Must Read: Toyo Tech Bulletin on Toyo RR Tires

#8

+1

#9

That would work fine if it was a 4 weekend tire.

In other news, I think I found a way to make it a 3 weekend tire.

Buy your new set of tires before your old set is worn out.

The average race weekend is practice, qual, race, qual, race. Lets define a race as one heat cycle, and a practice or qual as a 1/2 heat cycle. With that in mind, a standard weekend 3 1/2 heat cycles.

Practice on old crappy tires you don’t care about.

Qual on your new set of tires with the objective of getting a couple hot laps on them so they’re heat cycled. 4 hot laps might be too much for the “heat cycle and rest” strategy so don’t go crazy on them.

Do the rest of the weekend on your old set of tires. You’ve now made it thru the weekend with not 3 1/2 heat cycles, but only 3.

Lets say that was the last weekend on the old tires. Turn them now into qual tires. This works pretty well because the RR is pretty fast for a couple laps, but then gets slippery…and of course since it’s qual you only need a couple fast laps.

So at the next event, practice in crappy old tires, qual 2X in your recently retired old RR’s, and do the 2 races in those new tires that you heatcycled the month prior. So now you made it thru a race weekend with not 3 1/2 heat cycles on your race tires, but only 2. Starting to see how this will get you 3 weekends on a set of tires?

  1. Use a qual to heat cycle your next set of race tires.

  2. Don’t practice nor qual with your current set of race tires.

#10

If you are lucky enough to get on a track where you can choose your two hot laps and come in, I envy you. Practice, sure, run on old arse RA1’s. Unless, the race director decides that Sunday morning is qual, race, race.

#11

And what the heck is half a cycle?

#12
#13

I read the definition, but not being a polymer chemist and unable to do an actual analysis, I’m tempted to listen to the conservative gremlin that’s whispering in my ear that says any activity able to bring the tires to full grip has an effect on the compound that should be considered a “full heat cycle”. Like qualifying.

To that point though let me ask a related racecraft type question. Is it better to drive 7/10 practice laps (or possibly skip them altogether) with the intent of starting dead last and having clean air for qualifying, or is it better to drive them at 10/10 to get the best starting grid spot? And does the answer depend on the field size?

#14

[quote=“RRhodes” post=73111]I read the definition, but not being a polymer chemist and unable to do an actual analysis, I’m tempted to listen to the conservative gremlin that’s whispering in my ear that says any activity able to bring the tires to full grip has an effect on the compound that should be considered a “full heat cycle”. Like qualifying.

To that point though let me ask a related racecraft type question. Is it better to drive 7/10 practice laps (or possibly skip them altogether) with the intent of starting dead last and having clean air for qualifying, or is it better to drive them at 10/10 to get the best starting grid spot? And does the answer depend on the field size?[/quote]
I don’t know enough about tires to support my theory that 3 hot laps can most accurately be called a half cycle. If we call practice and qual, only 15min in the SE so a warm up lap and 3-4 hot laps, a full heat cycle then my tire rotation idea works twice as well.

I didn’t understand your linkage between practice and qual. Maybe in your region practice times set qual start position? In the SE we start qual wherever we want. Obviously the important thing in qual is to get some space between you and other cars. There’s a variety of ways to do that of course, but it’s highly dependent on folks around you having a clue. I tend to grid up for qual near the rear. Then I back off the guy in front of me with the objective of hitting the turn before S/F at full speed with no one >50m in front of me. Since I started in the rear, I reduce the number of guys that might want to move up and crowd me.

It doesn’t work for me to grid up near the front because I’m not as fast as the front-runners. If I grid mid-pack there will be 25 guys behind me and some knucklehead will not understand that I’m going slow to get space and will instead pass me…forcing me to drop back further.

There’s no perfect answer.

#15

My plan is to bring a new set of RRs for the third race weekend and heat cycle them in Saturday practice, then use my used set of RRs the rest of the weekend unless I need the new set of RRs and hopefully that won’t be till the Sunday race so the new RRs will have had 24+ hours to get ready. We typically do practice, qual, race, race, practice, qual, and race in a Mid South weekend. I normally skip practice on Sundays.

#16

Midwest sets qual grid based on practice time. Weekends tend to be practice, qual, race ( or race, race), qual, race. Practice is 20 min, qual is 15, race is 30-40. MW grids are a lot smaller than yours, at least for SE30, but the tracks are all pretty short too. Except the glorious Road America, which we’ve dropped from the schedule.

#17

[quote=“Ranger” post=73107]
The average race weekend is practice, qual, race, qual, race. Lets define a race as one heat cycle, and a practice or qual as a 1/2 heat cycle. With that in mind, a standard weekend 3 1/2 heat cycles.
[/quote][/quote]

A half of a heat cycle. LOL…like being half - blown up…:slight_smile:

#18

Ok, so 3 weekends and 12 cycles. My first cycle was at Autobahn in April, where I ran a 1:41.9.

Last weekend with the 12’th cycle, in 90 degree heat, I ran 1:42.1

I did flip the tires on the rims after 7 cycles. They were slow for one cycle and then came back to me.

#19

FWIW, last weekend our guys were running a mix–Ryan and Rob’s have alot of cycles, mine had 6, Tiede had stickers, and we were all really close.

#20

[quote=“Ranger” post=73107]
The average race weekend is practice, qual, race, qual, race. Lets define a race as one heat cycle, and a practice or qual as a 1/2 heat cycle. With that in mind, a standard weekend 3 1/2 heat cycles.
[/quote][/quote]

A half of a heat cycle. LOL…like being half - blown up…:)[/quote]
So you’re saying that 3 hot laps puts the same wear on a tire as 15 hot laps?

#21

Well, now you get into whether or not the tire has a faster deacy rate in terms of cycle loading or wear loading.

Toyo can answer that if they would.

Every time you heat them to operating temp, they get a touch harder. You know that.

#22

Tire wear is different than heat cycles. They do work in conjunction, or I should say they do happen in conjunction, but they are different. You can have many heat cycles and still get good wear out of a tire.

#23

[quote=“cosm3os” post=73202]FWIW, last weekend our guys were running a mix–Ryan and Rob’s have alot of cycles, mine had 6, Tiede had stickers, and we were all really close.[/quote]Kyle is right on here, our fastest guy had the most heat cycles (13-15?) on his and was running within 3 10ths of the fastest time he’s had on those tires the conditions were not near as fast as they were the previous time there at ABCC.

I had never driven on those tires before and found them to be as good as any tires I’ve used - note that I also followed the directions Toyo put out to the letter.

#24

FWIW I had mine flipped on the rims halfway through the weekend at ACC. Two turned out to be corded after 18 heat cycles. They seemed slower on Sunday after the flip than before by at least 2 seconds. But inflation pressures were different and 2 of the tires were takeoffs from someone who didn’t like the seam. So it’s hard to compare apples. Two of them now have 20 cycles. I don’t think I’m going to get a full season out of a set.

#25

Rob, don’t forget it was much hotter the second day. We were all slower.

#26

the only reason I was faster is because I am still learning ABCC!

My results for the entire weekend show me nothing to go back on (tire temps, brake wear, fuel consumption, etc.) because all I did was improve my laps… Ryan had to point that out to me, and he’s right, next event is a do-over when it comes to data collection.

#27

I’ve been driving on with my idea to use “retired” race tires as qual tires. I found at VIR last weekend that this idea does get me a 3rd weekend out of my race tires. The downside is that the old “retired” race tires go off pretty quickly so I only get 2-3 hot laps for qual. So as long as the 4th hot lap of qual, which is all we ever get, isn’t critical, I’m good to go.

With separate sets of practice, qual and race tires, I’m a tire changing mofo.