Originally Posted by
SlowerOne
Rubber tyres have one contact patch and once that let goes the car is gone. Foam tyres have thousands of contact patches because they are not a homogenous material. If part of the tyre is slipping, another part is gripping, so the transition from slip to grip is progressive and easy to drive.
Over the years every form of rubber has been tried and in every case the cars are nasty to drive and put everyone off. If rubber tyres worked, we'd have them by now. They don't so we haven't.
Here is the only thing I disagree with you on. I don't believe every form of rubber has been tried sufficiently. All the forms of rubber that have been tried have been based on rubber similar to or already available as a TC tire. That rubber just is not going to work on a pan car. Tamiya did have a brief time trying a rubber cap that would glue on over a foam tire. That rubber did work quite well but they were a pain in the butt to mount and looked like crap because you ended up with glue all over the place. I think if they had spent more time developing that into a proper rubber tire instead of a cap, it would have had a good chance of being a good rubber tire. No one else experimented with a rubber anywhere near that. Proline tried their version of a capped tire but it was a hard rubber like what was found on touring cars at the time so it never stood a chance of working well.