2008 Bandimere traction survey

[thiazole]

A coworker of mine went to the track on Friday for the Club Clash and said the track was very slippery. He has a Cobra replica car and just has all season radials, but last year was pulling mid 12 second 1/4 mile times with a 1.8 second 60'. This year his best 60' was only 2.2 seconds and he was having trouble getting below 14 seconds :eek:. I've also had very good luck with all season radials at Bandimere. I've never smoked my tires at that track and the only reason I've ever had a bad 60' time was due to bogging, but I haven't raced since last year. I've said before that I thought Bandimere was very all season radial friendly and that buying expensive soft tires for this track was a waste of time, but I'm wondering if things have changed this year. We kind of expected things to be different with the new changes to the track, so I'm curious what people's experiences have been compared to last year. Is your traction better or worse and are you running a softer or a firmer tread?

[sbiggi]

They resurfaced the track this year. Its going to take a little time to get a nice layer of rubber down.

[thiazole]

I'm just wondering if people with soft tires/drag radials/slicks are also slipping and sliding around or if traction is the same for them. My coworker is now bent on getting drag radials, but if everyone is sliding around, he might want to just wait until the track improves. To me, a 1.8sec 60' time on a rear wheel drive car running mid 12's isn't bad, especially on high treadwear street tires. I used to have a mid 12 second Chevelle that I ran 10" slicks on that would pick one of the front tires off the ground at the line pulling only 1.7 second 60' times. If I could have gotten 1.8 sec 60' times on street tires, I never would have bought slicks - I could have gone to a roller cam setup and made another 50hp with the money I spent on slicks and wheels.

[jene]

The sad thing is that my 16 second car has traction issues this year. as soon as more rubber gets layed down it will get better. As for the slicked or dr cars... most of them seem to be doing alright with traction... or better then me at least ! hahaha

[Mirage]

Keep in mind that the majority of the rubber that gets laid down is from the softer tires (DR's, DOT and bias ply slicks).

Most all season radials tend to be hard enough to where they will actually "peel" a little of that rubber layer off.

Personally I'm not a fan of radials on a prepped surface like that anymore, but that's just me.

Marcus

[thiazole]

Yeah, my coworker got the drag radials and his traction problems are gone - well, I shouldn't say they are gone, but it is an entirely different problem now. I think the fact that his street tires got pretty good traction but still slipped enough to prevent bogging was a good thing. Now he is just bogging out of the hole. He's planning on getting a 2 step next which should make things much easier.

He is actually my major competition. Out of a company of 350 people, we are really the only two with fast cars. The way he is running right now, he would be an easy kill (best time this year is a 13.5), but with a car that is making 320whp and only weighs 2500lbs with him in it, it is a tall proposition to beat, but it's doable. He's also really pushing for a 100 shot nitrous system, so with that and drag radials (although that still might not be enough traction for a super light car with an 8 cylinder and 100 shot of nitrous), I could easily be toast.

[XakEp]

Yeah, my coworker got the drag radials and his traction problems are gone - well, I shouldn't say they are gone, but it is an entirely different problem now. I think the fact that his street tires got pretty good traction but still slipped enough to prevent bogging was a good thing. Now he is just bogging out of the hole. He's planning on getting a 2 step next which should make things much easier.

He is actually my major competition. Out of a company of 350 people, we are really the only two with fast cars. The way he is running right now, he would be an easy kill (best time this year is a 13.5), but with a car that is making 320whp and only weighs 2500lbs with him in it, it is a tall proposition to beat, but it's doable. He's also really pushing for a 100 shot nitrous system, so with that and drag radials (although that still might not be enough traction for a super light car with an 8 cylinder and 100 shot of nitrous), I could easily be toast.

http://www.codsm.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3213

That should end the competition pretty effectively.

[thiazole]

Yeah, if I can't beat him with the set up I have (or I should say "will have" when everything gets finished - my sig is full of old parts except the turbo which is capable of 500whp) then I don't plan on doing anything this year to remedy that. I don't want to run faster than 11.5 this year because I don't have the safety stuff to do it. I believe my current set up will get me there as it is. If he runs faster than that then he just gets to be faster than me this year. Personally, I don't see him running that fast, even with drag radials. The kind of power he'll be running without the nitrous won't be enough (and I think his 320whp was a generous number - maybe elevation corrected) and with nitrous, he won't have the traction he needs. I saw another Cobra at the track that was trapping in the upper 120s and he had some monster drag radials and he couldn't hold them down until 3rd gear. If I remember right, he was only running mid 12s. Cobras have freight train suspension and probably have less than 800lbs on the rear tires - kind of like drag racing a pick up.