This Mandatory Riders’ Meeting series is aimed at new or returning track riders, hitting them with the mental and physical information needed to avoid common and frequent new-rider crashes. The track is an amazing place to ride with a terrific social network, but I see so many new riders hurt due to flawed basics; this series aims to fix that.
Tires need heat to work correctly. I wrote about this a few months ago but want to revisit the issue because it is so common to have cold-tire crashes in the first lapping session of the day, or on every lapping session during a cold day.
A tire warms quickest when flexed and the best way to flex the front tire is to brake, the best way to flex the rear is to accelerate and brake. That’s why you’ll see YCRS instructors braking and accelerating in the paddock while straight up and down, or even on pit lane as they head out in the morning. If you want to do this in pit lane, do it well to one side and with your left leg out to warn others of your intentions.
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Swerving back and forth isn’t as effective and is against the rules at most trackdays. Braking and accelerating has an amazing effect on tire temp and is easy to do just before the third call for your group. Street riders: Do this straight-line braking and accelerating if you have room because it will bring your tire temperatures up more quickly too.
We run Dunlop Q3+ tires at YCRS and they warm very quickly. On a 50-degree day, the right side of the tire is warm in one lap of a 2.5-mile clockwise track, while the left is good to go within two laps.
If you run DOT-legal race tires or slicks without warmers, your job is much, much harder. I encourage you to get warmers if you run race tires because they are so dependent on heat to be safe. Tire warmers require front and rear stands plus a generator or other electrical supply, so the investment in terms of money, time, and hassle is higher. If you’ve been to YCRS, you see how relentlessly quick the instructors ride on a street and track tire like our Dunlop Q3+s, so don’t feel pressured to jump right to race tires. Note that I’ve raced the Spondon TZ750 on Q3+ tires at AHRMA and did “just fine.”
My main reason to touch this subject again is the continued cold-tire crashes I witness at trackdays. Nobody at the trackday thinks a cold tire will work like a hot tire, but they leave the pit lane with something else on their mind.
Your cold tires are your main and single priority rolling out of the pits. We might be working on a new line in turn 4, planning to catch and pass our pal, testing a new part, or working on setup change. But not yet. Not for the first lap or two, depending upon track temperature, track layout, and tire compound. Before all those other plans, we are simple tire warmers. Please say this out loud as you roll through pit lane and onto the track: “I am just a tire warmer right now.”
This priority goes a step further because if it’s a counterclockwise track, the right side will need longer to warm. That means it could take an additional lap to warm that “lightly loaded” side.
We must also look at the order of the corners. Cold-tire crashes happen most frequently at Inde Motorsports Ranch (our winter track) in turn 5, a left-hand corner that follows four right-hand corners. By the fourth right-hand corner it’s easy to think, “These tires are ready to rail and I’m gonna light this fire baby!!!” You may not talk like that in your helmet, but you get what I mean: Ve acutely aware of corner order.
A cold-tire crash can be caused by something like:
- We’re held on pit lane longer because there was a late crash in the previous session and the heat that our tire warmers generated is gone.
- We failed to take into account the chilly breeze that continually takes heat off the pavement, even on a sunny day.
- We pulled our tire warmers with gloves on and failed to discover that our warmer popped a fuse and our slicks were cold; always pull warmers with one bare hand to feel the tire.
- We were told to follow a coach and prioritized sticking with that coach “no matter what.” Let that fast-starting coach go and prioritize cold tires.
- Our body position is terrible on our warm-up lap and that means we need more lean angle at the same radius, and our cold tires can’t handle that mistake.
- Our competitive urges take priority over cold tires and we ask too much of a piece of rubber that is below its designed heat range.
- We do not modify our braking, accelerating, line, lean angle, tire loads for the reduced temperature of a chilly December trackday, trying to run the same pace we ran on a perfect July day.
- We don’t hang on the fence and watch the reduced pace of the A Group as these experts warm their tires during the first few laps
- We come off tire warmers and then get stuck behind very slow traffic on the first lap and don’t realize the initial heat has come out of our tires because of the slow pace/light tire loading.
- We turn into a long-radius corner slowly because it’s the warm-up lap, and then try to accelerate through the direction change which unloads the cold front tire and piles us into the verge.
- We are abrupt and aggressive with the controls on a hot tire and that flaw crashes us off a cold tire.
- Every track has more corners in one direction than the other and we forget that one side of the tire takes longer to warm.
- We become impatient during a red flag and charge out of the pits when the track is finally green—and then crash on the now-cold tires.
There are several extra practices we can adopt to get us safely through the first lap, especially on a chilly/breezy trackday:
- Park our bikes with the “unloaded” side of the tire in the sun, prioritizing the front tire. Push the bike forward or backward occasionally to help spread the sunlight/heat. The temperature between the sunny side and the shaded side is significant.
- Before third-and-final call for our session, be rolling around on our bike if the paddock has some open space. If there are fewer left-hand corners on the track, prioritize the left side.
- In the paddock or rolling down pit lane, brake and accelerate while upright to flex the tires and build heat. Learn to do this with your left foot hanging off the footpeg to alert following riders that you are doing something different and do this at the very edge of the pit lane, not in the middle. I will never roll out for a race or practice without doing this; not only does it build tire heat but gets our brains around brake mastery.
Cold-tire crashes are extremely frustrating to the rider who crashes and to the other trackday participants who must often endure a red flag. I’ve caused a red flag due to a cold-tire crash and hope this article jumps you past that uncomfortable, painful, embarrassing, and expensive mistake. First lap is to warm the tires.
More next Week!