FP "Intermediates"

R

Rick Starkweather

Well-known member
Heyward Wagner said at the beginning of the FP race yesterday that most of the grid was on "intermediates". What tires were people running? Inquiring minds want to know (especially those of us with just slicks and full rains in our arsenal)!
 
Slicks that get a slight tread pattern cut into them with a tire groover. I had a full set of Medium-Soft's in the shop that were very lightly used (only ever put on the rear of my FWD car), which I was not planning on bringing to the Runoffs. With the forecast, I put them on my 3rd set of wheels and brought them with me for this specific reason. Between Friday and Saturday I laid out my own groove pattern on them and cut them myself, with a groover I had also brought with me.

Last year at Indy, a grooved slick was also 100% the tire to have, but no one was really expecting it, so I think Mason was the only person who actually had them. This year, with the forecast as it was, plus everyone seeing how much it would've been the right choice last year, almost everyone took the initiative to create a set prior to the race. In the top 10, I think 8 were on cut slicks.
 
Kevin , congrats on taking the green and making it to the Runoffs this year.
How deep do you grove the tires? Does the tire groover have a way to control depth?
Thanks
EZ
 
At the end of the FP race top 5 all had grooved slicks.

6th was the first car to be on a rain tire.
.
 
Man, that's a lot of work...

Why would it not make sense to get a set of H2Os and shave them? Is the H2O compound not fairly comparable to A and/or MS?
 
I have never bothered with the A compound myself, but the H20 are WAAAY softer than the R7 and S80s.
I destroyed a set in just a couple laps when the track dried out during a race, and I was just cruising around at 50% to finish for points/contingency.
I would imagine they'd still do the same even when shaved due to the very soft compound.
 
chois":1f5hwgsy said:
Greg Amy":1f5hwgsy said:
Man, that's a lot of work...
Click to expand...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Sir this is Production category, where we do extra work because it’s EXTRA!
Click to expand...

:shrug: 1hr of cutting tires to possibly win a national championship? how many guys spend 8hrs on a dyno looking for 5hp?
 
The changing weather for the FP race was a huge, and hard to predict, factor. FP was the 3rd race group on Sunday. STL was first, and they ran “consistent” 2:08s through the whole race. It was a dry track at that point, with nothing significant coming on the radar. AS was the 2nd race group. Track was still reasonably dry until their 6th lap. It was drying on their last lap, the 3rd place AS car ran his second fastest lap on the last lap.

We had three sets of tires staged for the race, dry, intermediate, and wets. We were going dry, and switched tires and set up to intermediate (in my paddock spot) at lap 10 of the AS race, then went to grid. There was still nothing significant on the radar app, but there was a light misty rain, and it just kept coming down.

The weather Saturday was equally weird, several of the afternoon groups had rain only in the southern third of the track, including in Oaktree, and a dry track most everywhere else.
 
having no soft tires or inters grooved up, I went out on full dry setup hoping the mist would stop and be slippery for a bit and then a line come in. The line did come in going up the esses but turn 1, the mini esses, and hog pen stayed slippery enough. managed 10th to 5th and then last lap the water pump belt decided it had better place to be than on the car so that put me out. I will finish one of these runoffs soon lol - hopefully on the podium next year.
 
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