt that the manufacturers will continue to make these sorts of tyres if the road car market dies. This would appear to have an impact on a number of series, anyone got any thoughts on this?

Does this mean that series such as TTRS or the CSCC Series, amongst many, will have to switch to list 1A tyres or do organising clubs have to consider a switch to slicks/ wets?

[BertMk2]

Is it possible that the tyre manufacturers will develop new tyres that meet the legislation and still provide the same performance? Quite likely I'd have thought. Presumably there is some time before this planned legislation becomes law - so there's time for tyre development in there

[jonners]

I've got to be careful on this one as I have been banned from this site temporarily some time ago for getting excited about the 1A/1B issue - being not so much a supporter of 1B but an opponent of 1A...

Anyway - I'm puzzled by the rationale behind what is proposed. In my car, 1B tyres are great in the wet.

If the idea is that lower tread depth when new is a problem, are the MOT regs for all tyres going to specify, say, 3mm minimum??

What about some road cars that are specified with 1B tyres from the factory?

Is it to become unlawful to use the tyres specified by the manufacturer?

Given the enormous number of genuinely rubbish tyres on the market for road use why ban 1B tyres?

Sometime i despair - which is why I now use cut slicks on my hillclimber...

[jonners]

Thinking about it - haven't read the article - but could it be that tyres that have been used at a trackday can't be used on the road given the number of utterly knackered tyres that some trackdayers drive home on....

...but then again, what about the brakes, or the dampers...

If it is a blanket 1B ban then perhaps track day brakes should also be banned etc...

If we lived in France we'd be burning goats by now.

what a load of grillocks

[MGDavid]

is there anyone who's
a) read the article
b) checked the sources
c) can comment from an insider (industry/manufacturer/legislative POV?

otherwise all comment appears to be speculation and gossip...

[bdwoody]

it appears to be a lot of tosh about wet grip limits, tyre noise limits , rolling resistance to enhance better fuel economy on new cars from what i can make out . it does say professional tyres are exempt ???

http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/...onpaper?page=4

[nik]

i get more grip from the 888rs in the wet than i do with the chingpong tyres on my road car that cost more !

[jonners]

1b tyres are low volume so they're either going to cost millions of pounds each or the manufacturers will decide its uneconomic to develop them to comply with these new regs

Another bit of ill conceived nonsensical utterly ridiculous and expensive legislation - for what??

How about a petition on the No 10 website???

[andy97]

Originally Posted by jonners

How about a petition on the No 10 website???

& when have they ever resulted in a change in anything?

[Tim Falce]

It's old news and I think a repost. If certain tyres are banned from being supplied for road cars there's nothing to stop them still being made for race use, there are plenty of slicks being made plus all the historic tyres that you wouldn't want to use on a road car.
I'd say stop panicking until something happens to give us something to moan about and personally I wouldn't use 888s, Yoko 008s or 032rs on a road car in the wet anyway.

[jonners]

Originally Posted by andy97

& when have they ever resulted in a change in anything?

Too right...it was a bad joke!!

[bdwoody]

why not 888 ,s on the road in the wet tim?

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by bdwoody

why not 888 ,s on the road in the wet tim?

They don't inspire much confidence on my car in the wet so I wouldn't trust them on a road car plus the wear rate in the dry would be abysmal.

[Lancsbreaker]

Having read the consultation paper linked above its 5 years away anyway, so nothing to panic about yet.....

Of course all the proposals are in the interests of the great god "carbon"......

Can't quite get my head round how you have low rolling-resistance and good wet grip at the same time, but I'm sure the tech boys will have an answer, eventually.......

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Having read the consultation paper linked above its 5 years away anyway, so nothing to panic about yet.....

Of course all the proposals are in the interests of the great god "carbon"......

Can't quite get my head round how you have low rolling-resistance and good wet grip at the same time, but I'm sure the tech boys will have an answer, eventually.......

Simple answer, wear rate. To be fair I think they have a point because desposing of worn covers is definitely an ecological problem and it may not be all bad because everyone will have to run on the same things and I raced on Falken 1a's for years and saved a fortune on tyres plus had some spectacular racing with cars that had more power than grip. As long as everyone is in the same boat what does it really matter.

BTW the special order 225 x 60 x 15 Dunlop Formulas I run my older car on are easily as hard as the Falken 1a's and definitely not as good in the wet or the dry and cost a ruddy fortune at nearly £150 a pop! Give me back the Falkens any day.