Tips for racing in rain on rain tires...

Sooo im debating on racing my bike this weekend in the rain.

Is there a special prep list for the bike to keep electronics out, tips or advice?

how well do rain tires work or am i just asking to crash?

 

Did you ever ride your street bike in the rain? It's the same, but you have better grop.

Use tire warmers, if you can keep the warmers dry and out of puddles. (Electrocution can delay getting to the grid...) The warmers will help the tire carcass remain pliable so that the tread, which will be cold when it hist the water, can work without tearing off the carcass.

Concentrate on SMOOOTTTHHHH for braking, turn-in, corner exit. downshifts, etc. You are spending traction points from a very much smaller account, so be mindful of preserving them.

Only go a little faster than the second-place guy. Don't pass to close on corner exits, the guy beside you may whack the throttle, and lowside into you.

Enjoy, and you will accumulate points. Lots of guys sit out races in the rain.

 

Warmers in the rain? You really dont think the tires will be completely cold by the time you grid up to take your warm up lap? Huh, I would like to hear more about this....

 

Where did you come up with this?

 

S'up Garth? You been doing ok?

 

What up Monte, yeah doing OK. Just looking for a job. Funny how fast things can change in little over a year.

 

Did HD lay you off Garth? That sucks!

 

You have to be real smooth in the rain. NO warmers. There is much more grip in the rain than you think.

 

Got this directly from a Pirelli track rep. I thought the same as you, until I tried it, on his recommendation. Definitely had better feel and feedback with the warmed tires.

The rep said that most people believe that the tires cool off so fast that it makes no difference, but that is not true. I figured, hey, it's a track day, let me try it. Wow, I was surprised.

Of course of all the guys who poo-poo the idea, have you actually tried it?

I agree with Tim Vosnick that rain tires have lots of grip in the rain. They will even hook up after breaking loose, which feels pretty wierd to me.

 

I have always been told to use warmers on the rain tires. I was also told that if you had adj. warmers to keep them on the lower setting with the rains.

 

I recently got into a converstation about whether or not to use tire warmers on rain tires, and to shed some light on the situation I used a pyrometer to check the carcass temperature of rain tires straight off a wet track.

The rider was a top Expert, the tires were Pirellis, and the weather was of course overcast and raining, air temp was around 50 degrees.

Hot off the track, the tires showed no higher than 88 degrees no matter where you measured.

This basically confirmed my suspicion that if you're going to use tire warmers on rain tires, you want to set them for roughly what they're going to be operating at, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 to 90 degrees.

Different tire vendors will tell you different things, different riders have different views and beliefs, but as far as I'm concerned the purpose of a tire warmer is to get the tire near it's designed operating temperature. Therefore I recommend setting your warmers according to the best information you have about what your tire's operating temperature range should be, in the case of Pirelli rain tires under most conditions, that's around 85 degrees.

 

Having raced in the rain in the "rain capitol" of racing for going on 8 years, Florida, I go out on the limb and say USE warmers... Why you ask? Because have you ever felt rain tires when you come in from a race (if your good in the rain) or feel a fast riders tires when he comes in from a wet track.. they are .. you guessed it.. WARM.
Don't use em on HOT, but a low setting (there is one temp on warmers but they cycle longer on a LOW setting to not bake em).
Do what ya want.. But we that use warmers will waive as we go by ya:up:

If ya need further info to back this up, look at the "tire warmer temp" suggested on a Michelin tire chart that most trackside reps will have posted on the door to the trailer. "120f" is what i think i have seen.
Happy rain-racin!

And from the post above, if it was 50F outside, it is not surprising the tire temp was no warmer than 85 F when he came in from the wet. Water will pull heat away faster than air, but also realise that down here in FL we are racing in the rain USUALLY when it is 90F outside..SO.. our carcass temps will correlate to a higher temp (usually 120 and HOTTER on the rear..)

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem that temperature would be easy to achieve with come strong acceleration and braking during the warmup lap without having used warmers?

 

not so much in the rain. you cant get on the gas as hard, and most of the braking is while upright. You can not trail the brakes nor lean as much in the rain. It just takes longer to warm tires in the rain period. There just is NO reason to go out for a rain race with air temp tires.. Would you skip using warmers in the dry? You can.. but why ?
i have some pretty good experience in this area

 

That makes perfect sense, and is exactly what I'm talking about. Use your tire warmers to achieve a tire temp somewhere near your operating temp, which will of course vary with the brand and compound of tire, weather conditions, and of course track and air temperature. The case I used is a Midwestern scenario.

On a side note, I'm totally jealous of everyone who gets to race in the rain when it's not cold! I hate being wet and cold, and when it rains up here in the Midwest, it's usually cold. I guess it all evens out when y'all are racing in August without a cloud in sight.

 

Yup, racing in the cold AND rain sucks.. I'll take it "hot" or "hotter" down here thank you!!
Glad to see the tire temp was taken with a pyrometer. I was gonna say that of course the tire surface would be cold coming in from a race and measuring with a lazer gun, but the pyrom. would be more accurate. I've seen steam come off the tires when we come in down here sometimes..

 

I'm slow and don't race in the rain, but the handout given to me from Dunlop says never use warmers on rain tires. It may be a brand thing, but I know Dunlop specifically warns against using them.

 

Yeah, the laser temps are good for track temps and double checking to make sure your tire warmers are still getting all the way up to your temperature set point, but for operating temps a pyrometer is definitely the way to go.

I'm not a Dunlop expert, but I would suspect they say that because if you bake your rain tires the same way you would bake your dry race tires, you're more likely to cook the stickiness right out of them, due to their extremely low operating temperature design. It's hard to educate consumers on unusual applications, so them may be more worried about people setting their warmers too high and leaving them on too long for such soft rain rubber.

 

I agree with using warmers. I would prefer to drop the tire into operating temperature in a lap or two, than to go out cold and work to get the tire up to temperature which could easily take twice as long.

Pirelli does suggest using warmers but the setting would be higher than the actual target operating temperature. This is because if you set it at the targeted operating temperature the moment you pull out of you pits you already have work to do, rather shoot for a temperature 20 degrees higher and expect to hit the track closer to your target.

Dustin Boyd
Cyclepath Racing.com
Midwest Pirelli Vendor

 

Did you get to take advantage of our open wet sessions during practice this year? Quite a few LRRS riders got to go out on and off for 1 1/2 or three hours in the wet to get to know the conditions.