First off, I didn't see anything with a quick search, so if this is still a repeat, post a link and/or delete the thread. now with that said, my question.... How much does a race tire really cool when you're not fully on your pace? the recent incidents with Rossi have me wondering how much his reasoning is true (of the tire cooling while he let a few riders pass him) I think he said he was only off his pace for 10 seconds or so, so does the tire cool THAT quickly that it will lose a lot of its grip? I know these guys run on the edge and push the bikes for all that they have to offer, including the tires, but the sit on the starting grid longer waiting for the red lights to go out. I'm just wondering if it was the loss of grip, or maybe getting on the throttle too hard that was more of a cause to the incident. ~Discuss
what I'm interested in is the compounds in the Bridgestones they use. I think it is more a issue of the tires working in a very small temp range than him getting hamfisted. I am by no means fast, and when on some good race slicks (UK KR Ntecs) I didn't notice anything unusual with a varied pace.
Get a pyrometer and check for yourself, or even a lazer temp gauge (little less accurate as it reads surface) but you can get the idea.. Let us know! i would be interested to know some details myself. Also, im fairly sure there is little in common with the tires that Rossi and co. use to the tires we use. If we TRIED we would have a difficult time keeping enough heat in the tires he uses to make them work for us, on our bikes.
I agree, those tires are as the bikes, prototypes. so the tires that we use have some of that technology..... furthermore I have read the those tires are so sencitive to ambian tempeture that the Rossi, Spies and Batista crashes at Le mans ware due for the diference and tempeture in the two days ware like 15 to 20 degrees between the 2 days.... I am just a track day rider so am happy with my DOT`S:up:
kinda hard to tell without extensive datalogging. Im sure with enough laps at various riding tempos, tire pressures, ambient temps, and surface temps you might come up with a percentage range. I doubt the data would help much. I thought a cool invention would be some kinda data loggable pyrometer scanning the tires as you make laps. Perhaps in 3rds? You could sync it up with a GPS type laptimer and engine speeds/rpm to see where you can add more entry & exit velocity, etc. Maybe Im just overthinking??
Problems like this happen with F1. When ever they would let a journalist test the cars they could not get enough heat into the tires or the brakes to get them up to temp. Very often they couldn't even finish a lap without spinning several times, often on conner entry. The tire temps would be hotter from the warmers than from dthe driver. Most good datalogging systems have options for infrared tire temps, normally on both sides and the middle of the tread.
Below is a link to some real time infra-red tire temperature measurements of some Michelin 2CT's run on the track. Infra-red sensors are placed on both sides of the front and rear tires and the data logged. As you'll see the surface temperature of the tire rises and drops dramatically. In this case the rear tire loses 42°F in about 17 seconds while the bike is upright going down the straightaway. When the cornering loads are again placed on the tire, the temperature rises back up very rapidly within a few seconds. http://www.msportsystems.com/?page_id=93
