Tire grip

I feel the worst thing that racing organizations have done is going with control tires, leaving no competition and incentives for Tyre technology to advance. Monopolies never create innovation because they don't need to.
 
DownUnder said:
I feel the worst thing that racing organizations have done is going with control tires, leaving no competition and incentives for Tyre technology to advance. Monopolies never create innovation because they don't need to.
Click to expand...
Do racing organizations care more about innovation or money though? Monopolies make the organizer the most money.
 
A LOT, like a HUGE part of who wins a race, is tires... probably more than anything else.
Team A gets the good tires, Team B doesn't. Team A wins... every race.

Goodyear likes to point out that every winner of the Daytona 500 was on Goodyear tires.
... well that's because Goodyear sponsors the Daytona and you have to have Goodyear tires to enter the race.
Goodyear, for a long time, couldn't build a short track tire... so some racers, even Goodyear sponsored cars, would paint Goodyear logos on Hoosier tires... and win races.
Goodyear DIDN'T mind... until the press found out and reported it. Soon after Goodyear had a short track tire.
When it gets to the point where you NEED a specific tire to win, they'll sometimes make the tire a spec tire (you have to run a specific tire to enter) to level the playing field.

When I started racing "production" we had a Dunlop as a spec tire. (I hate Dunlops).
The "HOT" setup was to run the rear tire on the front, mounted backward. It was stupid setup... BUT you had to do it if you wanted to win races.

Spec or control tires (or ANY part for that matter) is USUALLY to level the playing field, so that the big buck teams don't get to BUY race wins, by controlling who gets the "good" parts.
Over the years, tires have decided who wins races more than anything else... OK tires and driver talent... but the best driver usually CAN'T win without a winning tire.
 
Back in the day, there were regular production run tires and 'special' tires for the front running sponsored riders. Spec tires level the playing field for good or bad.
 
Sometimes it's pressure exerted by the racers themselves.

Michelin withdrew from MotoGP back in the late 2000s, leaving Bridgestone as the sole supplier, after a series of high profile defections from the likes of Rossi and Pedrosa citing lack of competitiveness. When the top half of the race finishers are all on one tire manufacturer, and the bottom half the other...
 
DownUnder said:
I feel the worst thing that racing organizations have done is going with control tires, leaving no competition and incentives for Tyre technology to advance. Monopolies never create innovation because they don't need to.
Click to expand...
This isn't accurate, though. Michelin doesn't spend big bucks in MotoGP just so riders wear their hat in parc ferme. They want access to the fastest bikes and the fastest riders to help them develop better tires. Pretty much every major racing series has had a spec tire since Michelin pulled out of GP's in 2009 (Pirelli in WSBK and BSB, Dunlop in various ss/sbk classes, Moto 3 and Moto2, world endurance), and the improvement in grip for sporty street tires over those 13 years is unprecedented. Tire/tyre technology has never advanced as quickly as over the past 10 years.

On the racing side, aside from the better entertainment of having a tighter field (watching riders get lapped is no fun), it's also a big safety factor for these series'. Having big speed differences because one brand is working better than the other can be hugely dangerous, especially on motorcycles.

As for the article, it's mostly accurate, but broadly 'borrowed' from Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist books, including 'survival reactions' and stealing the 'cents out of a dollar' analogy almost word for word. (Code's approach still works for many, but almost all riders at the top level are closer to the Nick Ienatsch approach with heavy use of trail braking, which Code doesn't like.)
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