Tyer warmers - are they 'really' essential?

[flymo]

This is a topic that has come up in our race club a number of times with some interesting views. Just wondered what you thought.

I think its pretty obvious that heading onto a track with tyres up to temperature is going to be an advantage as you can pretty much give it the berries from the word go...but... a typical race might go something like this....

Get the final final call for the race, head over to the holding area, dont want to get there too early and hang around eh. Enter the holding area....tum te tum, 5 mins later you head onto the grid. 2 mins later you are waved off for a sighting lap. 2 choices....rag it and keep the tyres warm then sit at the grid for 40 secs while the grid assembles.....or take it easy arriving at the grid at a reasonable pace and not waiting around too long.

then assuming that tosser at the back of the grid doesnt get his position wrong again you're off and running.

by this time I wonder just how much use that hours worth of tyre warming was. I read the other week that James Toseland crashed on cold tyres after being delayed for 3 minutes while an adjustment was made. Apparently the tyres had dropped 30 degrees in that space of time.

So, is it mostly all in the mind, that comfort factor going into turn 1 lap 1? or is there really a technical advantage in club racing?

Bearing in mind you will be splashing through water to even get to the holding area .. I'd say this 'problem!?' is amplified when using wets

I always use warmers with drys - and leave it as late as possible to get to the holding area, but I don't tend to bother with wets ... especially when using a generator, it just seems like a waste of energy/fuel to me

I used tyre warmers for the first time ever last Sunday so I think I'm quite qualified to answer this.

The difference is HUGE! For the sake of £100-£150 its the best thing you can buy for the bike. It prevented tearing in the cold, it meant I could tip it in at the first corner as if it was the 10th lap rather than the 1st. I could not beleive how much difference it made.

I had been a bit sceptical of the benefits before as well. If you want further then try to borrow a set for a day and see the difference they make on a trackday.

EDIT: read more of your post (doh!)

The main benefit of the tyre warmers is the whole carcass and wheel rims get warmed after an hour of use, this means that even if the tyres drop some temp in the holding area the rims will stay warm for ages. This will mean you can get them back up to temp in your warm up lap alone.

i use them every time i go on track but im sure for the like of track days and test days thers alot of people who dont bother with them!

tho on race days i very,very rarely see anyone with out them.

Originally Posted by tranx

I used tyre warmers for the first time ever last Sunday so I think I'm quite qualified to answer this.

The difference is HUGE! For the sake of £100-£150 its the best thing you can buy for the bike. It prevented tearing in the cold, it meant I could tip it in at the first corner as if it was the 10th lap rather than the 1st. I could not beleive how much difference it made.

I had been a bit sceptical of the benefits before as well. If you want further then try to borrow a set for a day and see the difference they make on a trackday.

EDIT: read more of your post (doh!)

The main benefit of the tyre warmers is the whole carcass and wheel rims get warmed after an hour of use, this means that even if the tyres drop some temp in the holding area the rims will stay warm for ages. This will mean you can get them back up to temp in your warm up lap alone.

So, this time of year, with say 2 degree track/air temp and a strong breeze, you think your alloy heat-sink wheels can sit about for 7-10 mins cooling off and one lap of brands indy and you are back up to full temp ... I think not!!

The argument here is not if preheating tyres is a good idea, but if in reality, the benefits of doing so are virtually negated, certainly greatly diminished by the time you get to go out (for a race).

I'd say this time of year it is really really hard to keep heat in the tyres, you'd get away with it more on an August scorcher mind

In fact before now I have purposely gone to the collecting area sooner than normal to let the tyres cool off a bit before going out ... I am talking about days here where the ambient/track temp is so high that I was suffering from the tyres overheating mid-race!!

[flymo]

Originally Posted by tranx

I used tyre warmers for the first time ever last Sunday so I think I'm quite qualified to answer this.

The difference is HUGE! For the sake of £100-£150 its the best thing you can buy for the bike. It prevented tearing in the cold, it meant I could tip it in at the first corner as if it was the 10th lap rather than the 1st. I could not beleive how much difference it made.

I had been a bit sceptical of the benefits before as well. If you want further then try to borrow a set for a day and see the difference they make on a trackday.

EDIT: read more of your post (doh!)

The main benefit of the tyre warmers is the whole carcass and wheel rims get warmed after an hour of use, this means that even if the tyres drop some temp in the holding area the rims will stay warm for ages. This will mean you can get them back up to temp in your warm up lap alone.

Thanks for that, an interesting perspective. I'll admit that in all the time I've raced (some 7 years now) I've never used tyre warmers for the main reason that the tyres cool so fast while hanging around. For a trackday I think you are MUCH more likely to get straight out on track and feel the benefit. For a race meet though the clubs tend to stack you up in order to keep the flow going.

So, I'm not qualified to compare and hence the reason I ask.

I wonder though (and I'm not arguing here) how much of the benefit is really technical grip and how much of it is your ability to trust in the tyres more because your confidence is higher.

Worth it purely because by putting the tyres straight back into warmers when you get back into the garage you are saving a heat cycle. Also, even at the end of the day you can allow the tyres to cool over a longer period by wrapping them up in warmers that are switched off, which does less damage to the rubber compound, saving them for another day.

I must admit, having ridden my CBR for the first time on tyres that had been in warmers I was most impressed by the amount of feel you get straight out on track, as opposed to having to do a couple of laps to get some heat into them.

Ok maybe its not outright grip that I'm feeling first corner but better feedback. Also on Sunday the air temp was 12c+ and the track temp was higher as it was a lovely sunny day with little wind. We would be sat in pit lane for quite a few minutes and the "feel" from the tyres was as if they were fully up to temp by the end of the first lap.

I'm just comparing it to a couple of weeks earlier in slightly colder conditions with no tyre warmers and the feel when I first went out was much better. I can't comment on absolute technical grip though as I am no where near the limits of the bike and tyres yet.

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

So, this time of year, with say 2 degree track/air temp and a strong breeze, you think your alloy heat-sink wheels can sit about for 7-10 mins cooling off and one lap of brands indy and you are back up to full temp ... I think not!!

Having done 2 flying laps and come back in to measure the tyre temp and take pressure readings they are around 2 PSI and 10oc off full working temp that occurs on a tyre such as a supercorsa 3 laps in onwards.

The argument here is not if preheating tyres is a good idea, but if in reality, the benefits of doing so are virtually negated, certainly greatly diminished by the time you get to go out (for a race).

The benefits are that by keeping the tyres at a temp other than "cold" it lessens the amount of heat and cooling cycles the tyres have to go through. Compounded race tyres are designed to work with warmers and be pre-heated to wake up the compound.

I'd say this time of year it is really really hard to keep heat in the tyres, you'd get away with it more on an August scorcher mind

Steve ran slicks at the weekend in 4oc with no probs getting them upto temp.

In fact before now I have purposely gone to the collecting area sooner than normal to let the tyres cool off a bit before going out ... I am talking about days here where the ambient/track temp is so high that I was suffering from the tyres overheating mid-race!!

Yet again, I feel you have missed every single point!

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

Having done 2 flying laps and come back in to measure the tyre temp and take pressure readings they are around 2 PSI and 10oc off full working temp that occurs on a tyre such as a supercorsa 3 laps in onwards.

I am not sure what you are measuring here? 2 flying laps after what? being sat in the collecting area for 10 mins in the cold? 1 warmup/out lap, then 2 flying laps?? Or just out of the warmers then the same? I am not sure of the relevance if it is either of those? an outlap straight into 2 flyers is vastly different to a single warmup lap after a 10 min wait in the collecting area/grid ..

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

The benefits are that by keeping the tyres at a temp other than "cold" it lessens the amount of heat and cooling cycles the tyres have to go through. Compounded race tyres are designed to work with warmers and be pre-heated to wake up the compound.

Er ... the tyres come out of the warmers, you then sit in the collecting area in cold breezy weather for 10 mins, tyre temp then down to (not a lot), how is that not 'cycling' the tyre just as much as coming in from one race, letting them cool and the next time they get warm is during the race?

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

Steve ran slicks at the weekend in 4oc with no probs getting them upto temp.

But how long was he in the holding area and how far did he have to go to get there?? i.e. was it a last min dash out from the top garage when they were about to go, or did he come from the depths of the outer paddock (gota be ~1/2 mile run in that??) and be the first one sat in the collecting area? One has a few seconds cool-off, the other 10-15mins ...