sticky tyres

grant w wrote: at croft last year the driver of the day award went to simon potts , myself second , can't remember the guys name how came third , we were all driving e30 m3's and all on stickies ,

I'll pretend I didn't hear that!

Nick wrote: Grant, That bit of the pre-drive check sounds ever so familiar.. I could have wrote that myself. Have they 'lifted' my Croft documents? Nick, Croft'04

Nick, the docs are identical.

Sorry Grant but road tyres for me.  I need to get the "nut behind the steering wheel" sorted first so I will be getting instruction. I want to be in good shape in the M3 for Croft.

 

Grant,
That bit of the pre-drive check sounds ever so familiar.. I could have wrote that myself.
Have they 'lifted' my Croft documents?
I penned all that for our first Croft back in '96 when I was still wet behind the ears.
It is just common sense stuff allied to a few scrutineering pointers I picked up along the way.
It is not the be all and end all.. it is just a little helper for the novice who may have left a carrier bag of shopping on the back seat never mind not dipping the engine oil.

James... we don't all use that shower.. watch it!

Nick, Croft'04

i'm just reading the pre-drive checks sheet for rockingham
1. wheels & tyres

Plenty of tread please and make sure your wheel nuts are
tight. (tyre pressures need to be up a bit).

is'nt there something missing , you get people to book BDD's take there money , send out the paperwork a week before the event so there's no way they can cancell and get a refund and then tell them sorry no track tyres , when there is no mention on the forms anywhere that track tyres cannot be used ..

Dr Shred,
Yes, the tyre problem is affecting other clubs not just ours.
You will begin to see an increase in the amount of trackdays that shun the use of stickys as their insurance premiums come up for re-newal.
Nick, Croft'04

I cannot agree with the assertion which appears to be being made that skills learned on a track are not transferable to the road. That sounds like complete bunk to me. Applying that logic would make anyone who drives a "wings and slicks" car a complete and utter menace on the road due to the vast difference in handling between the race vehicle and the road vehicle.

Before anyone gets the wrong end of the stick here I am in no way advocating that anyone should go to any club's BDD, track day, or whatever, learn to do high speed J-Turns and then go out and demonstrate them on a public road! Anyone who drives their car on the road, with its road tyres fitted, in the same manner they drive it on a track, with track tyres fitted, deserves to be put on the public transport diet until they regain their senses!

I'm sorry, but I don't believe I'm going to become a raving looney on the road just because I've had track tyres on my road car whilst driving (surprisingly) on a track...

Learning what the vehicle is capable of and developing the skills to know what to do, and how to do it within the performance envelope of the vehicle, are things that increase driver capabilities and are directly transferable to every day road use.

For example, a surprising number of motorcycle accidents are the result of riders not leaning their bikes over far enough due to fear that they will be pitched off by scraping the centre stand etc.

So much so that I seem to remember from my 1984 BMW RS100RS manual a line in there about "...the bike can be safely leaned over much further than most riders imagine".

Certainly almost everyone I know who has taken their bike for a ride on a race track has come back into the pits and said "Wow, I didn't know just how far I could lean my bike into a corner!"

Developing a better understanding of the capabilities of a machine, developing the skills to safely use those capabilities and developing the judgement and confidence to use those skills appropriately in any environment, road or track, can only be a benefit.

How many car accidents on our roads could have been avoided if the drivers had the skill and confidence to take evasive action, and doing so in a skilful manner, not in one which results in a worse accident as they try and make their car do the impossible?

I've read with interest the various opinions about just what level of tyre damage can be expected to road tyres during a track day. The views seem to vary between "not much at all" to "tyres knackered due to overheating". So not a lot of agreement there...

To ensure that I get to drive on the BDD I guess I will turn up on standard road tyres and make my judgement on the level of tyre damage based directly on my own experience.

To respond to a comment made by Richard,

Richard wrote: If you are overheating your tyres you are either pushing too hard or not driving the ideal line.

As my wife and I are novices to this car on a track I think it is quite possible that we will make all the classic mistakes of braking too late and too hard, turning in at the wrong point, spinning up the rear as we exit a corner, etc. But that's what learning is about - learning how to control the car and not have those things occur.

There is an excellent article in the current BMWCCGB Magazine about learning the ring (in an Alpina B10) and the description of "...imitating a hippo..." into a corner had me in stitches, mostly because I'm sure I'd be doing the same thing!

So, yes, excessive tyre wear due to not selecting the ideal line etc. will almost definitely occur. That's precisely one reason I had thought of track tyres for the event!

I have no doubt that a good driver can do fast laps on bald cross-ply's (again, not that I am advocating that). That is what being a good driver is all about. On my snowboard I can do full race carve turns on my powder board in soft boots on groomed runs whereas most people find it hard to do properly even on a stiff board whilst wearing race boots. It's not about the kit, it's the level of skill and knowing how to do it.

I don't want track tyres to try and artificially inflate my ego, or to give me "an edge". This isn't a race! They just simply seem to be the right thing to use on a track, nothing more or less.

Don't you use snow/winter tyres during winter when you live in an alpine environment?

dom_k wrote: Nick, the sheet im refering to is produced by the car club. It is titled BETTER DRIVING DAY INFORMATION SHEET. The bit im refering to is on the reverse side, point C under ELIGIBILITY. is this a mistake then??

Please email me a copy of this document. If it does state that a provisional licence is eligible and it is on club paper then I will get to the bottom of it and report back. In the meantime, take it for granted that full licences are required on all BMW Car Club better driving days.
As the mail server is being moved today and is down, my address is h@635csi.co.uk

Richard

So what about the £1,000 I payed out for new wheels and tyres for "better driving days" only to find out that I was no longer welcome at the events of the club I was a member of?????

I am not sure if this point has been made to you by anyone else, I really haven't got the time to read through this at the mo, but the gripe was with the way it was decieded NOT because it was decieded. Many of the people on hear are ex racers (Roops, John etc) that understand the "insurance" side of things, but why was this decision taken without notifing members?? I am still livid with a club that is supposed to look after it's members!!!!!!!!!

James

Howard wrote: If you go on the track and make use of the undoubtably better grip afforded by these tyres, and then swap them for normal ones on the way home, it may well be that you just forget that these have less grip, and next thing you know you are facing the wrong way after exiting a roundabout in the wet!

I think you should give us more credit than that. I don't know about you, but I drive home after track days nice and slowly because I am tired. There is no way on earth that my speeds around roundabouts heading back from the track would come anywhere near to breaking traction on lovely SO2's that WERE NOT STRESSED TO HELL EARLIER ON THE TRACK.

You seem to think that skills and confidence gained through track driving on sticky tyres are not transferrable to road driving on standard tyres. Well you are wrong. In actual fact the difference in grip afforded by R-compound stickies over normal road tyres is not night and day (it would be with slicks though....different ball game those). R-compound tyres slide progressively. But they don't go off after a couple of laps. They are safer. They handle more predictably and when they are tucked away in your boot on the way home, you have the confidence of knowing your regular road tyre is not knackered and will take care of you.

Guys,
I think Richard and Howard bought the wrong car,it should have been a Rover.

Jon