« Ответ #1 : Марта 27, 2016, 07:00:41 »
Why were racing tyres so narrow in the 1950s and 1960sBuford Posted 09 April 2001 - 18:38
Also I think what really kicked off the wider wheels and lower profile tires was when Mickey Thompson brought the roller skate cars to Indy with little wide tires nobody else had in 1963. That kicked off a lot of pissing and moaning so the next year they banned them, but the wide tire idea genie was out of the bottle, because they seemed to work (well duh!).
Having to go to bigger diamater wheels in 1964 threw off the suspension settings and aerodynamics of Thompson's cars, and that probably is what caused the Mac Donald - Sachs crash horror. But because Firestone would not make wider tires for the roadsters, A.J Foyt went to Goodyear and got stock car tires (yeah in those days they were wider - lower profile tires) and then the poo poo really hit the fan. He ended up not using them in the race but wore a Goodyear patch on his uniform in Victory lane even though he used Firestones.
That kicked off the tire war and both Firestone and Goodyear started thinking and testing and spending tons of money and next thing you know, along comes common sense. And yes, there was a time before the twit that runs the place now turned it into a low tech spec car race that F1 took some of it's ideas from Indy, not the other way around as it has been, in the memory of those who grew up watching the 70's and later.
Don Capps Posted 10 April 2001 - 01:48
I think we covered some of this in another thread or two long ago, but we often forget that the technology was not there in many cases. Buford is on the correct track about the Firestone 'rollerskate' tires that were used by the Thompson cars in 1963. However, the 1964 tires were called 'Sears Allstate' tires and actually produced by Armstrong if I recall.
The first 'wide' tires were the M&H tires produced for the rail dragsters in the late-1950's. However, there were a number of technical issues that stymied wider use of the tires. Once the problems of how to best design the carcass to support a wider profile were resolved, things began to happen, the Firestone 'rollerskates' being one of the earliest examples of this. Keep in mind that much of the design went back to the knowledge Firestone picked up from its own work on dragster tires. Keep in mind that these were also 'slicks' as we know them today and really radical to all of us back then.
In 1964, Dunlop introduced the R6 tires which were on 13" wheels and seemed so different from the R5 in is profile. In the US, Firestone also produced a much wider road racing tire and the clever folks at Chaparral were the first to grasp the opportunities they presented for re-looking at how to best set up the suspension of a car to use these new tires.
Clark ran the same set of Dunlop R5 tires in the Dutch, French, and British GPs. It was only three races, not five. Amazingly enough, the wear was consistent among all four tires. That speaks volumes about the uncanny knack that Clark had for taking car of a car.
In late 1965 and early 1966, Dunlop started looking at computers as to how to best find the solution for a wider racing tire. The R7 was the first tire they produced in which much of the design work was done using the computer. Prior to this, much of it was slide rules, alchemy, guesswork, and luck. How things change.....
Buford Posted 10 April 2001 - 03:48
Yes Don is right. Thompson's tires were "Sears" and one or more of the cars were Sears Allstate specials. I didn't mean Firestone made them. I didn't recall who did other than they were part of the Sears promotion. However, because Firestone would not make wider tires for the roadsters, Goodyear got involved after Foyt flew to Akron and walked in without an appointment and demanded to talk to somebody about making him Indy tires. That started the tire war that resulted in the major increase in tire technology, part of which was wider profiles.
Buford Posted 10 April 2001 - 04:14
To clarify further, Firestone was making wider tires for the Lotus, so it was not only Thompson's cars that had wider tires, though Thompson's were really, really wide. That is what pissed off the roadster guys. They saw Thompsons cars and the Lotus's cornering speeds and they thought more than just the rear engine configuration, a lot of their corner advantage was the wider tires. In other words, common sense was becoming common when they saw it in front of their eyes.
The roadster guys were pissed that Firestone was making wider tires for the damn foreigners and their "Pickle On A Roller Skate" and "Funny Cars" (where that name came from) but would not make a similar tire for their "real race cars". That is what prompted Foyt to flip out and go to Goodyear, which was then making a stock car effort and looking to get into the exclusive Firestone domain. They could not make new tires in May but they said, "Well hey A.J., why don't you try these stock car tires and we'll make you whatever you want as soon as we can."
So Foyt used them and liked them but was afraid to change to them for the race because he didn't know how long they would last and even though he was faster on the stock car tires, he opted for the conventional tires in the race. He wore a Goodyear patch though and that pissed off Firestone, who said, "Gee, we better rethink all this" and Goodyear was all "We better make A.J. happy because he is the Indy 500 winner and a promotional bonanza for us", and both tire companies over the next few years spent dozens of millions on tire technology. It even got so intensive that the two companies provided most of the funds to run the teams in the late 60's.
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