ISSUES
To everyone that has bought and used these tires, what kind of surface have you been racing on and what is the track temp?
Our Hobby shop just received a shipment of 36R's, upon request from several racers, of which many bought to race with this Sunday and I have to say there was not one person who didn't complain about how bad the wear was after only one or two runs.
We race on an old parking lot in a busy shopping center with a track size of 110' x 70'. The track is prepared before racing by blowing it off with leaf blowers and than a fair amount of sugar water is added for traction. The track temp at first qualifier was probably 115 DegF and by the mains 135.
My car was handling great until the main when it started push in and out of the turns rather badly. I did not change my setup from the 3rd qualifier to the main.
The tires started scalloping or developing little ridges, which is usually induce by overheating the tire. The outside edge seemed to wear more than normal also. My setup did not changed at all from last week when I was running Speedmind 36R's which did not show or develop any of these symptoms. I spoke with each of the other racers which all reported the same phenomenon. We also noticed a rather large buildup of rubber on the inside of the body by the end of the day.
So I’m not quite sure why Speedmind tires would perform better than the SJ-R other than the insert must really make a difference. I'm also thinking most of the testing for this new combination must have been done solely on the pristine surface of Speedworld or other tracks in California and not on rough pavement like most other club surfaces.
Sorry for the rant but I and many others really had high hopes for these tires.