Wet race tyres

[greenamex2]

Having spent my race at Snetterton looking out my side windows I was wondering how much better proper wet race tyres were than normal full tread depth road tyres.

Anybody got any back to back times?

Thanks.

[Al Weyman]

Dried out yet Dennis, awful was'nt it? I should have warned you not to enter once I had.

I once ran a set of General Grabbers (don't laugh these were proper kit) from George Polley Racing on a Chevy Monza (or Camaro I can't remember) as wets before the Modprods got Falken sponsorship and they were incredible, the difference was unbelieveable. They were a very soft 'trick' tyre which were designed to be buffed to the bare minimum to make scrutineering and after a few laps became a slick but left unbuffed as i say they were something else in the wet.

[graham bahr]

Originally Posted by Denis Bassom

Having spent my race at Snetterton looking out my side windows I was wondering how much better proper wet race tyres were than normal full tread depth road tyres.

Anybody got any back to back times?

Thanks.

only DNF, DNF on normal type road tyres, verses competitive laps on the proper thing

[MountainRunner]

Not sure if this helps, but I have had a set of semi slick RE-540S and they had better grip than road tyres in the wet. I was told by the dealer that the tyres were used in racing (cannot remember what series) as wets.

Also was at a raining track day recently and the quickest guy was on a set of semi slicks.

Paul

[COLIN STUBBS]

i was surprized at the lack of wet grip on our tyres dennis. when i raced my capri on dunlop formula r they were excellent when newish. did anyone see how much grip joss had in the c thunder race? now to get that lsd fitted!!

[greenamex2]

It probably didn't help that some b*st*rd was dumping large amounts of oil over the track (ahem) and that we have just worked out that my wets are three year old T1-S's.

Still, at a cost of over 600 quid for a set of full wets that will have to be replaced every year or so (due to age hardening), even you don't use them, I can think of a few places to look for better times first.

Like learning to drive!!!

[Anuauto]

It depends which road tyres. In really wet conditions, my experience is that nothing will beat Avon CR28 Sport soft road tyres. Certainly not Michelin PB15 radial rally racers and (from all I have seen, as opposed to actually driven on in this case) certainly not regular Avon crossply racers with a "traditional" wet pattern. A fellow competitor had a set of ultra soft CR28 Sports and was able to confirm Avon's advice that they would be no better than the ordinary "soft" compound. Its horses for courses. As we are constantly told, "wet" conditions are rarely constant for long and different tyres will be best in different degrees of wetness?

[greenamex2]

When is it wet enough to stick wets on?

I have enough difficulty deciding between buffed road tyres and full depth ones!!

[graham bahr]

Originally Posted by Denis Bassom

I have enough difficulty deciding between buffed road tyres and full depth ones!!

BUFFED every time i say, road tyres only have such deep tread to get high mileage usage from them, for racing full depth moves the tread blocks around too much wet or dry.

i've heard it said many times that buffed tyres will out last non buffed by quite a margin when racing, which makes sense if buffing them stops the tread blocks ripping themselves to bits

[greenamex2]

Never thought of buffing my wets! Taking them from 10mm to 5-6mm probably wouldn't hurt wet performance but could help.

I've always maintained that the main point of having seperate wet and dry road tyres is to have fresh supple wet tyres so they can grip, generate some heat and grip....

I feel an experiment coming on, luck we get Toyo Tyres so cheap!

[Al Weyman]

I was at a track day a while back in my black Chevy and was giving one of those Noble things a good run for its money for a few laps, anyhow this thing looked brand new well at least the tyres were and after a few hard laps my worn down Falkens that had originally been buffed were more or less as i started but I looked at the Noble's tyres who was parked next to me and they looked real bad all the the blocks seemed to be feathered at the edges and looked fit for the bin. So I agree buffed will last longer.

[Al Weyman]

Dennis just do what Gerry Cain does with the Toyos you won't go far wrong in the wet, did you see how well he went in that big old RWD SDI on Saturday and if the race had not been stopped I am sure he would have taken the FWD Pug in the end.

[greenamex2]

That's the problem, I don't what he does!!!

It's interesting that the Starrion and I lost 19-20 seconds in the wet, but Gerry only lost 14 (as did most of the FWD cars).

[TomS]

What do you recommend with wet tyre pressures? Similar to dry or higher/lower?

[Al Weyman]

You need to reduce roll stifness, let off shocker settings, maybe disconnect rear anti-roll bar, anything to keep the wheels in contact with the tarmac. Let the tyres down a bit so they squirm around more to generate heat. SAying all that I cant adjust my shockers and it is a pig to disconnect the rear anti roll so thats out the window and if I am honest I was apprehensive taking the car out as it has bit me before.

I watch the Starion and in fact I used to race against it when it was owned by Mick Marlow, Craig Davis and Phil Rowley (it has been about!) and every time the turbo kicked in it fishtailed and he had to get out the throttle. I used to watch Phil do the same thing, hussle him a bit and guaranteed he would plant the throttle just that tad too soon coming out of a bend and he would be off. Bit of a handful that car was.

Back to Gerry, I tell you a lot of it is (a) Driving style (ex runner up in British Kart Championships and very experienced also rides motor bikes and bike riders often seem to have a good feel for adverse road conditions and (b) The Rover running on quad Webbers has an extremelly flexible engine with a massive torque curve. What this means is when the Starion driver (Neil Phillpots?) has a very powerful but narrow powerband with the power coming in a great rush when the turbo spins up gerry can just gently feed the throttle in and get a balanced acceleration.

For the record and I am sure he would not mind me saying this(he is a good mate of mine) he gave me a pep talk before I attempted to take the Camaro out and told me to do the very same, select a higher gear than I normally would and use the flexibility and torque of the Chevy engine, an option that you guys in your narrow rev band screaming little 4 bangers probably do not have. Having said that I would still rather swap seats with you in those conditions :-)

[R59]

If you look on my website Denis, there's an old picture from the BRSCC Winter Saloons circa 1995, with my old crate running in 2nd place at a very very wet Silverstone, ahead of the championship winning Tim Watson, Jaimes Baker's Rover, and another 30 or so cars behind. Ahead was David Pearson in his Fiesta. The tyres I ran were Proxes T1's (not even S's), which were bald as a coot on the front, and three parts worn out on the rear. I was too tight to have two sets of wheels.

The trick - let them down!

I used to drop my Toyo's by 4psi in the rain. Seemed to work.

And Al, my Nova had (has) a very wide band, and is very very driveable. The LSD certainly helped. (then they introduced random drug tests - oops, sorry, mind wandering!)

Anyway, I thought that you had to run on Toyo road tyres as normal in the wet for ModProds, or have you got the rules changed? - how about those trackday specials that Nick uses to great effect in the Track & Race Cars series?

Rob.

[greenamex2]

The R888's aren't allowed in the race series. To allow them would having to allow dry sumping etc and increase costs for everybody.

It was mostly idle curiosity after an exasperating race at Snetterton in a car which we THOUGHT we had finally cracked wet weather grip on.

Of course, I may have just adjusted the rear bump the wrong way (will be checking them on Saturday)!!!

[Al Weyman]

You can design a wet sump system to cope or you could fit a Moroso Aquasump, maybe it may be worth allowing a wet race tyre for those conditions, having said that you must bear in mind they were exceptional with the standing water and all and the meeting was nearly abandoned.

The last 10 years of racing before I packed in in 97 I was on road runner but just having done the dry practise only at Snett on skinny little 225 x 15 Dunlop Formula R's I recon they had as much or more grip than the wide Falken road tyres I was using and the guys reckon they should last a season, several have told me that and the CTCRC don't allow dry sumps. Unfortunately due to a silly cock-up I never got the opportunity to try them in the wet.

[greenamex2]

I've got a fully baffled and gated sump (by Greg of CES, being into V8's you may have heard of them) AND an accusump and still suffered oil starvation round Lydden on cold slicks and bottoming out suspension. The engine eventually blew up a race meeting later after one lap of qualifying.

I NEED dry sump on sticky tyres in the dry!!!

From the responses so far, no-one has done much if any back to back testing. Clearly it doesn't rain enough in this country!!!

[Al Weyman]

Sorry I forgot you had a FWD transverse engine so your problems are probably more acute than a RWD fore/aft configuration when the only time you will generally get surge is under heavy braking for which the Accusump will generally do the business although I have never had to use one yet. I did back to back with the Polley supplied Generals as I said but if you can't use them it is all pretty academic, we had freedom of tyres as long as list A (which these were somehow) in ModProds back then. Lot of the lads used to use an Avon tyre in the wet which worked well also.

I know the sponsorship is nice but sometimes IMHO being tied to one make of tyre works against the championship which is why I m not out with you now as Toyo don't do the size tyre I was using, maybe next year if I can find some reasonable priced 17inch rims.

[greenamex2]

Err, I have a RWD fore/aft configuration.

The issue is the engine was 'copied' from a BDA by a bunch of japanese engineers who didn't know why things were like they were, and then changed them. The engine has some serious flaws when run round predominately clockwise tracks!!!

[Al Weyman]

Oh sorry I thought you were the 205 man.

[greenamex2]

Anyway, back to the point.

I have analysed every single race result this year be mixed FWD and RWD category series that can run list 1b or slicks/wets and had a wet practice then dry race (or vica versa).

The results SEEM to be that RWD cars are measurably slower in the wet than FWD IF they are restricted to list 1a tyres. On list 1b or slicks/wets there is no appreciable difference.

Can anybody confirm/deny this? Or even explain it!!!

And yes, I am bored sitting at work waiting for something to happen.

[greenamex2]

If only.

2 foot wide 14 foot long RWD Corolla with naff all torque, flat spots all the way to 7500RPM then ballistic power to 8800RPM (should be 9500RPM but I messed up the intake). And the car is 75-100Kg overweight for the class.

And for my next excuse....

[Al Weyman]

In your research are the cars all restricted to the same tyre wet or dry that is the real point you need to know. If they are not then the simple answer is probably that they are probably using different rubber in different conditions which you unfortunately cannot. Also differnt cars can be a lot better in the wet FWD or RWD, I remember driving around the outside of Ellis Bergmans Camaro all the way around Gerrards in the pouring rain and finishing half a lap in front of hin and i was in a Sunbeam Talbot TI 1700cc which as shown by Joss on Saturday in the Lotus version that chassis (same as the Lotus only lighter up front so probaly better) is exceptional in the wet. I think another clue to some of your problems in the wet may be that very peaky powerband you speak of unlike Gerry's smooth power from probably 2000rpm to 6500rpm, makes a big difference.

Did you ever hear or read about Terry (sorry can't remember his second name Stokes I think) who used to peddle one of the Corrollas around in the series he was very quick, unfortunately he died tragically in an accident at work.