Dear Baxter,
Hey Baxter, is your car related to something we used to ingest
back in the 60's/70's? Or maybe it was designed under the
influence of some of this awful tasting stuff. Anyway, it sure
looks cool!! I remember a couple loooong nights down on the Baja
watching the ocean from the sand dunes.............. but, I
digress!
Tires, that's the question?????
Most of us East Coast, and Midwest, TR jockeys are running
Hoosier Vintage TDs. The main reason is SVRA (our main
sanctioning body) says that in our Group we are allowed either
Dunlops or Hoosiers. Since the Hoosiers are less expensive,
that's the way we've gone. Most of us were running BFG Comp TAs
up til this rule change about three years ago.
The Hoosiers are not as sticky as the radials, but once you get
the feel of the slip angles they are fun to drive. It's my guess
that they are stickier than the Dunlops. I run Dunlops on my
FFord and they seem to "let loose" easier. The neat thing about
the Hoosiers is that when they do "let loose" they will get
"hooked up" again, you just have to have the feel for when it's
going to happen. Because of this it's taken some of us a year or
so to get really comfortable driving them at the limit.
I agree that these tires are stickier than what was available in
the period. By the same token the metal parts were 40 years
newer and had a lot less cycles on them. I'm sure we could start
a thread on this topic and hear all kinds of comments. Oops, I
bet we just did!!!!
Vroom, vroom,
Jeff
baxter Culver wrote:
>
> I am curious, what tires are you using with the axle/hub problems?
> Some of the West Coast Vintage clubs, like Steve Earl, have become zealots
> about NOT using modern "sticky" tire compounds and widths. Says they
> are not in the proper spirit of vintage racing and they cause problems with
> suspension, wheel, axle components. I, for example, am not allowed to
> use the Goodyear "Blue Streak" on the Peyote. Only Dunlop and now
> Engleberts. Both are more expensive than Goodyears and don't stick
> quite as well--go away when hot, etc.
>
> However, the tires used when these cars were new, even in race trim, were
> not nearly as sticky as them that's available today. So, I was just
> wondering. Is there anything to this Vintage proper tire stuff we've been
> required to follow???
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