Solutions Needed: Rubber Tire Cruft
11-10-2009, 10:04 PM
#1
Solutions Needed: Rubber Tire Cruft
Anybody mind suggesting tricks on how to overcome rubber tires that want to "gunk" up a few minutes into a run and start to get loose? I'm cleaning the tires after every run, and we vacuum the track. But it still seems like after the tires warm up, they start to pick up crap and make the car impossible to drive.
Tires are Jaco blue on a track with new(ish) carpet, non-HD from CRC. The surface is very flat (w/subfloor) and the grip is pretty high. Sauce is jack only. I'm saucing the inside 1/2 to 1/3 of the front tires and full rear. I've tried varying lengths on how long I sauce, and it doesn't seem to matter.
Tires are Jaco blue on a track with new(ish) carpet, non-HD from CRC. The surface is very flat (w/subfloor) and the grip is pretty high. Sauce is jack only. I'm saucing the inside 1/2 to 1/3 of the front tires and full rear. I've tried varying lengths on how long I sauce, and it doesn't seem to matter.
I actually drew this one up, so I can't complain about it.
11-10-2009, 10:09 PM
#4
Sorry, edited my first post with more info. Jack only at our track. It doesn't seem to fuzz up like it did when the carpet was new, but there's a ton of fuzz that seems to be smashed down into the groove, so when the tires come off they've got gooey fuzz on them that's hard to remove even with motor spray.
11-10-2009, 10:14 PM
#5
DO not vacuum the track with beater bars. Ideally I would suggest the push sweepers like they use in restaurants or if not a shop vac but the beater bars is frowned upon by a lot of track owners.
Yes our track has that exact nasty chicane on the left side just like yours.
Yes our track has that exact nasty chicane on the left side just like yours.
11-10-2009, 10:16 PM
#6
DO not vacuum the track with beater bars. Ideally I would suggest the push sweepers like they use in restaurants or if not a shop vac but the beater bars is frowned upon by a lot of track owners.
Yes our track has that exact nasty chicane on the left side just like yours.
Yes our track has that exact nasty chicane on the left side just like yours.
11-11-2009, 04:51 AM
#7
11-11-2009, 05:23 AM
#8
I had the same problem with my tires, what I did was not to use any tire sauce on the tires, the track had so much traction I didn't need any sauce you could try not using sauce.
11-11-2009, 06:37 AM
#9
Its OK to vacumn the track....Just take the beater bar belt off so all it does is pick up the loose stuff. Thats what we do to ours and it works great. We have a dirt track in the room next to the carpet so it gets tracked in there. After Dirla vacuum's its just like new again!
EA
EA
11-11-2009, 06:47 AM
#10
the scenario itself seems just like what some tracks would experience with new (old style) carpet. irp raceway would be that way with every new track change. and i'm talking we wouldn't be able to get a full 5 minutes in on it until the qualifiers had begun.. on the second day of racing. (even after the place had been around for over a year or two). in those cases, the way it was fixed was when all the loose fibers had been moved out of the way (by cars running a decent line).
how long has that layout been down, and how much traffic are you getting in an 8 or 10 hour race day? either, don't vacuum (the groove), or do it as ea suggests. it should get better as traffic starts to clear away the weak fibers from the groove.
as far as setup tricks go, i dont have any. we always waited for the track to 'come in', putting in only 2 or 3 minute runs until it did.
how long has that layout been down, and how much traffic are you getting in an 8 or 10 hour race day? either, don't vacuum (the groove), or do it as ea suggests. it should get better as traffic starts to clear away the weak fibers from the groove.
as far as setup tricks go, i dont have any. we always waited for the track to 'come in', putting in only 2 or 3 minute runs until it did.
11-11-2009, 08:31 AM
#11
the scenario itself seems just like what some tracks would experience with new (old style) carpet. irp raceway would be that way with every new track change. and i'm talking we wouldn't be able to get a full 5 minutes in on it until the qualifiers had begun.. on the second day of racing. (even after the place had been around for over a year or two). in those cases, the way it was fixed was when all the loose fibers had been moved out of the way (by cars running a decent line).
how long has that layout been down, and how much traffic are you getting in an 8 or 10 hour race day? either, don't vacuum (the groove), or do it as ea suggests. it should get better as traffic starts to clear away the weak fibers from the groove.
as far as setup tricks go, i dont have any. we always waited for the track to 'come in', putting in only 2 or 3 minute runs until it did.
how long has that layout been down, and how much traffic are you getting in an 8 or 10 hour race day? either, don't vacuum (the groove), or do it as ea suggests. it should get better as traffic starts to clear away the weak fibers from the groove.
as far as setup tricks go, i dont have any. we always waited for the track to 'come in', putting in only 2 or 3 minute runs until it did.
We've definitely got new/old carpet. It's the non-HD CRC stuff with the rubber backing, one roll of which is brand new (the straight) and the rest had like 8 race days on it. The first layout we had fuzzed up something awful, and then settled down after a few race days. But, many guys were having the issue with the tires getting dirty, and what seemed like loose fuzz that got smashed into the groove. It's similar to the problem we're having now, though it's not affecting everybody like it did on the first layout.
As for turnout, I'd say it's a fairly busy track. We have 15-30 entries every Thursday, and 30-50+ on Sunday. Plus, there's a few guys out almost every day of the week running practice laps. A majority of the racing is 13.5 rubber, with some pan cars mixed in for good measure.
One thing I'm struggling with is whether or not I should start changing setup to counter the problem. The car is pretty fantastic the first few minutes, but then it's awful the rest of the time. A lot of guys are going to softer setups, and the problem seems to mostly go away, though potentially at the expense of a little speed since the cars are so stuck. Perhaps the tires work less with a softer setup, so they don't heat up as much and pick up crap?
11-11-2009, 08:51 AM
#12
Even with the softer setup I am still picking up a lot of stuff (fibers, foam, and compound) from the track. I think a good vacuum with a shop vac or stand up vacuum with beater bar disabled will help.
My question is how often are people vacuuming their tracks?
My question is how often are people vacuuming their tracks?
11-11-2009, 08:55 AM
#13
eh, in my limited rubber tire experience, the outside front (defined by which overall direction the track is being run) is usually much warmer than the other three, so if it were temperature related, i would expect the car to pick up fuzz much sooner on that tire and push in that direction first...
dunno, but with those numbers for turnouts and frequency, the idea of the surface conditions changing for the better with more laps seams bleak...
i wonder if all the prior vacuuming took some of the loose fibers and spread them back into an already sticky groove (as you described a bit). for the next layout, see if you can have them try a different process (regarding track prep). run it in, vacuum only the marbles, repeat.
we vacuum our track when we change layouts (with the beater bars intact), which historically is about every 6 or 8 weeks. we should do the marbles more frequently (for general appearance upkeep), but we're too lazy. incidentally, our carpet has extremly short 'nap' to it, though, and grip usually is up to par after a few packs ...
Last edited by seaball; 11-11-2009 at 11:01 AM.
11-11-2009, 08:58 AM
#14
would it help using less additive?
Say, the outside half of front and rears only? Or does it reduce traction too?
Just looking at all angles here.
Say, the outside half of front and rears only? Or does it reduce traction too?
Just looking at all angles here.
11-11-2009, 11:00 AM
#15
Hey Adam, have you tried cleaning tires and just running w/o sauce? If your layout is not going to change for awhile you may have enough traction already that no more sauce is really needed. I have run into that before on our track we had as well as in LV. As was said previous do a sweep with no beater bar. I think that is what hosed the carpet we had in that it was never terrific and fuzz was terrible all the time. I have no carpet to run on this winter, so I guess I am going to be logging more vert with skiing. 
