[Spridgets] Questions for the Racers (Long)

[Larry Daniels]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Soave" <soavero at yahoo.com>
To: <spridgets at autox.team.net>; "fastvee" <fastvee at yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Spridgets] Questions for the Racers (Long)


--- On Thu, 4/9/09, fastvee <fastvee at yahoo.com> wrote:
> not like it. My questions for you vintage guys are, have you
> raced against slick tires while on street tires? Are the
> lines similar enough to not be a problem? Am I wacky?

No, not at all. At Road America last year, John Salisbury Jr. raced his LP 
Spridget on DOT tires (Hoosiers) and told me he wasn't giving up much at 
all. Chris Ducklow runs both, and he swears the slicks are much better. 
Chris certainly seems faster on the slicks, but I'd take John's opinion as 
very educated, though.

Ron
_______________________________________________

John,

If I can throw my two pence worth in here, the deeper the tread on your 
street tires, the more tire squirm and, thus, slip angle you will get.  Your 
turn-in won't be as crisp and your run-out on exit will be a little farther. 
If you aren't running side-by-side through a corner with somebody on slicks, 
it won't be a problem.

Street tires cannot be as quick as slicks, though.  I ran treaded race rain 
tires that were great in the rain, but got way to hot and squirrelly when 
the track dried out.  They weren't as bad in the dry as slicks were in the 
rain, but it wasn't that far off.

A thought here.  If money is the reason for sticking with street tires --  
get to know the high buck SCCA teams.  A lot of those guys used to run about 
12 heat cycles on a set of tires and then replace them.  You can buy the 
take-offs from them cheap and they are still pretty good if you aren't 
competing directly against the top dogs.  I used to run a new set for 6 
races or about 24 to even 30 cycles before replacing them and they didn't 
drop off enough to make me replace them any earlier.  You will easily cut 
your tire budget in half by buying their take-offs.  If you don't know the 
big-buck teams, go to the tire company trailers during a race and see what, 
if anything, they have.  That will be cheaper yet, because they don't want 
to bring them home.  A 12-pack goes a long way here toward getting the good 
ones.


Good luck,

LAD