Well about time

[Haulin'AssAndTurnin Left]

Goodyear developing bigger tire: Goodyear is developing a wider, taller tire that could improve racing in the Sprint Cup series, but the tire won't be ready for competition until sometime next year at the earliest, a company official said. Goodyear officials hope to test the tire at a track in the second half of the season, said Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales. The tire could make its debut at the short- track events in 2010 if things go well. That would follow how NASCAR phased in the Car of Tomorrow. The main advantage of a taller, wider tire is it could give drivers more grip. That would help the car's handling and could give teams improved tire wear. "We're operating right on the edge of the envelope for our current package," Stucker said. "The new car definitely seems to stress tires differently with the additional right-side weight, it's harder on those right sides. We would like to go taller and wider to... make the tire a little bit more forgiving and a little less sensitive to maybe guys missing the setup or maybe being more aggressive on their setups." Goodyear's current Cup tire is 28.5 inches tall and 11-12 inches wide, depending on the track configuration. Stucker said that Goodyear officials are looking at making the tire 1.5 to 2 inches taller and the same amount wider. That creates issues, though. A taller, wider tire will force teams to alter their cars and that could cause headaches. "When you raise the car up, obviously, you change your suspension pickup points and so on and so forth," Stucker said. "We're trying to be very careful in approaching this. If there are going to be changes necessary, make sure they're the right changes and let's think through it. We're proceeding fairly cautiously." Another issue is that Stucker said that Goodyear would have to alter its equipment to produce a different-sized tire. That will take time. "We've got to make some fairly significant changes, which we are in the process of planning and getting ready to do," Stucker said. "That's going to take some time to upgrade all of that equipment."(Virginian Pilot (http://hamptonroads.com/2009/02/goodyear-working-giving-drivers-more-grip))(2-5-2009)

Its about time, they should have been doing this when the COT was in development. Idiots

[colinspooky]

with the rest of the racing world, and real life road cars for that matter, heading towards lower profile tyres, why would this lot want to make them taller?
I get wider.



/too lazy to read why..... just tell me.

[trumperZ06]

with the rest of the racing world, and real life road cars for that matter, heading towards lower profile tyres, why would this lot want to make them taller?
I get wider.



/too lazy to read why..... just tell me.

:dozey: Hhmmmm... if Goodyear's making a taller tire without increasing the rim diameter, that sucker's gonna scrub in the turns, rolling over on its' sidewalls.

[Jonesi]

:dozey: Hhmmmm... if Goodyear's making a taller tire without increasing the rim diameter, that sucker's gonna scrub in the turns, rolling over on its' sidewalls.

The way Ray Evernham was talking about it last year, he was expecting a wheel diameter too.

[colinspooky]

ok - still don't get it. It clearly says the "tyre" (tire) is going to be taller, so it doesn't make any difference if you make the wheel diameter another three foot bigger, the tyre is still going to be taller.
And surely that's not good. Is it?
If so, why doesn't the rest of the racing world do the same. Or have they?
The tyres all seem pretty darn low profile to my amateur eye.

[call_me_andrew]

I think the taller profile is a matter of driver request. Drivers want as much scrub as possible and complained when Goodyear used stiffer sidewalls.

And these are pretty high profile compared to most other racing series.

Here's a picture of one of the rain tires.

http://i.cnn.net/nascar/2008/comm/images/Head2Head/rain.jpg

Notice how big the sidewall looks compared to a LMP tire.

(And if you look closely at the slick on the car, you can see how Goodyear has since changed their sidewall lettering since that rain tire was made.)

http://www.fastmachines.com/wp-content/uploads/michelin-tire.jpg

Of course Formula One also takes some jabs for using high profile tires. In these pictures, you can see how the F1 tires and the NASCAR tires are almost the same size.

http://www.motorsporten.dk/Galleri_2003/Formel-1/2003-06-11_Indianapolis-Speedway/montoya_gordon_swap01_%5bbmw%5d.jpg

http://www.motorsporten.dk/Galleri_2003/Formel-1/2003-06-11_Indianapolis-Speedway/montoya_gordon02_%5bbmw%5d.jpg

[Mark in Oshawa]

I am sure someone who made this decision did it after talking to a few people who might not have to go to the bank machine to buy a clue first. Ray Evernham has been pushing for this for a while and I suspect he may be just one of many who might have been consulted.