34 replies to this topic

[John B]

When was the transition from grooved tires to slicks first made? I've been following the sport since 1978, but know that grooves were used before then. Were slick tires mandated by F1 adminstration, or was it a performance advantage developed by the teams/tire companies?

[This message has been edited by John B (edited 11-18-1999).]

[JimE]

I dont know when this was made mandatory but Goodyear and Firestone introduced slicks in 1971. Firestone also introduced low-profile tyres the same year.

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JimE

[Dennis David]

To the best of my knowledge slicks were never mandated but once new artificial compounds were introduced and a "reverse crown' casing was adopted the use of slicks became practical. It's interesting to note that initially slicks had a problem with sudden break-aways, a problem now blamed on the grooved tires. In fact small crow's feet patterns were added to negate this problem.

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Don Capps]

Actually it all started with a company called M&H who made tires for drag racing. They were first used in about 1958 and by 1961 had most of the bugs worked out and were standard equipment on all the AA/Fuel rails by then.

Firestone used a semi-slick at Indy for a number of years, there being only three grooves on the outside (right) edge of the tire.

Along comes Jim Hall and Firestone starts looking at how to get all the power from Jim's Chaparral to the ground - hold that thought.

Meanwhile in 1963, Firestone had produced some squat little tires, 12-inches, for the Mickey Thompson Indy cars. Plus 15 versus 17 inchers for Parnelli Jones and several others to try. After Parelli sat on the pole, 15-incers were seriously popular items. These had very little tread except as described.

In 1964, Dunlop introduced its new 13-inchers replacing its old 15-inchers, and the tires were wider.

Starting in 1965, Firestone provided Jim Hall a wider 15-inch tire with minimal thread on the tire. Goodyear soon followed suite with its "dry" tire having minimal thread. In 1967 at the Italian GP, Goodyear introduced tubeless tires to GP racing (technically contrary to the regs, but back then, it wasn't such a big issue -- Black Jack also jumped the start, but minor point since almost the entire field also did the same thing).

During the 1969 and 1970 seasons, Goodyear, Firestone, and Dunlop engaged in a no-holds barred, death-to-all tire war -- make that Tire War. It was then that the work M&H had worked on from 1957 thru 1968 or so suddenly became important. They solved the problems of making both the wider carcasses and doing it on a production basis; plus that of making slicks work for other uses as well. M&H was working on a wide slick for other racing uses when Firestone and Goodyear both had the "AHA!" light come on and essentially borrowed the ideas that M&H had pioneered and then put their respective corporate mights into the fray.

I remember a 1969 pattern Dunlop that had the little "x'es" DD mentioned. By 1970, Dunlop had been muscled out of the way by the Goodstone guys and slicks became almost universal by 1971 and 1972 across the board -- F1, USAC, NASCAR, you name it.

Then Michelin came along and introduced the radial to racing, but that is another story....

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps




[This message has been edited by Don Capps (edited 11-19-1999).]

[HistoricMustang]

Why was there a change from white letters to yellow (perhaps gold) letters on NASCAR tires?

Being involved the answer is known but just wondering if perhaps I can "stump the panel" here at TNF.

Henry

[D-Type]

Showed up better in photos?

[RTH]

Don, what happened to M&H, they were mandatory on something we raced in the '80's (probably sports 2000), but I have not seen or heard the name now for many years, did they get taken over by one of the majors and the brand vanish ? They were certainly a hillclimb (Tarmac) specialist tyre - soft, short life in UK - am I right in thinking they were quite a small family owned business ?

[Arthur Anderson]

Don,

Firestone was making drag-racing slicks before M&H came along, I believe. Floating around this apartment somewhere I have a 1957 Firestone Racing Tire catalog which shows a drag slick, done in the same "flying buttress" design as was introduced on WW-II fighter plane nosegear tires (for the Bell P-39/P-63 aircraft, and suggested to Firestone by none other than 3-time Indianapolis winner Wilbur Shaw, who worked as a tire development engineer for Firestone during the war).

And, even before the introduction of factory-built racing slicks, drag racers had figured out that a bald tire had more grip, some of the early racers actually trying out "re-capped" street tires having no new tread molded into them by the recapping shop (I suppose with only inconclusive results, given the tendency of recapped tires back then to shed the added tread rubber on occasion?)

Also, in the transition to completely slick racing tires, at least for Indy cars, Firestone (I believe) produced a nearly slick tire with grooves running across the tread, about 3" apart or so, the ends of these grooves bent at a slight angle toward the rear on the outside, to the inside on the front--I seem to recall these tires in 1971 or 1972, they sure do show prominently in official qualifying photographs taken at Indianapolis in whichever of those two years they were used.

M&H, though, did come up with one unique drag-racing slick, the so-called "cheater slick" used in stock-class drag racing in the early-mid 1960's. Cheater slicks looked for all the world like a street tire, but had extra wide, balloonish-looking casings & sidewalls, and a set of 4 or 5 concentric grooves in the tread to satisfy the then-NHRA rule requiring treaded tires to be used in stock-classes, particularly "Super Stock".

Art

[Arthur Anderson]

Originally posted by RTH
Don, what happened to M&H, they were mandatory on something we raced in the '80's (probably sports 2000), but I have not seen or heard the name now for many years, did they get taken over by one of the majors and the brand vanish ? They were certainly a hillclimb (Tarmac) specialist tyre - soft, short life in UK - am I right in thinking they were quite a small family owned business ?

I suspect they got "smothered" by the likes of Goodyear, and a relatively upstart company that resides about 15 miles south of me (I live in South Bend/Mishawaka, Indiana) called "Hoosier Tire Company", of Lakeville Indiana.

Come to think of it, my Cadillac always seems to pick up a few miles per hour when the fuel injection system gets a breath of the hot rubber odor going past Hoosier's plant!

Art

[Arthur Anderson]

Don,

The great tire "controversy" at Indianapolis in 1963 was actually begun by Firestone, who on request from Lotus, produced a supply of 8:00-15 (front) and 9:00-15 (rear) tires for the then-new Lotus Ford cars. Other competitors, driving the then-standard front engine roadsters, immediately saw an advantage in this tire/wheel size, and "beat a path" not only to Halibrand engineering for those size alloy wheels, but also to Firestone for this new size tire.

Firestone initially had trouble making enough of the new 15" tires to go around, and Halibrand Engineering was never quite able to catch up with wheel demand, leaving a dozen or so in the field for the 500 to run on the older-style 7:00-16 (front) and 8:50-18 (rear) wheels and tires. AJ Foyt and his chief mechanic George Bignotti grew so incensed the first week of practice (remember, that was the era when Indianapolis practice always began promptly at 9AM on May 1st, with two full weeks of practice before the first weekend of qualifications), so Foyt pulled some strings with Goodyear, who by that time was supplying racing tires to Nascar teams (That's where the Firestone-Goodyear Tire War actually began in American racing, BTW), including the factory Ford team for whom Foyt drove the early superspeedway races. Goodyear was not an approved tire supplier for USAC's Championship, Sprint Car, or Midget Divisions yet, so Foyt was not permitted to test the Goodyear stock car tires on the Speedway that May, but no problem! The Sheraton-Thompson team simply loaded the roadster on the trailer, fitted with brand-new Halibrand 15" wheels AND Goodyear Stock Car Specials, and hauled the car out to Indianapolis Raceway Park's 5/8 mile asphalt oval, and ran enough laps to scuff in the tires, and decide that yes, 15" rubber WAS the way to go. Later that day, after returning to Gasoline Alley, the team removed those wheels and tires, stacked them next to their garage doors, with a chain and padlock securing the stack together, literally "poking" Firestone, USAC, and the track stewards "in the eye". Foyt did qualify on 15" Firestones, BTW.

Nobody seems to have cared a whit about the 12" wheels & tires built for Mickey Thompson's "pumpkin-seed" cars, as those cars never truly ran well. Firestone built those tires for MT, but they were branded "Allstate", in recognition of one of Mickey Thompson's team sponsors, Sears, Roebuck & Company's Allstate line of tires, accessories and automotive service departments.

For 1964, USAC mandated the 15" diameter wheel and tire exclusively for Championship cars, and required that any wheel or tire manufacturer be able to supply their product to any and all comers--of course, by 1965, it didn't much matter, as Goodyear and Firestone were anxiously signing up every race team they could, and began shelling out amounts of money in US Open Wheel Racing that was simply unheard of just 2 years previously--and the rest, as they say, is history!

Art

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by D-Type
Showed up better in photos?

D-type, the photo/TV thing surely had an impact (otherwise NASCAR brass would have used Green - for the "color or money") but not the reason.

Believe for once I may be one up on this group!

Hear Google going like crazy but believe it or not when I was trying to confirm my memory from the '90's I could not find it out there on the WWW.

Do not want to turn the thread into a question and answer game but lets give it a while longer.

Henry

[HistoricMustang]

Switch from bias ply to radials. Believe it was 1991 or 1992.

Just curious...................when did F1 make the move from ply to the radial?

Also, when rules were vague were the bias ply and radials run in the same event?

Henry

[David Hyland]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Just curious...................when did F1 make the move from ply to the radial?

From memory, without checking, I think it was 1984. ISTR that the advantage of the Michelin radials over the Goodyear crossplies was one of the factors in McLaren's success that year.

David.

[Paolo]

Renault, 1977. Michelin radials first used.
Renault 1979, victory in Dijon by Jabouille, on Michelin radials

Ferrari, 1979, WC title with Michelin radials.

Pirelli : radials from 1981-82 on.
Goodyear converted to radials, IIRC, in 1984.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Switch from bias ply to radials. Believe it was 1991 or 1992.

Just curious...................when did F1 make the move from ply to the radial?

Also, when rules were vague were the bias ply and radials run in the same event?

Henry

I cannot say for sure about formula one, but I remember reading in Comp. Press that not only did drivers, on occasion, mix brands during a race, but at least once, a team put radials on one end and bias on the other.

During the Trans-Am wars, Goodyear and Firestone had a huge war with tech. advances.
Does anyone remember the Firestone LX series, where the tire was designed so a far larger tire than normal was capable of being fitted on a wheel?
It was one way of getting larger tires on the prereq. 8 inch T-A rims.

Even in the early eighties, tire wars returned.

Does anyone have any information on the NASCAR tire Hoosier was going to introduce before they were banned from the series?
It was supposed to have the best attributes of both radials and bias-ply,

Bob

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe



Does anyone have any information on the NASCAR tire Hoosier was going to introduce before they were banned from the series?
It was supposed to have the best attributes of both radials and bias-ply,

Bob

Was Hoosier actually banned or did they choose not to bring the required 3000 (I believe) tires to each Winston Cup event?

Henry

[Jesper O. Hansen]

By what time was the term "slick tyre/tire" actually first used?

From a short race report dated 1967 I quote the following: Erik Høyer stillede op i en lånt Cooper med nye, ultra-kurvesikre dæk. Han var så suveræn, at modstanderne forlangte hans vogn undersøgt. Han kørte ligeså stærkt som vinderen af den store standardvognsklasse, svenskeren Kaj Bornebusch i Porsche 911. Der var intet galt med Cooperen. / Erik Hoyer was entered in a borrowed Cooper fitted with new ultra cornering tires. He was so secure that his competitors protested his car. He drove as fast as the winner of the large displacement saloon car class, Swede Kaj Bornebusch in a Porsche 911. There was nothing wrong with the Cooper."
I has to said that this is a 0-1000 ccm group 5 Mini-Cooper compared to a 2000 ccm Porsche 911 group 5 car.

It has to be said that the Jyllands-Ringen was and still is a Mickey Mouse circuit, but how was comtemporary lap times Mini-Cooper vs. 911 around the world?

I remember the M&H brand from late 1980's/early 1990's european rallycross. I think that Yokohama was their rival in tire technology then. Schancke was M&H user.

Je

[Bonde]

Paolo, Bob Riebe,

The first radial tyre GP victory was actually by Lole's Michelin-shod Ferrari T2 in Brazil in 1978.


Jesper,

What Danish reporter wrote "ultra-kurvesikre" ["ultra-cornering stable" - sic] - wouldn't be John E. Bech, would it?;)

[Jesper O. Hansen]

No reporter named, but John E. Bech is mentioned (among Arne Forsberg Clausen) as executive editor, so, probably yes.

I was somewhat quesy about translating that "ultra-kurvesikre dæk" (it's from the yearly publication Motorsporten i tekst og billeder - this is the first edition from 67/68).

Jesper

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang


Was Hoosier actually banned or did they choose not to bring the required 3000 (I believe) tires to each Winston Cup event?

Henry

Goodyear was made the exclusive supplier.

Bob

[D-Type]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Why was there a change from white letters to yellow (perhaps gold) letters on NASCAR tires?

Being involved the answer is known but just wondering if perhaps I can "stump the panel" here at TNF.

Henry

Looks like you've succeeded.

To go off on a tangent: Way back when, did I read in an American magazine that Firestone developed different tires* for Monza, Daytona, Indianapolis and other tracks. Is that correct or is it a case of mangled memory over time.




*It was an American magazine

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe


Goodyear was made the exclusive supplier.

Bob

From a Patty Kay story:

"Newton did indeed make one more incursion into Winston Cup, in 1994. Hoosier tires won three races that year along with the all-star race, The Winston. In each case, the driver was Geoff Bodine. At the end of the year, Newton once more withdrew his tires, citing the excessive cost to his small company of supplying enough tires to service the entire field at each race. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the garage area."

This quote was pulled from a very good article here giving the history of tire wars at NASCAR:

http://insiderracing...m/pk050303.html

Henry

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by Bob Riebe



Does anyone have any information on the NASCAR tire Hoosier was going to introduce before they were banned from the series?
It was supposed to have the best attributes of both radials and bias-ply,

Bob

Perhaps this is the tire.

Again, from Patty Kay article:

"In The Winston 500 at Talladega, Hoosier brought a new tire, touted by Bob Newton as the best tire he had ever produced, but only two drivers opted to use it that day. Had it not been for a late race caution, Morgan Shepherd, with Hoosiers on his Rahmoc Pontiac, might have won the race."

Henry

[Arthur Anderson]

Originally posted by D-Type

Looks like you've succeeded.

To go off on a tangent: Way back when, did I read in an American magazine that Firestone developed different tires* for Monza, Daytona, Indianapolis and other tracks. Is that correct or is it a case of mangled memory over time.

*It was an American magazine

In my '57 Firestone race tire catalog, they do list separate tires for Indianapolis use, and the Firestone Darlington stock car tire, as well as a dirt track tire for stockers.

I'm not sure about a special tire for Monza, unless it was a special compound though.

Art

[HDonaldCapps]

As Art has made quite clear, there is a good bit to this business of racing tire history.

Not long after this thread appeared I prepared an article for RVM on this topic, but for some reason never put it in the magazine. To say it was all a neat, logical, linear story would, naturally, be too much to hope for since many like that sort of "history." Again, Art gives you a good idea of the issues and some very good background on all this. Had I still any real interest or time, I would dig out the article if it is still filed away and see what all I found which might supplement what Art has written.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
.....when did F1 make the move from ply to the radial?

Also, when rules were vague were the bias ply and radials run in the same event?

Unfortunately your grasp of the situation is clouded by having too much knowledge of how things work today...

Things just weren't that closely regulated in times gone by. The car had to have tyres, maybe there was a certain size restriction, but that was it.

The term 'slick' was well used in drag racing prior to 1961... and nothing has been mentioned of the retreaded truck tyres that were the formative drag racing tyres before M & H began making their own.

[Frank S]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Why was there a change from white letters to yellow (perhaps gold) letters on NASCAR tires?

Being involved the answer is known but just wondering if perhaps I can "stump the panel" here at TNF.

Henry

White lettering on all my racing tires turned yellow after first use.

--
Frank S

[Paolo]

Originally posted by Bonde
Paolo, Bob Riebe,

The first radial tyre GP victory was actually by Lole's Michelin-shod Ferrari T2 in Brazil in 1978.

[Bob Riebe]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang


From a Patty Kay story:

"Newton did indeed make one more incursion into Winston Cup, in 1994. Hoosier tires won three races that year along with the all-star race, The Winston. In each case, the driver was Geoff Bodine. At the end of the year, Newton once more withdrew his tires, citing the excessive cost to his small company of supplying enough tires to service the entire field at each race. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the garage area."

This quote was pulled from a very good article here giving the history of tire wars at NASCAR:

http://insiderracing...m/pk050303.html

Henry

The bias of the article is obviously apparent.
If you had been reading the racing journals back then the dislike for Hoosiers attempt, by some, was just as obvious back then. (A variation on how the IRL drivers were trashed by press folks who kissed CART's buttocks)
The article says Hoosier pulled out for cost, but , sorry I did not save my AutoWeeks, Hoosier said they fully intended to come back with a new improved bias-ply that had the endurance of a radial with the handling of a bias-ply.

So, NASCAR gave Goodyear an exclusive contract, at that time.

NASCAR is an old boys club and Hoosier was an outsider, upsetting the apple cart.

Bob

[HistoricMustang]

Bob, although no year is mentioned this does support what you are saying.

Henry



AUTO RACING NOTE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Friday, April 25, 2:42 PM
*NASCAR, Goodyear announce exclusive agreement*

-----------------------------------------------

NASCAR and Goodyear announced today that entries in NASCAR's
Winston Cup, Busch Grand National and Craftsman Truck series
will use Goodyear tires exclusively.

The announcement was made at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama,
the site of this weekend's NASCAR Wintson 500.

The announcement pre-empts any chance of another tire war in the
premier, North American stock car racing circuit. Currently,
Goodyear is being challenged in Indy car racing in both the Indy
Racing League and the CART PPG series by Firestone, and in
Formula One by Firestone's parent company Bridgestone.

The last tire war in NASCAR pitted the dominant Goodyear brand
against Hoosier tires, which were introduced into the series in
1988 and ran in 38 races and won 11 between 1988 and 1989 before
withdrawing from the series. The small racing tire supplier
withdrew from the series in May 1989.

The Firestone brand of the Japanese-owned Bridgestone
corporation last ran in the NASCAR series in the late 1960s and
would be the most likely tire company to enter NASCAR. Goodyear
is currently celebrating its 40th year of involvement with the
NASCAR series.

"We have enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship
with Goodyear," said Bill France, NASCAR president. "A
crictical component to the success of NASCAR racing is the ready
availability of affordable, uniformly constructed, high-quality
racing tires, and Goodyear has been a dependable and consistent
supplier of racing tires to NASCAR competitors."

As part of the agreement, Goodyear will expand its promotion of
the sport of NASCAR racing through advertising and promotional
campaigns.

"We're extremely pleased with this agreement cementing our
long-term alliance that allows both organizations to move
forward together and pursue related projects in marketing and
advertising," said Stu Grant, Goodyear general manager of racing
worldwide. "These opportunities are a plus to our primary focus
of continuing our tire technology advancements often resulting
in track-to-street tire technology transfers."

[xkssFrankOpalka]

While not really considered slicks, I have some Blue Streaks in the attic which came off my D tye Jag. They have slight grooves to make a tread pattern, The word at the time was if you stip on the track, you were off in the woods.

[jdanton]

Bumping a really old thread, because I was some doing some research on bias plys. The first NASCAR race with the yellow tires was the 1992 Hooters 500 in Atlanta (last race of 1992 season) and they used them going forward. I don't remember why they made the change. It wasn't radials--the first radials were used at the Daytona 500 in 1989.

[Lee Nicolle]

Having been around for a while I can remember non slick tyres!! And tyres that were less specialist than now.
I was involved with a speedway sedan from 69 on and we used Goodyear Blue Streaks which were a very lightly treaded tyre which we grooved to suit. They were a road race tyre but were also used on midgets too.
In the late 70s I did rallycross and with my speedway background used similar tyres. They were 10x23x13 M&H slicks which were listed as for roadrace [F Atlantic] midget etc. They were a very light case tyre which in this case had thicker tread as they were designed to be used as a wet. And you grooved them to your needs.
In the 70s and even early 80s a lot of dirt track cars here used road race wets grooved with dirt track patterns, as did a lot of midgets and even Sprinters.
That ofcourse is when the specialised dirt tyres came in though I have seen dirt tyres used succesfully on hillclimb cars. Particularly the smaller treaded ones.
From early 80s on I raced road race Sports Sedans and used most brands of crossply slick until radials became advailable in the 90s which were so much better, particularly the Dunlops which were so much more user friendly than the Goodyears and a lot lighter to steer too.
Having also played with road based cars the tyres mandated for those cars [soft compound specialist but DOT tyres] those tyres with minimal tread are faster than the wider cross ply slicks I used in the 80s.And 2-3 inchs narrower. And they last longer too.

[Bob Riebe]

Adding another aspect to tires; M&H was the first "racing" tire I got to know from magazines as little kin in the late fifties early sixties, and I was wowed when I went to a mod. race at the County Fair and saw hand grooved M&H tires on some of the cars.
I thought those wide grooved tires were the coolest thing I ever saw. They were groovy man.
Bob

[Bob Riebe]

I am bringing this back to find out if any of the in-insiders here have any knowledge of what the widest tire sizes produced were in the last years of the AAGT/GTX racing.

There are new photos on the sports car raing site and when one can see a clear shot on full tire width there were some tires used that were beyond huge.

This was in the day when bias-ply racing tires were developing the wider than the rim tires and the largest I remember seeing was twenty inches on one of Pickett's nineteen inch diameter rim but a shot of a Corvette driven by Joe Chamberlain, from the Racing Sports Car site, looks even wider .
These obviously are not on nineteen inch rims.

http://www.racingspo...0-02-03-076.jpg