<VV> Re:Mo' Wheelz

[Kirby Smith]

I got about 12k miles on the only Wide Ovals I tried starting with 12 or 
13 32nds tread down to 2/32.  They were intolerably squirmy.  I got the 
same street milage out of Firestone rain race tires going from 5/32 to 
2/32.  The compound was much softer, but never squirmed.  And they were 
better in the dry and in the rain.  They were better in the rain at 2/32 
than the wide ovals were new.  I don't have any anymore, so I can't 
report what size they were without some digging.  I believe Goodyear 
eventually produced a passenger tire with the same tread pattern.

I know what you mean about sidewall sway.  I had to use wheel spacers to 
keep the sidewall off the steering knuckle in hard cornering.  I used 
the stock 5.5 x 13 wheels for racing, which were time trials mostly run 
by Corvettes of MA.

kirby


Padgett wrote:
> 
>>  The late '60s reverse-moulded,
>> bias-ply, "cantilever" race tires (I hadn't seen that name association
>> before seeing it on this forum, but it is apt) such as the Goodyear
>> Bluestreak 4.75/8.50-13 tires I still have (as mementoes) have 7-inches
>> of tread and were certainly designed for wheel widths smaller than
>> either the tread or section widths.  Section height to section width
>> ratio is around 50%.  So I guess today they would be 250/50-13s.
> 
> 
> Called them "cantilever" waaay back then. First mention that I know of 
> in print was the 1965 Car and Driver "2+2 vs 2+2" road test.
> 
> However they were a "kludge on a kludge". Back then the SCCA had very 
> restrictive rules on wheel width in stock classes of roughly 1.5" more 
> than stock. This mean that my B/P Corvette with 10.45x15s on the front 
> and 12.65x15s on the back was limited to a 7.5" wide wheel (actually for 
> everything but the Nationals, most ran the stock 15x8 later Corvette 
> wheel you could buy for $15 a pop in Detroit). Goodyear and Firestone 
> both realized this was an issue and so the cantilever racing tire was 
> developed to compensate and provide a tire with a large contact patch 
> that could be used on a too-narrow rim.
> 
> Those tires were better than the alternative but moved A Lot under the 
> car and took their own special driving style (the also had very 
> soft/thin sidewalls and the pressure often needed topping up daily - 
> left for a week it would be flat. This was not a passenger car tire.
> 
> By 1966-67 the passenger car version was intoduced first as the 
> Firestone "Wide Oval" as the first '70 series tires were called. You 
> were doing good if a set which cost about $100 1967 dollars lasted 8,000 
> miles. Keep in mind that at this point a 6" rim was considered wide.
> 
> Today things are different, tire technology in particular is light years 
> ahead of what we had then and "going up in smoke" on the street is a 
> rare occurance. However, given the best of all possibilities, if you are 
> going to race, it is best to have a rim at least as wide as the section 
> with of the tire and when you consider distortion under lateral stress 
> (cornering) it is easy to see why.
> 
> Padgett