Tires and Paul Walker

[Racer Boy]

Yesterday I was at a track day, and at one point I was behind a 2002 911. We were in a long left-handed sweeper, and the 911 just slowly lost grip in the rear and spun.

Afterwards, I found the driver and we talked. He said he spun on the next lap, too, and couldn't figure out why, because he wasn't pushing the car as hard as he thought it could go. I looked at the tires (Pirellis), and they looked like they were in pretty good shape.

I asked him how old the tires were, and he thought about it and said that they were the original tires! When I told him that they were 14 years old, he looked very startled and said, "I bet that is my problem right there! I'm going to go get new tires tomorrow".

[imon_2nd]

One thing I've noticed about high performance sticky tires is, they become hard and slick much faster than "normal" compound tires. When I bought my dearly departed, supercharged Miata NA track and street toy, it came with new-looking Falken Azenis tires. I never knew a Miata could drift like a champ, as long as the tires were old and slippy. Fun, but slow in the turns that way. After one HPDE day on the Falkens, I bought Bridgestone RE-11s and never drifted again.