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What dilemma? Well, it turns out that Goodyear took full advantage of the loose definitions of a 225mm tire and made the Eagle RS as wide as possible. How wide? Our “225mm” tires (8.85” for us Americans) were 9.4” wide. Why a dilemma? Our rear wheel-wells and struts barely cleared the 8.9” tires we previously had on there, and weren’t going to be happy with another half-inch shoved in there (mind out of the gutter gents). A 5mm spacer and some quarterpanel massaging, and we were in business. Now, this does have one very fortunate side-effect: many classes limit tire width, and the Eagle RSs are as wide as you can get in a 225mm tire. A wider tire not only handles better (within reason, and when properly set up), but the added mass makes it more resistant to heat, and helps it last longer.
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| A 5mm spacer and some quarter panel massaging was needed to fit the wide Eagle RS |
One of the welcome surprises when dealing with Goodyear was accessibility and excellent advice. Our first event on these tires was at the MPTCC Las Vegas Motorspeedway (LVMS) event. Instead of getting a pile of tires delivered to our doorstep by a doorbell-ditching man in brown, we were able to get them directly from the Goodyear Racing truck in the LVMS paddock area. Goodyear Racing's on-site rep not only mounted our tires for us, but also gave us what turned out to be nearly-perfect advice on inflation pressure (based on our car, its weight, spring rates, and static camber), and the best way to heat cycle the tires based on the track’s conditions that day. Our local man in brown is a great guy, but his primary opinion of tires is that they’re heavy and stinky. Goodyear Racing’s truck can be seen at nearly any racing event that runs its tires, so finding an emergency spare, getting a whole set, or just asking for advice is never far away.
What were Goodyear Racing's recommended inflation pressures? 40-44psi front, 36-40psi rear, with 42/43psi front, 38/41psi rear being just about perfect for Project G20. Since the previous set of tires we had were happiest at 34-36psi on our car, and our qualifying session got cut short to 2 laps (another car had a minor fire in the pits), we were extremely thankful he was there to offer advice, as we probably would not have gotten tire pressures dialed in before the race. With only one practice session, and a very short qualifying session, we managed to collect plenty of data and even captured a set of thermal images of the tires with the Fluke Thermal Imager.
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| Rear passenger side, outside on right |
With the rear passenger side tire, let me start with a caveat: in the top middle of the sampling field (marked by a large square in the middle of the image) you can see a “LO” caption with a small bit of the car’s bodywork in the field. This, unfortunately, threw our scale completely off, making any part of the tire look blazing hot. However, the white stripe on the outside (right side of tire of tire in photo) is slightly wider, telling us that we were a little low on tire pressure. End result before race: 41psi.
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| Rear driver side, outside on left |
The rear driver side tire told a different story however. The sampling window was properly placed, so the scaling was easier to work with. As you can see, the inside of the tire (right side of tire in photo) was much warmer than the outside, telling us we were high on tire pressure. End result before the race: 38psi.
