I don't know about aspect ratio but I know the Firestone Bonneville tires
were 11-ply so the sidewall was very stiff and the tread layer was very
thin. We ran Goodyear Frontrunners on the Swamp Rat streamliner and they
definitely were not designed for the salt. We felt that the sidewalls
flexed way too much giving it a spongy feel. We weren't sure of the traction
either.
Hot rodders have continually changed mechanical engineer's theories
regarding a lot of things and that is what is fun about hot rodding-doing
what appears to be the impossible.
Dave the Hayseed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Albaugh, Neil" <albaugh_neil@ti.com>
To: "'W S Potter'" <wester6935@attbi.com>; "Marge and/or Dave Thomssen"
<mdthom@radiks.net>; "Land-speed Racers" <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 11:59 AM
Subject: RE: GT40 spinner
> Wes;
>
> You have a good point regarding Firestone's knowledge base. They certainly
> had a wealth of experience at one time.
>
> However, I wonder how much of the earlier Firestone work with narrow tires
> was simply due to tradition and how much real advantage, if any, they had
> over other tire approaches? True, Firestone ruled Indy for a long time
> during the roadster era but in the mid- sixties, tire design changed
rapidly
> after a few iconoclasts demonstrated that tires mounted on wider rims had
> stiffer sidewalls and this translated into faster lap times. Tire
> manufacturers were convinced that their traditional aspect ratio must be
> maintained, so they built wider section tires for the now- wider rims.
Once
> again, the "ignorant" racers put the new wider tires on even wider rims
and
> this ratcheted up to what we see today.
>
> Back in the skinney tire days, "experts" were convinced that racers could
> never exceed one "G", as a coefficient of friction of 1 was thought to be
> the limit. That conventional wisdom fell by the wayside on dragstrips in
the
> '50s.
>
> It would be interesting to hear from some of the Firestone LSR team
although
> I think that Goodyear has more current experience.
>
> Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
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