Skinny tires

[Bill Johnson 42]

After talking to several at the Runoffs and looking at the different tire combinations I have a question. Are the multiple tire combinations going to be good for our class? Is it in the best interest of FF as a whole?

I am not offering and opinion or making a statement but only asking a question. The couple that I talked to that had data to back up their choices indicated that the skinny rears offer better straight line speed - either because they spin up faster or because of aero - but the traditional cantilever offers better grip in the corners.

Will we get to a point where you will need different tire/suspension set ups for different race tracks at different times of the year?

My hats off to TC for coming up with a new idea, I just wonder where it goes from here.

[John Robinson II]

Bill,
I also talked to several people about this, including the Coellos. Mr Coello told me that we had it all wrong as the cars are designed to run on the non cantilevered tires and he saves mucho bucks on tires by being able to move fronts to rear and vice versa. But my testing found that there are tracks that will definitely require the wider rear. I think tracks such as Daytona, Road America, etc, will allow the narrowerer tire to come out ahead, but a track with more demanding corners will favor the standard issue. I dont think this is a bad thing.

I talked to Steven Davis, a top notch FV driver, and he informed that they have been doing this for years, but that there fronts and rears are same circumference, just a different width.

I did not test the narrow tires at the runoffs because my philosophy is that you dance with the girl that got you there. We did try them a Sebring and found they had better acceleration but were not compliant over the bumps.

I fought hard for the pole as I felt that by controlling the start I stood a chance against the greater acceleration the smaller tires afford. Also once I thought about it, it did not make sense to just do the tires without changing over to everything lightened. Once you watch the video from the race you will see that despite TC's better initial jump it did not make much difference on top end. That is also the reason I think he came to a complete stop in 14 before the restart, he was trying to maximize the acceleration. Good thing for both of us the Schwietz was not in 3rd as he would have shot around the outside just like last year.

Basically I think this is an evolution issue and that yes we will need to run them on certain tracks and the weatherr will play a more important role in how long they will last on marginal tracks. But be fore warned, it is not just a matter of putting them on and changing gears, the smaller tires play havoc with camber curves and such.

John

[TimW]

Bill,
Mr Coello told me that we had it all wrong as the cars are designed to run on the non cantilevered tires and he saves mucho bucks on tires by being able to move fronts to rear and vice versa.

But did you ask how much he spent on his damper bill?

[Gerald Barrett]

I am a little surprised this thread hasn't had more replies. I heard Cliff Johnson tested on the small rears at the ST. Louis double regional at the end of October. He said the small rears only seem to last one session! Sounds like that would massively increase the tire budget!
Does onyone know how many cars qualified or finished in the top 10 at the Runoffs with the small rears? Was Oseth using them?
It will be interesting to compare trap speeds when they are released. I guess that will be the determining factor of how many people convert their cars over the winter to work with the small rears. Got to give Tony Coello a lot of credit for thinking outside the box on this one.
Gerald.

[Charles Livingston]

Gerald,
I believe that only Eric Langbein and Coello ran the skinny rears in the runoffs race, but I wasnt there so I could be wrong.

I was wondering why Cliff went to Gateway in Oct.

[PiperFF]

Tim Kautz...
Ran'em all week at the runoffs(Piper)
and at Blackhawk Regional a few weeks ago he was close to the lap record..On the Skinnies.JV

[Larry]

There is no "best" set-up for all conditions. Every set-up is a compromise. Skinny tires may be best at some times. So what? The same is true of spring rates, shocks--even wings if we ran 'em. The guys that are willing to invest the time and money in optimizing their car for specific tracks and conditions deserve to have that advantage. It takes a LOT of testing to really get the maximum out of your car. How many folks change springs over the course of the weekend? Most of us run what we brung. The truly industrious are always tinkering. If you want to require that everyone run the same tires, shocks, gears, springs, etc., there are classes suited for this type of rigid approach.

Larry Oliver
International Racing Products

[SOseth]

I don't think it is a bad idea to have a choice of different sized tires. As JRII stated, FV has done it for years but for different reasons. Since FV gear ratios are limited, running a shorter rear tires gives us some different gearing options. I used this last year at Topeka in FV and liked it alot. This year I think the track has changed (aged?) and was never happy with the shorter tires. Thats why for the FV race I switched to the normal larger rear tire.

I think it is more interesting in FF. Langbien and I tried the shorter tires on the rear at Summit Point about a month before the Runoffs. We both went faster with the shorter rears, in fact I think both of us ran under the lap record with them. The difference was that his car felt good on them, mine didn't. Eric has a VD vs. my Citation. My car is not only easy on tires but is very balanced wereas I am told VD's tend to push. Therefore putting the smaller tires on the rear really should help balance the VD.

I ran the small rears for my test day and the first 2 qual sessions. Even with changing geometry I wasn't happy with the way the car felt. Thats why I switched back to the normal rears for the last 2 qual sessions and the race. John is right in that sometracks may be more suited to the short rears and some chassis may be better suited to them as well. Perhaps someone more technically astute can add to this.

SteveO

[EACIII]

Skinny tires on the back of a FF are nothing new, it has been done at Pocono may times over the years. Though I don't thing anyone has done it recently.

Ed

[Bill Steele]

There is no "best" set-up for all conditions. Every set-up is a compromise. Skinny tires may be best at some times. So what? The same is true of spring rates, shocks--even wings if we ran 'em. The guys that are willing to invest the time and money in optimizing their car for specific tracks and conditions deserve to have that advantage. It takes a LOT of testing to really get the maximum out of your car. How many folks change springs over the course of the weekend? Most of us run what we brung. The truly industrious are always tinkering. If you want to require that everyone run the same tires, shocks, gears, springs, etc., there are classes suited for this type of rigid approach.

Larry Oliver
International Racing Products

Amen.

[reidhazelton]

This may be painfully obvious to the veterans here, but as a newbie I don’t really understand this. Haven’t all the FF in Europe been running skinny tires since day one. Looking at them now, with the Zetec and more hp, they still run on the skinny meats. So how come over here we run the cantilevered tires? Also, it seems that we burn front tires much faster than rears, or atleast I do at the moment. So wouldn't the smaller rear even things outTimes New Roman]Anyone have a more definitive answer on longevity with this? As stated above, the tires may only last one race, but also stated that switching to the same tire front and rear save substantial money. Seems if one statement is true, the other is not so likely.

Thanks!!!

[John Robinson II]

Reid,
Firstly, it is not the same tire front and rear. The skinny rear is actually the wide FC front and then they run the smaller FF front. THe biggest problem is the circumference difference, once you bolt on the smaller rears you need to drastically raise the rear of the car to get rake back to norm. THis does funny things to the camber curves and such. THe small tires do have their place and I think are useful at some tracks.
Next, handling on a Ff is front tire limited, just as you pointed out, the majority of people have massive push problems, hence the reason Hoosier came out with the wider front was to help the VDs that are pushing pigs. The real trick is to get the balance correct. Once the balance is right, tire wear is much more even and depending on driving style, you might start wearing rears before fronts. One must keep in mind that these cars are low HP requiring the car to be "free". What most people consider a loose car is still to tight for most of the front runners, but a tight car is easier to drive because you are not chasing it every corner. Dont get me wrong there is a time and place for the car to have a slight push, but you will do so at the risk of loosing speed at the end of the straight.

John

[Larry]

...plus, there really isn't any relationship to the Zetec. They run wider rims than our 5 1/2" here. Their engines put out far more horsepower than our 1600. I'm not sure if they still run treaded tires (tyres?), but you just can't compare anything operational between the two cars--they're just too many differences.

Larry Oliver
International Racing Products

[Chas Shaffer]

My hats off to TC for coming up with a new idea, I just wonder where it goes from here.

I'm pretty sure the reason Tony ran small rears is because up until the runoffs the Coello's ran Avon's. Avon doesn't make a wide FF rear, only narrow and I do believe it is the same tire as the front or at least it use to be. I've seen narrow Avons on FF's since Avon came to Club racing in the late 90's. Hoosier went through a program to simulate and improve upon the Avon FC and FF tires which resulted in the smaller FC and FF tires. The Coello's switched to Hoosier for the runoffs. If they hadn't I'm sure Tony would have been on narrow Avons at the runoffs as he was at the Sprints.

[KOTR17]

I'm pretty sure the reason Tony ran small rears is because up until the runoffs the Coello's ran Avon's. Avon doesn't make a wide FF rear, only narrow and I do believe it is the same tire as the front or at least it use to be. I've seen narrow Avons on FF's since Avon came to Club racing in the late 90's. Hoosier went through a program to simulate and improve upon the Avon FC and FF tires which resulted in the smaller FC and FF tires. The Coello's switched to Hoosier for the runoffs. If they hadn't I'm sure Tony would have been on narrow Avons at the runoffs as he was at the Sprints.

Chas,

Congrats on the FC Nat Champ! I missed the exciting conclusion with Larue running you down, but I unfortunately lost interest in the race once Nick's car broke while in the lead after the restart.

Swing and a big miss on that guess Chas! Don't know where you came up with the "up until the runoffs Coello's ran Avon's." or "If they hadn't I'm sure Tony would have been on narrow Avons at the runoffs as he was at the Sprints." Perhaps you just had a few ! I raced on Hoosier's all year (Including the June Sprints). I was starting with a new class this year and had no affiliation with any tire company coming into this year. I decided to try something a little different in an effort to have some fun engineering a Formula Ford car from a blank sheet of paper. I still don't have any affiliation with a tire company other than having a ton of respect for Bruce Foss, Hoosier tire and their talented group of engineers that saw what I was doing and gave me a huge hand in developing my unique (to the US) Formula Ford package. Next year I think I might start the year with the Cantilever and see how well I can engineer the car around them. It's fun for me, I enjoy working on the car as much as driving it. Of course I am not saying which end of the car I am running the cantilevers on!

Not to bust your balls too much about your post, (It's the offseason so it helps eat up time ) but you were also wrong about Avon and their line of FF tires. Avon does have a Formula Ford Cantilever "rear" tire, in fact they have a couple versions of it. Avon actually has quite a line of FF tires and probably produces more tyres for Formula Ford world wide then any other tire manufacturer. I like the Hoosiers though, they were the best tire in both FF and FC at the Runoffs this year.

Tony "fronts on my rear and rears on my front" Coello

[Chas Shaffer]

Chas,

Congrats on the FC Nat Champ! I missed the exciting conclusion with Larue running you down, but I unfortunately lost interest in the race once Nick's car broke while in the lead after the restart.

Swing and a big miss on that guess Chas! Don't know where you came up with the "up until the runoffs Coello's ran Avon's." or "If they hadn't I'm sure Tony would have been on narrow Avons at the runoffs as he was at the Sprints." Perhaps you just had a few ! I raced on Hoosier's all year (Including the June Sprints). I was starting with a new class this year and had no affiliation with any tire company coming into this year. I decided to try something a little different in an effort to have some fun engineering a Formula Ford car from a blank sheet of paper. I still don't have any affiliation with a tire company other than having a ton of respect for Bruce Foss, Hoosier tire and their talented group of engineers that saw what I was doing and gave me a huge hand in developing my unique (to the US) Formula Ford package. Next year I think I might start the year with the Cantilever and see how well I can engineer the car around them. It's fun for me, I enjoy working on the car as much as driving it. Of course I am not saying which end of the car I am running the cantilevers on!

Not to bust your balls too much about your post, (It's the offseason so it helps eat up time ) but you were also wrong about Avon and their line of FF tires. Avon does have a Formula Ford Cantilever "rear" tire, in fact they have a couple versions of it. Avon actually has quite a line of FF tires and probably produces more tyres for Formula Ford world wide then any other tire manufacturer. I like the Hoosiers though, they were the best tire in both FF and FC at the Runoffs this year.

Tony "fronts on my rear and rears on my front" Coello

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the congrats.

Obviously I stand corrected, thanks for keeping me honest!!

I remember when Avon came to the states for club racing in the late 90's, Hot Shoe and Rolf Stutz did a lot of development on them. I was told as far back as then that the FF's ran the FC fronts but who knows maybe that's just the way the NE guys did it. I thought Langbein was using Avon FC fronts on the rear of the "goldfish" 4 or 5 years ago but now I don't trust my memory at all! As previously stated maybe it was just a Pocono thing.

Perhaps Bruce and I both had too many 's at the Sprints because I thought he and I talked about all of this. Of course we were at Siebken's and I did have a pretty bad concussion a few weeks later. I definitely misunderstood what he told me. I violated my own rule about trusting my memory concerning anything that happened this summer. I would have sworn you race on Avons at the Sprints.

Tail firmly between my legs.....