If you watched the NASCAR Bristol race - and you know me - you'll know I was very interested. Lots to unpack!!
If you didn't watch the race, the tires were wearing extremely fast, apparently because the track (concrete) wasn't "rubbering up" - that is having rubber embedded into the macrotexture like normal. As a result, the tires had to get all their grip from the track surface and none from the adhesion to the embedded rubber. That wore the tires much more rapidly than normal - so fast, they were wearing through the cords. Lots fo flat tires at the beginning.
It was possible to wear off a set of tires (either the right front or the right rear, depending on how the car was handling) within a few laps. This presented an unexpected challenge to the drivers and the crew chiefs. The drivers who did well were those with lots of experience in saving tires. The top 3 were Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex, Jr, and Brad Keselowski.
It took the drivers and the crew chiefs 2 stages before they really got a handle on how to deal with the situation. One of the interesting things was that any car could run a few very fast laps, but the tires would be gone in those few laps! It didn't take long for the drivers to figure that out, but it wasn't until the 3rd stage that enough was known, so the drivers and crew chiefs could plan a strategy.
As a tire engineer, I noticed quite a few things:
The tires had a single cap ply and perhaps only one belt not made of steel, probably Kevlar! The single belt doesn't make sense to me, but that's what it appeared to be.
The wear was on the inboard shoulder. Does that mean Goodyear was using a tread with 2 different compounds - inboard vs outboard? Or does it mean that there was too much camber?
If I were Goodyear, I would be assigning the fix to the Rubber Chemists! I think the tread compound was too dry and didn't adhere to the race track - but rubber chemistry is not something I understand very well, so take that with a huge amount of salt.
Did it make for an interesting race? You betcha!! I hope Goodyear doesn't change things too much as the sight of a front runner suddenly falling back because he pushed too hard was soooooo exciting to watch!
If you didn't watch the race, the tires were wearing extremely fast, apparently because the track (concrete) wasn't "rubbering up" - that is having rubber embedded into the macrotexture like normal. As a result, the tires had to get all their grip from the track surface and none from the adhesion to the embedded rubber. That wore the tires much more rapidly than normal - so fast, they were wearing through the cords. Lots fo flat tires at the beginning.
It was possible to wear off a set of tires (either the right front or the right rear, depending on how the car was handling) within a few laps. This presented an unexpected challenge to the drivers and the crew chiefs. The drivers who did well were those with lots of experience in saving tires. The top 3 were Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex, Jr, and Brad Keselowski.
It took the drivers and the crew chiefs 2 stages before they really got a handle on how to deal with the situation. One of the interesting things was that any car could run a few very fast laps, but the tires would be gone in those few laps! It didn't take long for the drivers to figure that out, but it wasn't until the 3rd stage that enough was known, so the drivers and crew chiefs could plan a strategy.
As a tire engineer, I noticed quite a few things:
The tires had a single cap ply and perhaps only one belt not made of steel, probably Kevlar! The single belt doesn't make sense to me, but that's what it appeared to be.
The wear was on the inboard shoulder. Does that mean Goodyear was using a tread with 2 different compounds - inboard vs outboard? Or does it mean that there was too much camber?
If I were Goodyear, I would be assigning the fix to the Rubber Chemists! I think the tread compound was too dry and didn't adhere to the race track - but rubber chemistry is not something I understand very well, so take that with a huge amount of salt.
Did it make for an interesting race? You betcha!! I hope Goodyear doesn't change things too much as the sight of a front runner suddenly falling back because he pushed too hard was soooooo exciting to watch!
