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uploaded 7/19/2000

The Tires

Back to The Mile start page.

 Jay Springsteen and tire artist

Jay Springsteen talks to a guy carving on a front tire.

Modifying the tread

That's a single-edged razor blade he's using to do his art work. You can see the S-shaped tread blocks. The corners of the blocks are fairly sharp where the tread surface meets the side of the block. He was working on the first block up from the rim, cutting the corner off the top edge of each block leaving a chamfer about an eigth of an inch wide.

Cutting a chamfer

Here he's started working on the second row from the rim.

Goodyear tirebusters

Tire busters, just like at every race everywhere.

Another tire cut pattern

This is a different tire mod on one of Rich King's bikes. I didn't write down the manufacturer.

Kenny Tolbert cutting tires

Kenny Tolbert works on a tire on one of Chris Carr's bikes. The tire groover he was using had a V-shaped tool that removed a triangular strip about an eigth-inch deep and the same wide from the middle of a block. I picked up one of the inch-long pieces that came out. It stretched and fully recovered like a rubber band. That says the rubber in this tire is a low-hysteresis compound. A pavement compound wouldn't recover right away. I'm just beginning to understand the significance of this and will present the information when I figure out how to do it right. For now look at the Discussion Page at the load sensitivity of tires explanation.

 

 
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