Rubber or Silicone Tires

[indybob007]

What type of tires do you all run. I like running Rubber since real cars use rubber. I know Silicone Urethane tire have better Grip' But I like how rubber tires leave their mark and will build up on your track. I am thinking og going just rubber on my new Oval. What yoy guys think. Indybob

[btaylor]

I use both rubber and urethane tires on all my tracks. Rubber works fine, but on some older cars, replacement tires are not easy to find. PG tires actually work the best for me all around. And Paul has a tire to fit pretty much everything.

Bob

[Audi1]

I think it depends on your track. On a new surface, silicone tires are hard to beat for grip.

Allan

[Austin]

If you are running with magnets in place, the stock tires are great and will true themselves as you run

[HomeRacingWorld]

Run what you like. I run a mix. Mostly a Paul Gage man myself as I like the grip plus the ease of contouring for oddball models.

There is no wrong tire. The best approach is to simply order a set of each and test yourself.

[nhdungeonracer]

[Gameover]

i use pg on my plastic oval, but on our race night here in mn i run silicone on the plastic painted road course.

i like the drift on the oval of the pg tires but like the stick of the silicone on the road course...... just my taste


tire opinions are all personal preference

[smithspeedway]

We run on wood. Observations here are that super smooth grippy silicones (like Pro Track) have too much grip for big horsepower motors. The car tends to lift the nose on launch and can chatter in turns. Having said that, racers who find the right balance of chassis weight and gearing to smooth this effect out are hard to beat. Personally, I run natural rubber tires. Properly prepared, they are almost as good as silicones and are more forgiving when I make mistakes (often). It is totally a style thing. We also find that silicones are harder to fine tune in the summer (here in the US northeast), but start winning a lot towards the colder weather (we end in November each year).

This all probably invalid in other climates, or better insulated buildings than ours. For whatever reason, the only thing that does not work well on our track are urethanes. They are invariably slower and have less than satisfactory grip, regardless of brand. You'll find that contrary to most other experiences here.

No silver bullet, and no one else's track will feel like yours... which makes it all very interesting.

Steve

[Retro Racer 44]

The tire depends on where you race. If you race at home, it is up to you which you want to use. If you race with a group then you need to decide on one. If you use a commercial track, it is soon obvious which is best.

On our tracks most of us use urethanes, either Luf's or Paul Gage. Occasionally someone has success with NSR rubber, but others are slipperier than urethane. We do not use silicone tires at all, as they pick up all the urethane bits off the track, and then don't work, and the track doesn't work well for urethanes for a while after.

When we hold proxy races, the cars with traction problems are usually on rubber tires.

[indybob007]

Thanks for all the opions. Just wanted to see what all you oval guys ran. Some like to run rubber but wont let those with silicone run because it takes up all the marbles. On all my Carrera painted road layouts we ran mostly rubber' and some with silicone like Super Tires which lets the cars grip better on my track. Times are way faster with silicone. But I like stock rubber. So I might make the new track rubber only. Thanks Again. Indybob

[strangebrew]

My track is a small, masonite, banked oval with an enamel finish. I used strictly silicone tires with similar chatter/grip issues.
I switched to urethane after discovering this site. I found the Paul Gage tires would glaze over after a few laps & need to
be cleaned. Several slotters have warned of using the two types of tires on the same track & in my case they are correct.
I cleaned my entire track with lacquer thinner several times before the urethanes would work. I would suggest picking
a tire type & sticking with it.