Racing Tyres in the wet

[Pggriffin]

Hi all, I am about to start racing for the first time this season in the BARC North West Saloon car championship, having completed my ARDS last year, and I have a question on tyre choice. The tyre type is unrestricted and slick are allowed, so I have got myself some slicks for dry running.

However being the UK and the likely hood that it may be wet on a race weekend I was wondering what tyres people use for the rain. I have used semi-slick road legal tyres for track days and these are OK in the damp but are they any good in the wet or should I be using a more road based wet tyre?

The car I'm using is a ford fiesta xr2i with standard 13" wheels and 185 width.

What do other use on there race car during the wet times?

All advice welcomed,
Paul

[snailpace85]

The semi-slick track day tyres will be lethal in proper wet conditions. You'll find that people use all sorts of wet weather tyres. Because it doesn't rain quite as often in this country as we all tend to think it's likely that your wet weather tyres will last for ages. It's not unknown for people to use road tyres (not the track day specials though) but they're not great. Proper wets are probably available from wherever you got your slicks. It's not easy to get the right ones simply because there's no single track condition called 'wet'. It can be anything from damp to great big puddles and different wet weather tyres will suit different conditions.

Scott

[IAN #51]

Wet racing tyres all the way I raced in championship that only allowed Ao48 list 1b tyres in all conditions and although we all made it round when it rained they were very unpredictable and aquaplaned at times. im also aware that the Barc N/W allow the use of proper wets so if most of the grid are running wets and your on 1bs the speed difference will be large.

the good news is secondhand wets are relatively cheap and avaliable in the sizes your after as you can use ex single seater fronts ! Something like 16/53/13 size

[GORDON STREETER]

Proper wet tyres are the way to go if you want to be competitive with others in your class, but as others have pointed out only if there is standing water.
Depending how long the race is, if a dry line appears and the sun comes out you will start going backwards if the others are on intermediates and you will soon ruin a soft wet if you try and keep up.
To show just what a difference tyres make I happened to have intermediates on at Spa one year for qualifying and because the wet weather changed in the last ten minutes a dry line appeared, there wasn't enough time for people to change to a dry and I qualified in 3rd spot out of 70 odd cars in front of serious cars like a GT40.
Obviously I went backwards a bit in the dry race but as Spa is a track that I liked I still finished in 12th place overall in an hour race, also driving the whole race without a driver change helped !

[GORDON STREETER]

[IMG][/IMG]

I just found this, but the Alzheimer's has set in as there were only 64 cars in it !
Just noticed who was 15th

[morninggents]

Is there any way to make that results sheet a bit larger to help my poor old eyes? When I press on the + icon it just shoots the image to a different part of the screen but remains the same size!

Just trying to check who was in 47th place!

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

[IMG][/IMG]

I just found this, but the Alzheimer's has set in as there were only 64 cars in it !
Just noticed who was 15th

Can't read the name but was the time 2-42?

[GORDON STREETER]

Some bloke in a Capri probably a foreigner !

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Is there any way to make that results sheet a bit larger to help my poor old eyes? When I press on the + icon it just shoots the image to a different part of the screen but remains the same size!

A plus icon, how old is your computer ? can't you just press ctrl and move the mouse wheel ?

[morninggents]

What I meant was that when I hover the cursor over the image on screen a + sign appears which I take to mean that if you press it the image will increase in size. However, all that happens is that it shifts elsewhere on the screen but remains the same size! Hovering the cursor over the image then produces an - sign which, when pressed, reverts the image to the original position. Where am I going wrong?

[GORDON STREETER]

Peter are you on a laptop or a PC ? whatever do what I said using a mouse with a thumb wheel if you have one in either of them while pressing ctrl or just ctrl +without a mouse, you can then do what you like size wise.
On the laptop I'm using it's touch screen so it's just like a big tablet.

Saying that I must admit that the copy is rubbish and not very clear.

[morninggents]

It's a PC. Tried thumbwheel/control method but get same result. No matter - the 'Streeter.G' in 3rd place was decipherable. Belated well done.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by morninggents

It's a PC. Tried thumbwheel/control method but get same result. No matter - the 'Streeter.G' in 3rd place was decipherable. Belated well done.

Just use the bottom and right sliders to centralise it, unless you've got a very strange computer !

[Nial McCabe]

Not sure of what tires you can get over there. Here in the USA a popular tire for wet usage is the Toyo R888.


I run them in the 185/60-13 size.


Main reason is that they have a pretty deep tread but do not require shaving for race use (the old Toyo RA1s they replaced needed to be shaved for racing).

When the R888s are shaved, they are a decent dry tire too and they tend to last longer than slicks.


Here's me on Toyos in the rain.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9_7lk3FPRI

[DAVID PATERSON]

I race a Toyota Corolla and I have used Yokohama A032 & A050 and Toyo 888 in the past. They were all pretty good in damp or moist conditions, but they weren't so good when the track was fully 'wet'.

I now use Dunlop wet weather racing tyres and they are awesome! At Mt. Panorama Bathurst last Easter, qualifying and the first two races were quite wet and I beat RS500 Sierras, V8 Commodores and Ford Falcons and Mazda RX7s.

The last race was in the dry, we were all on slicks and dozens of them went straight past me.