Today's discussion

[Chris56]

Today I would like to talk about tyres, in particular foams vs rubbers.
In light of a recent thread, I want to make it clear that this is not intended as a discussion about changing club rules or penalising other drivers, simply an open discussion to explore people views on the advantages/disadvantages of running different tyres and their effects on performance and driving abilities.

Ok, here goes

Foam tyres are permitted in all classes apart from TC. In GT12 you would be a fool not to run them (BRCA rules?); in TC they are banned as we are running BRCA rules. In clubman some people love them and some people hate them and in buggy I have notice quite a few racers running them on a Friday night.
I have been a big fan of them on my old Tamiya cars since we started running clubman – they have really helped my consistency and have enabled me to set some blistering times with some pretty crappy cars, despite me being a “not so good” driver! . Last Friday I switched to rubbers and, qu’el surprise, noticed a massive difference in how the car handled. I was getting left for dead by drivers I’ve previously been able to beat (not mentioning any names there Martin!) and the car was really sliding around. After making some setup tweaks I noticed my lap times falling considerably and my control of the car improved (as expected).

But then I had a thought: did all of this time running foams on a car designed for rubber make me a lazy driver? A TB02 with foams is really easy to drive fast and consistently – you simply point, shoot and apply as much throttle as you want, then lift off before corners. With rubbers, however it was a bit of a handful and I had to become much smother with throttle delivery, braking and steering. In the Saturday off road series my performance hasn’t improved as much as other drivers and im wondering whether its because I have become more conditioned to running foam tyres.

I am going to stick with rubber as, although I am not as fast, I am having to deal with car-control and smoothness. In Friday’s final (after 3 practice rounds on the rubbers) I was finding the car really rewarding to drive. Yes it was sliding but the fact that (in most cases anyway!) I was able to control the slides and set consistent lap times. I would argue that my driving ability improved that night, whereas it was stagnant when running foams.

Ok, if you are still awake from reading my ramblings I have a few questions:
1) Do foams have the same effect on buggies when ran on carpet?
2) Has anybody experienced the same thing?
3) Should beginners who choose to race in clubman/off road be encouraged to run rubbers (even Venoms in off road), since it will teach them car control before they are able to complete fast laps?

As I’ve said above, this is an open discussion about tyres and not a debate on what rules we have for each heat or how people drive/treat others – so keep it friendly!

[siddus74]

Your brave Chris ...

[siddus74]

Foam can be grabby in my experience, on an open diff car or loose diff they work really well, on a fluid diff or ball diff they can be grabby ...

Scott.

[cunawarit]

1) I don't know.
2) Yes. That's largely why I prefer rubber tyres.
3) Yes. I think they teach you a certain degree of throttle control that gripper tyres wouldn't. I have found stock buggy great for this, it is even more fun than Clubman tourers.

[reg]

I think once you set a car up to run foams they are good to help you learn good lines as nothing random happens,in GT12 it's ideal as you need to maintain good corner speed to keep the speed up on the straight parts,a badly setup car on foam can be really hard to drive!
I think you would be surprised how easy your car would be to drive on a high grip track on rubber,our track is a very hard track to run rubber on,good fun though lol

[Robbiejuk]

Originally Posted by reg

I think once you set a car up to run foams they are good to help you learn good lines as nothing random happens,in GT12 it's ideal as you need to maintain good corner speed to keep the speed up on the straight parts,a badly setup car on foam can be really hard to drive!
I think you would be surprised how easy your car would be to drive on a high grip track on rubber,our track is a very hard track to run rubber on,good fun though lol

Just out of interest what tyres are you actually running in touring?

[Chris56]

Originally Posted by reg

I think once you set a car up to run foams they are good to help you learn good lines as nothing random happens

Grip roll though! When I ran foams on the TA02 it grip rolled like a drunken fat bloke. I only managed to get rid of it by soaking the sidewall with superglue (thanks BTW Paul!) and running crazy front camber due to the limited tuning.

Strangely, my TB02 hasn't grip-rolled once on foams.