Two things, first the wood rim wheels were outlawed in all the West Coast
clubs (SCCA and CAL CLUB) in about 1959 because of a horrendous crash with
a Morgan where the steering wheel splintered. ( I was there) It may not
have been the only case but it certainly didn't take long after this event
for the ban to happen.
Second, I know that race tires have a shelf life and the older they get the
harder they get. Running fully inflated and brought up to temperature and
allowed to cool will make the tire slightly harder for that one heat cycle,
so if you do it two times the second heat cycle makes it harder yet. Each
heat cycle then reduces the stick just slightly and allows the tire to run
without quite as much gain in temperature. Heat cycling tires was and is
quite a common occurrence in top level racing where the compound is too soft
for the course but the next harder compound is too hard. Did this many many
times with the Nissan GTP car to get the tires just right. In the end what
this means in Vintage is that the tire you started the event with is not the
same after the practice sessions and qualifying event so you need to adjust
either the pressure or the suspension to account for this. Of course with
the GTP cars the tires never lasted more than a session or two at best
anyway but getting tires ready for qualifying and the race was always a very
pointed job at every event. I would suppose this would have the same effect
on DOT tires but perhaps not the extreme that occurs in race tires.
----- Original Message -----
From: <N197TR4@cs.com>
To: <brad.kahler@141.com>
Cc: <fot@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 6:32 AM
Subject: Re: wood vs vinyl / leather steering wheels
> Some groups dont like wood. If you are a vampire you wont like it either.
>
> > Amici,
> >
> > I don't recall seeing this discussed before on the list.
> >
> > I'm in the process of physically setting of the TR3 for the new race
> > seat and need to get a steering wheel to suit my needs. I plan on
> > replacing the steering wheel that was in the car with a Grant wheel
> > (got the hub recently). So my question is, which is better for racing,
> > wood or vinyl / leather?
> >
> > Brad
> > 1957 TR3 vintage racer
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