27th Jan 2019: TDC Mondello Multi-Venue Autotest

Hi Tim! When I read your posts, I can hear your commanding voice at sign on briefings Very Happy

Listen, sorry if we’re ruffling feathers with this. As I said in my original post, committee members must be blue in the face from the topic but us other competitors don’t get to hear the points made to support a decision or get to make our take on the issue.

This thread has no arguments, just healthy, well mannered debate and perspectives from competitors, which hopefully is something that the committee want to hear?

I strongly disagree that the cost of tyres is not an issue for competitors on a budget. I scrape together what money I can to go autotesting and turn up at events. The more it costs to run the car, the less events I can afford, it’s as simple as that for many of us I feel.

By the way, if any admin wants to split this thread in to a separate topic, please do. I don’t want it detracting from the great event ahead. Brilliant news on the sponsorship btw!

Brian, you are not ruffling any feathers, we appreciate all the points (excellent ones by the way) that you are making - decisions made at committee level are always based on the best interests and feelings of the majority of the competitors that support our events whenever possible, so please continue to contribute your points and opinions.
Everyone who is a member of TDC matters.

@Eoin - id just like to clarify some points seeing as you stated your post was factual. As Mark said, this discussion is not in response to any one persons pace on a tyre, i thought that was clear. also, you are not the only person running A050's.
furthermore, as you mention starlets lasting 3 events on a set. i cant comment directly on that as i dont use a starlet, but i cant see how thats even remotely possibly as Brian went through a set in nearly half a day in the ignis (fact), who is a constant top 10 driver so is doing alot of things right.
we are getting close to the starlet becoming more and more obsolete with around 40% of the field and growing in rwd mx5's, so that has to be taken into consideration. there is not a chance in hell a pair of A050's will last 1 event on the rear of a rwd car in holfelds, mondello maybe at a push.

il say it once again in case the point has been lost, this is about leveling the playing field a bit more for the normal competitor, not stopping anyone on any 'pace' for using one tyre or another.
this is in direct response to comments i've been receiving over the last year from long standing supporting club members who feel the expense to break the top ten is becoming unattainable.

i appreciate you want to sell as many yokohama's as possible, but unfortunately its still too much for the normal clubman in alot of cases.

im not having a go btw, this is just what the majority of competitors feel from my experience, it doesnt directly affect me, as im normally sliding around the middle of the field somewhere.
so we have to support it, and do something proactive about it.
we mustn't loose sight of the fact that this is clubman autotesting at the lowest grassroots level.
something that i dont think the photo below represents

[img]http://i.imgur.com/qmPKmaO.png?1[/img]

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Bring back Retro's! Sad

Last edited by Mark2 on Sat Jan 12, 2019 1:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

When I said I wanted to post the facts that was in response to your comments about €800 tyre budget for an event! That was why I shared the prices.

I've already said I've no issue not using A050. We wont use them for Mondello.

In terms of wear rate it is pointless getting into a debate about it. We've been using them for 2 years on strykers, Fiesta Zetec, Fiesta ST and multi-venues. They are used in the Fiesta zetec endurance races. To say they would not last an event is false. We did Holfelds & Franks event double driving on 2 A050 fronts (fact!!).

	kingers wrote:
	Ya with the increase in Tyre disposal fees, lots of places are charging €20 a corner, the best I’ve found is €15 a corner.

Unfortunately by law we have to charge the VEMC recycling charge. But you shouldn't be paying it twice. The VEMC system is a nightmare but by right you should be bringing the used tyres back to us. I know that's very awkward.

I'm fairly sure our local tyre place (roundabout tyres) charge €10 a change.

We are not setup to do tyre changes (at race events we are). But we could setup the machine and do it if its a help. I'd just ask you to call in advance so we could have machine in our workshop and someone ready to do it.

If you refer back, I said a full set + 2 spares = 780e.

Also, comparing running tyres on the rear of a rwd Autotest car to any race car is completely irrelevant.

Anyway, for this event it looks like they are fully legal, so work away use as many as you wish!

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Bring back Retro's! Sad

Mark & Brian, we all completely understand concerns here over cost. Eoin posting the prices of tyres was simply to show the prices of the tyres the majority of competitors use, and that nobody (to our knowledge) has ever spent €800 on tyres at an event, nor would ever need to! Although we do little events, over the last few years we only ever put on 2, or MAX 4 new tyres onto our car in a year. We have had the same A539s on the rear for probably 3/4 years now and swap between them or scrap skinny 13" road tyres we source from a tyre supplier for free depending on the event. When you see us changing tyres it is because we may have 6-8 worn tyres in the garage so just mount the best of the bad bunch and swap between them. We have never once worn through 2 new tyres in one day. Theoretically the 15" should last longer as there's more tyre to share the abuse but obviously the weight of the Ignis is more so would cancel that factor out, but as Eoin says we use these exact 15" tyres on Fiesta STs (as does all ST competitors) and they have a tyre limit, so often use the same 2 tyres for two weekends, up to 2hrs of running! I have never seen any ST competitor run out of tyres during race weekends. Not saying Brian is lying,, it is just very strange to wear so quickly but possibly there was an issue with those tyres, what way did they wear out? Just no thread left or did they de-laminate? Possibly tyre pressures were too high?

Personally my problem with the tyre rule is that I think its a knee jerk reaction to winning cars being more and more expensive builds so to win at the higher speed (in relative terms) like Holfeld or Mondello the average Joe needs to spend a lot more than was needed 5yrs ago. Keep in mind that at EVERY EVENT with any bit of rough at least 1 competitor gets a puncture, generally speaking the punctures are with Uniroyal or similar budget tyre. Either tyre debeading or rocks bursting the sidewall, generally because tyre is overall too soft. This is a motorsport, road tyres are not designed for the abuse we give them. I can honestly say that as far as we remember we have never got a puncture in a front tyre be it A050, A021, A539 or A048 over the years.

The harsh reality is that this discipline is a form of motorsport which means it is a competition, the fastest man or woman wins, and as with all competitions competitive people will do all it takes to win, within the rules in place. If there is a tyre rule, I firmly believe the general result (who will be front pack or mid pack etc) would change very little. A 140bhp heavily developed Starlet or 200bhp+ MX5 or MR2 will still be far quicker than a 100bhp standard €250 Starlet no matter what tyres any car is on.

It is still a cheap sport/discipline if you want it to be, the minimum prices to compete have not changed. The entries and fuel cost are cheap, if one wants to compete at a budget it is still easily possible to go out for a days fun in a standard car on road tyres. If you want to win, even if there's a tyre limit, unfortunately it is (generally speaking) not possible unless its in a competitive car with a bit of money spent on it.

A rule that would actually make some sort of difference would be a max cc/weight ratio or limiting engine swaps/chassis modificatiosn etc. I completely disagree with those too but I think all that is what is causing the increase in cost, not the tyres, which in general have not changed in price over the last few years.

In the end, if people are in favour of tyre rules and the club are implementing it then that's fine and we are more than happy to send the full list of all Yokohama/Nankang tyres available, as they are the only brands we do, to help show the committee what sizes/models would be readily available in Dublin and the prices for those. Its all well and good saying to use whichever MSA lists only, but tyres are a lot more readily available in the UK so what we definitely dont want to happen is for 1 or 2 tyres on whichever list we use to prove superior to any other tyre, and for those tyres to either not be available in certain sizes, or end up being extremely difficult to source. By the time we order them in from UK price could very well end up being much higher than a €59 ex vat 13" A021 for example or €83 ex vat 13" A050.

Ok so I was about to pull the trigger on trying to convert the Ignis to 13’s so I could run A021R’s and be competitive at Mondello but in the spirit of the proposed rule changes, I’m going to run R1R’s.

@ Eoin, how many mm of thread depth are on the A050’s when new?

Also, I know you supply the NS2R’s, would you consider stocking the R1R’s or other preferable tyres from any future rule changes?

Appreciate the offer of the Tyre changes, yer man at the roundabout has used to be very cheap but has jacked up his prices too. I rang around a heap of places recently and €15 a tyre is the min.

Niall - thanks for your post and I certainly take all the points made. Can I just clear up a few things first -

1. A pair R1R’s are nearly €100 cheaper than A050’s in 15’s.

2. The set of A050’s I bought just before Holfelds in the summer are now a coffee table in the shed Smile

I measured the thread on them last night and they have between 0 and 1.5mm left on them and one is punctured. I changed them off the car before the last lap, ran them at 27psi. A set of them would probably last more than 1 event at this time of year - Holfelds is a particularly abrasive surface in the dry and that hot summers day, they melted off. I’ll try post a picture of them.

I hear what you’re saying about you using worn ones - have ye ever used a new set and what compound have you been using? How many mm on a new one?

I’m not trying to knock the quality of the tyre - I’d say they are brilliant as a track tyre and I’d say the guys in ST’s / Strykers find them great. But for Autotesting, the wear rates are too high and they’re too expensive compared to the suggested tyres.

I agree with a lot of the points you made about the car needs to be competitive too and we all try to get the best out of them but there’s no denying that tyres are the number 1 running cost for competitors, so it is an issue that needs to be resolved.

Besides the cost - it’s also about leveling the playing field across all sizes, as I’ve said before.

Mark and myself aren’t the only ones to feel this way either, there’s many others who haven’t been outspoken here.

Hope these images show -

Hi Brian,

I’m not denying the price of A050s compared to R1R, they’re not really comparable, there’s plenty of cheaper tyres out there but obviously as you go cheaper you go closer to a standard road tyre and performance becomes worse.

I hope you understand that I’m not saying for 1 second that I don’t believe you about the tyres lasting at that event, just find it so strange considering how much we get out of them and also the Strykers, Zetecs and STs (as well as various rallycross cars, Fiesta 6hr endurance ITCC, Future classics etc). Generally in normal racing conditions the best working pressure of these tyres is 27-28psi hot, but for the Starlet we run a few psi’s lower to try increase traction. We’re you 27 hot or cold?

Yes we used 2 new A050s on the 27th, granted we only did around half day (for 2 drivers so 1 full single driver day) but the tyres are still like new. I only mentioned that sometimes we run second hand tyres because Mark mentioned people changing tyres during an event and using more than 2 new ones, I assume he meant us but when we are changing tyres it’s only because we started the day on worn already.

I disagree that tyres is number 1 cost for competitors as a whole. Yes the competitor in standard car out for a days fun, A050s would be a big cost compared to all other costs, but the the vast majority of the top 6-8, the cars have had 10-15k put into them over the years and still are being developed, new parts put on, more visits to dyno for mapping etc, tyres are not a big cost compared to the cost of the engine or suspension in that car.

Again, I completely see where you both are coming from. You guys want to bring back the days where someone in a standard Starlet spending €150 all in for the day can win an event, or at least a few FTD and have a good result (which was only 5 yrs ago). At that time there was only 1-2 guys with high spec cars so a standard car may get top 3, now there’s so many similarly modified cars it’s virtually impossible. Unfortunately that day is gone and it’s nothing to do with tyres, the performance of the top guys cars are phenomenal considering what cars they have. As far as I know, if you bump me and eoin back into results of 27th, out of the top 15 competitors yourself, Darren and Daniel are the only guys who drove a car with its original engine in it, the rest all have had engine transplants to say the least. Tyres may be 1 consumable that is in some way controllable, but it’s not going to fix the issue you guys are mentioning.

We don’t stock NS-2R, only Nankang AR-1. You say you were going to convert to 14” to run on A021, do you know they also come in 14”, it may be easier to fit that wheel on if you wanted to go on that tyre.

	kingers wrote:
	Ok so I was about to pull the trigger on trying to convert the Ignis to 13’s so I could run A021R’s and be competitive at Mondello but in the spirit of the proposed rule changes, I’m going to run R1R’s.

If you can run 185/70R13 then I'd suggest A021. You can get them for €73.67 each which I believe is less than Toyo R1R.

	kingers wrote:
	@ Eoin, how many mm of thread depth are on the A050’s when new?

I dont have the figure to hand but unfortunately its not a lot. Apart from the day you've done and all the events we've done, who else has used A050? If you started with 27psi cold then that would be a contributing factor to wear. On Dec. 28th we ran 22psi cold. If it was hot and bone dry I would start 20psi.

If you try and select 1-2 tyres to use then it will certainly hurt entries, guys will not want to be forced to buy a specific tyre. I dont believe MSA 1A are suitable and some tyres on MSA 1B are more expensive than the tyres on MSA 1C (A050, A048, A021 etc). If you ban a specific tyre then what happens when another better tyre comes along thats perceived to be too expensive. There is no simple solution to this. I think the club needs to look into it. I'm happy to meet to discuss if that helps. I don't think it can be sorted on this platform.

It might be worth pointing out that this discussion relates to single venue MVATs only. There’s a lot of referring to ‘autotesting’ which already has tyre restrictions (List 1b forbidden for championship events). This may be confusing to newcomers. I appreciate the discussion refers to TDC events only (Holfields & Mondello) but there are other clubs running proper Multi-Venue events with farm yards etc. where the likes of A050s would be useless. Im sure many competitors will want to use the same tyres for all the MVATs they compete in.

You're correct Damian. It is worth pointing out that this discussions only relates to TDC as all other clubs still use the road legal tyre requirement with no exceptions.

The TDC MVAT regulation change was requested in 2017 to allow those with existing stocks of the A021 tyres to use them on single venue MVAT events. A021 tyres had previously been road legal e-marked and were popular. The only way to allow these tyres be allowed was to remove the road legal tyre requirement. So using the A050 tyres was within the rules as well.

I had asked the committee at the last meeting should we not look at going back to the existing rule as I expected that most stocks of the A021 tyres had been exhausted. The unfortunate thing is that we need to give advance notice of a tyre rule change to avoid penalising those who had bought some of those tyres.

Piers14 wrote:

You're correct Damian. It is worth pointing out that this discussions only relates to TDC as all other clubs still use the road legal tyre requirement with no exceptions.

The TDC MVAT regulation change was requested in 2017 to allow those with existing stocks of the A021 tyres to use them on single venue MVAT events. A021 tyres had previously been road legal e-marked and were popular. The only way to allow these tyres be allowed was to remove the road legal tyre requirement. So using the A050 tyres was within the rules as well.

I had asked the committee at the last meeting should we not look at going back to the existing rule as I expected that most stocks of the A021 tyres had been exhausted. The unfortunate thing is that we need to give advance notice of a tyre rule change to avoid penalising those who had bought some of those tyres.

All go back to road-legal only with effect from a stated date ? say 1 July 2019 ? I'd go for that. Keep it straight forward, as well, in my book

Tim

With just less than two weeks to go we've received over 70 entries to date. Thanks to all who have got in early and used our online entry form. I know for certain there's more entries on the way so for those of you on the fence you need to act fast to make it onto the entry list and have an incredible day of motorsport!

Philip