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All, many of you have probably seen this bulletin or similar information out on the Interweb somewhere, but in case you haven’t, this was circulated to the NASA regions from HQ this week.
You will want to download and review the information in this bulletin for sure, before you begin running the RR tires.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzfkUgART_B4S0laZUhpTUFERGc
You may flip them after three weekends, but you’ll only get one race/one qualifing session out of them with the fast guys that run up front.
That is my excuse for lack of talent and I’m sticking to it.
(Get it, “sticking.”)
RP
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?
Use a qual to heat cycle your next set of race tires.
Don’t practice nor qual with your current set of race tires.
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.
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=“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.
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.
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.
[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…
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.
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=“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?