How big of a difference do tire warmers really make?

Because you dont want to go faster? Have you done any scientific trials... or have you mastered cold tire traction?

 

This will be a very unpopular opinion.

If you can take your generator onto the track and grid then hell yea the tire warmers can add an extra layer of competitive advantage/peace of mind.

But at a club level I see tire warmers being pulled off the bike to head to pit out and having to wait. (Heat Cycle)
Then once on the track you try to put the heat back into the tires doing a flying lap.
AAAAAAND another wait as everyone tries to get gridded up because there is always a few who don't know their grid position. (Heat Cycle)
The flagger then is on the radio with race control and there is another delay before the start of the race. (Tires Getting Cooler)

Seems like a whole bunch of needless heat cycles to me.

 

Well after 30+ yrs of racing I'm just not interested in buying a newer bike or trying to set lap times again everytime I hit the track. Been there and done that.
Seems some people cant wrap their head around what I want to do with my racing.
But I've spend many hours testing how cold tires react on 1st lap od a warm up lap or the 1st lap of a race.
Watch any of my videos that I post on you tube and nobody I've ever raced against doesn't run off and hide on 1st lap.
Been that way my whole racing career.
See in old days the racers like Wayne Rainey. Bubba Shobert. Freddie Spencer. You know how those racers who won world Championships.
That's what they did so I did that too.
What's ironic is I was weak on 1st lap against my competition around 94 so I went to correct that problem and this is result.
So while all those who had their warmers stop working or forgot to plug them in or had to come in during a red flag and fall apart because they didn't get their warmers on tires.
I'm calm and relaxed and enjoying myself.
Remember this is a personal preference and if this isn't for you then put your warmers on.
Do what works for you.
I see people buy brand new high dollar bikes just to go slow and look cool.
Dont see me telling them what to do with their racing program.
Those same types of racers I pass on my old F3 coming through the pack.
Give me a have wet track or rain and I have a blast going past the newer bikes.
It's all about having fun and if someone asks me about warmers I share what I know.
That's all.


Steven

 

My two cents for OP or future thread searches. I raced expert for a year without warmers and did fine. Put a really hard warm up lap in and always paid extra attention the first lap or so. I had two cold-morning front tire crashes (practice sessions) trail braking into corners that finally convinced me to get warmers. Warmers were cheaper than those crashes for sure.

Now having raced a number of years, if I am doing a track day to work on setup or setting lap times, slicks with warmers. If I am doing a school or a track day for fun, I would throw Dunlop Q4’s or similar, and skip the warmers. I did a Champ Day with YCRS and Q4’s on my race bike were perfect for the day. Always gave them 1-2 laps to get up to temp, set hot pressure after the first session and just rode.

Oh yeah, get warmers with the wind blocking side skirts. I use Woodcraft and like them, but just get some that block the wind and that help the rim get hot too. Hot tire and hot rim is the right way to go. Good luck!

 

It takes about 40 minutes for roughly 1200 watts of tire warmers to heat soak your wheels and tires. Do you really think you loose all of that heat in the 5 or 10 minutes at most, you are talking about in this situation?

 

Yes, a great deal of that temperature.

Like I said, if you can grid on the track with a generator and warmers then it makes prefect sense.

Most of us have jobs and obligations to be taking all those risks going into turn 1 to win a race that means nothing.

We are happy being hobby racers and not taking it that serious. Hell, we don't even use lap timers. It's all about fun and memories to some of us.

Thus far I say we have been surprising successful and safe with our strategy.

 

its always fun to get you typing 1000 words when a yes or no will do .
How many world championships have you won?? Please cite any current champions or world level riders that dont use warmers.
You can say the same about autoblippers, traction control, and carbon brake rotors when that comes to vintage

 

Appreciate all the input! Monsterdood, I'm right there with you on the track day for fun vs. race prep/practice situation. I've only done a few track days this year just to get some feel for modern tires/etc and see if its still fun. I had enough fun at the track days to convince me to get a dedicated track bike and try to go faster and see how that goes. At my mid-pack track day pace I don't feel like I missed anything by not having warmers on my Q4s. I also don't mind gradually upping the speed at a track day since I'm just getting back into it. But like you and several people have said - when things get more serious and I'm trying to go faster earlier, especially with slicks, it sounds like I'd be foolish to not give the tires all the chance I can of starting the session/race closer to their optimum temp than they'd be without warmers. I'll probably get the Woodcraft warmers and a small (quiet) 2K generator.

VFR#52, I can't argue with anything you say either. You're having fun doing what you do, it doesn't sound like you're getting in anyone's way, and really that's all that matters. Very few of us (and none of us at my age) are going to make a living doing this, so its all about having fun. If its more fun for you to not worry about warmers at the track and not be balls to the wall until your tires are up to temp, who's to say you're 'doing it wrong'? If its more fun for someone else to go out with warm tires and feel more confident hammering it into turn 1, same thing, good on them too. By the way, an 86 VFR750 was the first bike I took to the track back in 1991 I think it was. After crashing it twice and being passed by guys on smaller bikes, I got an FZR400 and never looked back. I put 75k miles on that VFR on the street before finally selling it. Nothing quite like that gear drive whine and the V4 roar!

 

Well you are wrong. Think about a propane grill. How long does it take to get the grill from ambient temperature to say 400F? 10-15 minutes? Then turn the grill off....how long does it take to get back to ambient temperature? quite a bit more than that, no? The point is that to rely solely on ambient air conditions to change the temperature of any object, takes significanly more time than when you use a mechanism to insert bulk energy into the object.

So if it takes a 600 watt tire blanket 40 minutes to heat soak a tire to 185F, how long do you think it takes for it to cool back to ambient? A whole hell of lot longer than it takes to gride up even the slowest club race....
Even if the tread surface of the tire cools significantly during a grid process, because the tire carcass, and even the wheel, act as a heat sink, it doesn't take much at all to bring that tread surface back up to full temp compared to starting with a completely cold carcass and wheel.

I'm not trying to convince you that you absolutely need tire warmers. I'm just saying some of the justification you are using to convince yourself and others, is not accurate. Your statement about the grid process was an obvious attempt to convince yourself you are not really giving anything up by not using tire warmers.

This is all you had to say. If the supposed "hassle" of tire warmers is not worth the obvious advanatages it provides to you, that's fine. To say tire warmers provide no or little adavatage for club racing, is just inaccurate.

 

I could get extremely geeky with my direct knowledge of heat controllers, PID loops and external environmental factors. Oddly it's kind of my industry at the moment. PEEK / Extrusion / Metal / Ovens / Etc...

But, I'll just let you know I'm not wrong. There is a significant heat loss. That is fact.

I'm not dismissing tire warmers if used in the proper way of design.

But for the average Joe at club level...

 

On a cold windy day, yeah, you will lose a significant amount of heat in 5 minutes sitting on the grid. They will still be hotter than tires that came up there without warmers on before. On a typical day even after 5 minutes the tires will be pretty warm. I don't own a pyrometer, but my hand says this is true. Additionally a gun pyrometer or hand will only be able to judge the surface temperature. The temperature in the carcass will be warmer than that, so overall the tire will come up to temperature faster once you start riding.

I typically don't go out to grid early at my track days. I don't pull the warmers until I hear third call or I start seeing the pack of bikes from the previous session rolling back into the pits. I don't mind losing a bit of track time, as my 54 year old not in to shape body typically doesn't let me run seven 20 minute session in a day anyway.

With that said being able to warm up tires after sitting on a grid for a while can be a good skill to have. Red flags happen and instead of running around trying to get the bike on stands and warmers, just relax and warm the tires back up on when you get back on track.

 

Oh so now it's a personal attack on my racing resume.

You want a pissing match?
People like you always attack my grammar when all you had to do is laugh when reading my stuff and move on.
You win dude.
How many titles do you have obviously it's more than me and I'm not anybody and never was.
Here is what I love about people like you.
I've been attacked on forums all over.
But what the main problem is that you would never walk up to me and say anything to me in person.
I'm not here to prove anything to you.
Dont care what you think.
I was brought in because a question that you cant answer or know anything about was asked so I gave what I know about it.
Pretty simple.
Next yr why dont you look me up at one of the races I attend and introduce yourself.
You know my name and my bike number and what classes I race.
We can discuss your vast knowledge of what I dont know and we can laugh about it together.
Ask anyone who knows me I would walk right up to anyone who has something to say to me.
But honestly I use my real name and I dont know most people's avatar name.
But I've had plenty introduce themselves to me in person.
See I'm a complicated man. I dont do a yes or no because well it's more complicated and I like to make sure a person gets detailed information when asked on certain subjects.
You take care and be sure to drop by my pit and say hello next yr.
That invitation is open to anyone.
Just remember dont ever ask me a question you dont want an honest answer for.

Steven

 

My 86 VFR 750 I'm putting back together for Vintage. Won 1st V6 national championship in 01 on it.
Steven

 

If you read my post as an attack thats hilarious. You cited world champions as the company keep?
All fluff no facts with 1000 words

 

Oh so its reading comprehension you have issues with?
Im sorry I will write slower.
See back when dirt was invented we didn't have these internet access like today so either you asked a person in person or you watched what they did. Spencer and Rainey have quoted they practiced on cold tires for the edge in 1st 3 laps. Polen and Shobert I've personally asked them this.
There is plenty of this in print just so you know.
Guess I'm jaded because coming from CMRA club I've had privilege of watching some fast young people race and go on to be world Champs.
That answer your question you asked?
Steven

 

OK since we're sharing VFR pics (and aside from porn I can't think of a better use for the internet), here's the bike I used for a couple track days this year. It works really well for being 30 years old!

 

Two things that you missed that ruin your point:
1. Count the number of heat cycles. Using warmers is only 1 more heat cycle - the cooling from cold pit to hot pit before the race. The rest occur for both scenarios.
2. You are incorrectly assuming that all heat cycles are equal. There's a big difference in cooling for 3min at pit out and cooling for 30+min between sessions or races. It'd be interesting to quantify how many times worse 30min of cooling is than 3min.

Let's be pedantic about heat cycles and compare 2 scenarios. Sitting at pit out for 3min vs not using the right side of the tires for 1/4 of a lap. Both mostly cool only the surface of the tire, not the carcass. From the limited data I've seen, I think the forced convection of the latter cools the tire surface noticeably more than sitting still. Both don't affect air temp or tire pressure much. Both hardly affect wheel temp. Are they both heat cycles... Do we heat cycle our tires every time one side cools on track... Does it matter...

 

I guess it all depends what how you define "significant".
Please get all geeky and convince me that tire warmers don't make sense for the average Joe at club level. Becuase I would love to not have to deal with it either if it meant I could still push just as hard from the first lap without any risk of reduced traction due to tire temp. Expereince alone tells me that is not true...but convince with all your direct knowledge that my experience is flawed.

 

If average Joe thinks tire warmers are needed for Club level racing then so be it. Might be a false sense of security in my opinion. But the other average Joe who doesn't use them is just as much going to get through turn one safely. Most likely they will enjoy their race without a second thought of thinking, "if I used tire warmers I could of been "X" amount faster".

I'm not dismissing the value of tire warmers if used properly. And if the Racers talent level justifies it. But for us it's just another unneeded hassle.

 

Where are you drawing the line? How slow does someone need to be to not care about warmers? How fast/slow are you?

I've raced at nearly every level. I've coached and helped setup bikes for riders ranging from first-time trackday riders up to slow Experts. I've taken their tire pressures at hot pit and cold pit for said riders in varying conditions. I've seen what warmers, pace, and conditions do to tire temp. IMO based that experience, all A-group trackday riders and slow novice racers will benefit from warmers.