Thanks for sharing that data!!!! Good stuff!!!

 

A few years ago at Mosport, the black run group was going around on the warmup lap of the first session of the day. On the back straight, the 944 Turbo in front of me started weaving quickly (to heat his tires I guess). Unfortunatly, he lost control and nosed it into the wall. The rest of us just parked in pit lane for 1/2 the run

 

That raises a good point. It looks to me from the data Tim posted that the steering imputs were fairly quick back and forth (Increase in frequency as you view it on the data output). Perhaps Tim was going fairly slow during this warm up lap. I wonder if you use a motion that caused the frequency to be less but the amplitute to be greater would be more effective at heating the tires. Then again as I think about it, the most effective method of weaving probably depends on how fast you are able to go on your warm up lap. Any comments?

 

MSPC's aren't a very good tire to test for this, since they're already notoriously hard to get to temperature.

Also, IR is a bad method of taking tire temperatures, since it only measures the temperature of the surface of the tire -- which is getting a lot of cooling from the airflow over it. Getting the temperatures for the 'meat' of the tire would be more useful, but it'd be a lot more difficult, since you'd need to post a couple of guys with probe-type pyrometers on opposite sides of a (closed to all but one car) track.

 

Nice post by CC. FYI - Carol Smith pointed this out many years ago. I persoanlly do as much hard braking as I can on a warm up lap, but in race pace lap conditions, you are pretty limited and are forced to do quite a bit of weaving. You see the same thing in F1 - accel, brake and weave.

 

It can also give you a little more racing room coming up to the green flag!

 

It is dangerous when I support CC, but IR is the best wat to measure tire temps in real time. It is also very difficult to insert the prove in a tire spinning at 100 mph.

What you really care about IS surface temp, but that is a poor measurement after you make it back to the pits. Hence the probe is more reliable for pit measurements.

 

Wonder if braking and cornering might heat different parts of the tyre?

Stephen

 

As others have said, I weave, brake, and accelerate on the pace lap of a race. When in DE/TT conditions I just go out and drive as I have plently of time to get heat into the tires, car, self.

 

Well, to weave to not to weave...that is the question...I guess. I like to weave to clean the tires as been pointed out by John and Mitch. Where I run, often times, the paddack is loaded with rocks and other debris as well as a hot tire will often pick up unwanted rubber along the way. I find that weaving helps clean the tires. Also, as been said, it does give you a "preparatory feel" for what's happening with the tires. I also like to get on the brakes during the warm up lap always making sure that no one is on my rear, otherwise... Trying to do a full warm up lap, testing the adhesiveness of the tires and the effectiveness of the brakes just makes good sense to me.

 

Not to high jack this thread, but the Hoosier rep at Road America told me Fikse's are notorious for allowing the tire to spin on the wheel rather easily. Has anyone else had this problem. 3 of my four tires rotated (not mounted at the same time). The scary part is it looked like one of the rears spun under acceleration or went 3/4 of the way around under braking. My car is stock so I seriously doubt I have enough torque to do it under acceleration but the other rear barely moved (or moved 7/8ths of the way around the wheel). Obviously, 3/4 out will cause a vibration. So, anyone?

Oh yeah, I weave to clean them off.

 

John,

I'm on MPSC's and have never noticed an issue with my FM-10's. Maybe it's related to just the Hoosier/Fikse combo?

 

I stopped balancing slicks on the Cup 2 years ago, makes no difference. By the time You make Your first lap on sticky tires they are out of balance due to crud, spin on rim etc...

On the weaving, we sometimes start as low as in the teens on the Cup and it is very important to get at least a lb or 2 of climb prior to takeoff to help at start but they must be low enough to be where You want them late in the game when everyone who started too high is on iceskates. Being in the South we may see a bit more climb due to 100deg F racing environs regularly.

Mark, I look forward to Your thoughts on Heartland after the repave, jumping the Cup at full boogie and landing it ina full broadie to avoid the wall yet get lowest lap time did not sound very attractive to me...yikes.

 

I had MPSC rotate on my front FM-10's about 1/2" or so. The tires had been installed at the track, so I was braking hard on them about an hour after installation and I assumed that was the cause. I don't have enough power to rotate the rear.

As for weaving, did anyone notice how some of the F1 guys in the China GP seemed to be using lots of understeer behind the safety car to heat up the fronts.

 

I saw Schumi warm his tires right into the sand trap