Thread: Tire warmer or not on DOT tires?

Terry, I was listening to Dave Moss talk about tire wear patterns with his OTT series and he kept mentioning using tire warmers and it sound like he suggested them for DOT track day tires. Was his reference to DOT track tires, the same as DOT race tires? I kind of got the feeling he was suggesting them for any DOT tire used at the track do reduce your heating and cooling cycle to one for the day. Any comments would be greatly appereicated.

tires like the BT003 RS are considered a street/track tire. and manufacters say tire warmers are optional for these. Dave seems to feel from your post there is a benefit for the tires. ;)

Tire warmers have other benefits like being able to go out first lap at a trackday and not worry about cold tire slipping :) maximum track time .

Originally Posted by R1-Limited

Ok so, why are tire warmers a bad thing on street DOT tires?

Here are my thoughts, these are for me only
As fast as I go, Tire Warmers would make no contribution PERIOD
I dont Race, I dont get paid, hell I cant afford a track day

I understand the the entire concept of the TW, BUT IMO only Why?

track tires work at a higher tempature. Tire warms are designed to get them into that operating temp area. Street tires work much lower temps. so you use tire warmers it is easy to over heat and make a nice greasy tire. :)

Originally Posted by MellowYellow

track tires work at a higher tempature. Tire warms are designed to get them into that operating temp area. Street tires work much lower temps. so you use tire warmers it is easy to over heat and make a nice greasy tire. :)

Ok that makes sense about a greasy tire and over heating them with a tire warmer on high, and all the oil goes to the surface of the tire. However, what if you did not heat your tires up so high, say only partly to 120 ºC? Not too hot to mess them, but enought to pre-heating the wheels to keep the tire at an even temp thus the rims don't rob heat from the tire as it's trying to get to temperture? I did not realize that wheel (rims) heated up too in the process of gettting tires up to temperature. I don't know why they don't just make the wheel itself heatup then...

Dave mention if you don't have tire warms, to just park your bike in the sun, to get heat on the rims to keep wheels heated at least, so it doesn't steal heat and take longer to warm up your tires.

So that is why I asked the question about tire warms on DOT track day/street tires.

i have the bt003 rs tires....race/street. my NRS back in feb i would just do a slow "sighting lap" to bring the temp up, coming onto the front straight at thill i just stomped on it and did flying laps for the rest of each session. i also parked my bike in the sun (thanks charles for the suggestion) to keep some temp in them so that first lap wasn't scary with slides as my sighting laps tend to be a bit faster than my street speeds ;)

Hell, I've run all kinds of DOT's and have never used warmers. I take the first lap kinda easy, pick it up to 75% on the second lap then 100% after that...never had any problems. Also...My grip levels seem to deminish about the same as the guys running warmers. The only real advantage I see (warmers) is the ability to go fast on the first lap. Personally, I wouldn't go fast on the first lap even if I WAS using warmers...I like to get warmed up mentally to before I go for it.
That being said....if I had the money, I'd probably buy warmers just for piece of mind on those first 2 laps.