Track Tac

Would you rather: tires

jaymancds

jaymancds

Member
Here is a question to spur some thought, and most likely some debate. I ran into this very situation this weekend and I believe it cost me a win and a $150 pay day.

Would you rather have tires that are too soft by 5-10 points and properly staggered, or tires that are 5-10 points too hard and have slightly more stagger?

Track details: Longish straights, tight corners, basically flat, very hard surface with a ton of laps on it, crumbly dirt, I'd call it medium grip level.

Please don't say "I'd just blah blah blah to either set and get them perfect", that isn't the question.
 
First off this is hard for me to understand why the compromise, because I can change stagger in tires in 15 min.
But I'll give my 2 cents based on being locked into just the 2 scenarios mentioned. If my read on the race was there will be a lot of cautions, I'd add little more air to the soft set and hope for the best.
On the flip side if I felt the race would be long run and knew for sure the soft set would give up, I'd start the harder set with little less and hope for the best.
 
racing promotor said:
First off this is hard for me to understand why the compromise, because I can change stagger in tires in 15 min.
But I'll give my 2 cents based on being locked into just the 2 scenarios mentioned. If my read on the race was there will be a lot of cautions, I'd add little more air to the soft set and hope for the best.
On the flip side if I felt the race would be long run and knew for sure the soft set would give up, I'd start the harder set with little less and hope for the best.
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By the time I realized that I had them over-prepped, I didn't have time to re stagger the other set. It was completely my error, but once I recognized it, I had a decision to make. I'm just curious as to what others may think.
 
Stagger should be set before you even leave the house. This way you have multiple sets ready to go.
But in your scenario, id go with the harder set. I hate a kart that pushes and just gets worst because of being too soft.
 
SoCo Tire Treatments said:
Stagger should be set before you even leave the house. This way you have multiple sets ready to go.
But in your scenario, id go with the harder set. I hate a kart that pushes and just gets worst because of being too soft.
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I had 2 sets, one was 1 1/2" and the other 2". The 2" set is what I had been using but got them too soft. I determined early in the weekend that 1 1/2" was not enough stagger for me.
 
Kj26 said:
2" is a heck of alot of stagger, your talking syrup racing there.
Anyway I'd go soft with more air.
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Long Straights, super tight corners. The 1 1/2" was not enough, and for most the 2" was probably too much, but for me it was working.
 
I'll take the harder set. Softer set will burn up after 3-5 laps and then you'll be hanging on for dear life after that. At least the harder set you can hope the tires come in as the laps go.. but if the track is as slick as you say and the tires are too hard, you could be sliding and burn those up too.
 
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