Background: I've been running Hoosier SM7 takeoffs for track days. The set I have right now have probably 10 sessions on them but still have plenty of rubber and grip left.
Last weekend I had an off into a gravel pit. Fortunately myself and the car are fine, but the tires picked up pea gravel like tar paper. After picking off all the gravel, the tread surface looks lumpy and pock marked. It is safe to say that the tires are shot, or does anyone think they'll even out after a session or two?
My experience is that it's not a problem at all. They will be fine in a lap or two once they come up to temp again.
They should come back fine after you get them hot. If they don't they were already on their last heat cycle.
I've had Hoosiers pick up a diamond plate tread after going on a trailer, but they were fine.
You can expect that the tires will be way out of balance for a few laps and you should try to slide the car on cold tires a bit as that will help remove the stones faster.
Do some of the F1/nascar swerving on your warm up lap to get them up to temp and everything should be fine and dandy after a lap or two.
But did you deal with the race slicks in your underpants?
johndej said:Do some of the F1/nascar swerving on your warm up lap to get them up to temp and everything should be fine and dandy after a lap or two.
Someone, I think Carroll Smith, has very strong feelings that this is a great way to wreck your car or have an off before the race even starts. I think he suggests instead just gas - brake - gas - brake - gas etc.
More concernedly, were the tires knocked off the bead or other evidence that the internal structure might have taken some overstress in the incident?
The rubber on racer tires moves around. It will resettle once warmed again. Its like chewing gum and has to be to have the grip it has.
Having experience with Hoosiers and pea gravel (multiple times) I can tell you they'll be fine.
They'll be fine. The pits at Arroyo Seco are gravel and the Hoosiers on the Camaro pickup enough rocks that I feel like I need to shovel out the trailer after an event but it doesn't harm the tires.
As to the tire scrubbing on the warmup lap; I find that its effectiveness is largely tire, and to a lesser extent car dependent. With the Falken Azenis that we run on Spec Miatas at my local track aggressive tire scrubbing by yanking the car back and forth is very much worth while. You can feel the tires gain grip when you do it and if you try and sail it off into turn one four wide on a start without doing it you'll find it very exciting. With Hoosier R7s on my Camaro I do more of a throttle brake thing but with 640 HP it's easy to spin the tires to heat the rears and at 3,400 lbs and dedicated race pads hard braking gets the pads heated like needed for them to be effective and I don't have to be going very fast for braking to heat the front tires.
Always found a warm up lap was sufficient. No special antics needed.
Thanks guys. It was a pretty minor event, I went off after the steering input shaft decided to part ways with the steering rack (long story, but totally my own fault). I went into the gravel around 50mph, nothing hurt but my pride (and, as mentioned, my shorts). The wheels and tires look to be in fine shape except for the pockmarked tread.
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