Tire pressures on race car are important for performance reasons.Inflation
affects slip angles,stagger,rolling resistance as well as traction in both
planes.Street tires have a max inflation figure(measured cold) than is well
on the safe side.Even exceding this by 10 or 15 # won't lead to catastrophic
failure(but don't try this at home).More dangerous is underinflation on a
heavy vehicle.This causes heat and belt seperation(remember Firestone/SUV
problems?
"Jan Andersson" > wrote in message
...
> tricky wrote:
>>
>> I may have been wrong for years... I learned ( I think from the AA
>> (AAA) ) that before a long journey, to put a couple of extra pounds in
>> your tyres. When they warm up, they soften and need more air.
>
>
> Air is a gas, which when heated, expands.
> On race cars, tire pressures are sometimes critical. You put a certain
> pressure in the tires before the race,
> and when you immediately measure the tire pressure during the first
> seconds of pitstop, you will find that the tire pressures have increased
> by 50% easily.
> Granted, in that environment the race slicks also get much hotter than
> you'd ever see your street tires get...
>
>
> Jan (Race car mechanic)