Lathing tires

[ride height]

I wondered. We raced karts on a pretty high level and dirt slicks were way faster than treaded tires on a hard pan dirt track. Has anybody ever tried putting a late model tire on a tire lathe and making a slick? Maybe you cant because it doesnt leave enough rubber but it had me thinking.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

I wondered. We raced karts on a pretty high level and dirt slicks were way faster than treaded tires on a hard pan dirt track. Has anybody ever tried putting a late model tire on a tire lathe and making a slick? Maybe you cant because it doesnt leave enough rubber but it had me thinking.
Very little rubber left at that point. Have seen them work good worn down that far. Hard to find a track that clean, however. Usually some idiot will get down in the infield and cover the surface with trash. Then you need some tread.

[save the racers]

When we were in the camaros, our tire rule was used asphalt slicks.I used very little grooving and a lot of swallow sipes.We won alot.Of course that was on a black slick track.People would look at my tires and tell me "that will never work" as we were getting the trophy.

[7uptruckracer]

One of the main purposes of grooves is to clear the contact patch of debris like MastersBilt said. In karting yalls slick track has little to no dust even and normally has something like cola syrup on it, so what you did works there. Even a blue groove dirt track still has a sandiness to it so you would most likely need something to help keep the tire dispersing debris and dust

[fastford]

you use to could get a un grooved tire from hoosier in what ever compound you wanted , but I have not seen one in a while.

[FlatTire]

I haven't thought of putting one on the lathe to make it a slick, but to reshape it for other purposes.

[pig tracker]

We used to camber cut our new tires back a few years. Course they also were only like $44 each.

[Matt49]

Slicks on dirt with go-karts worked because the tracks were extremely smooth not because they were clean. You need grooves to help the tire conform to a rougher surface.
Lathing was done for a few reasons: to get a certain profile across the surface, to get them truly round (many were not out of the box), and to remove rubber so that they came to temp faster. That crap got crazy really quick. When we got out of kart racing we were taking 30 or so tires to the track and we weren't big money. Between the tire cutting and the doping, it got ridiculous and it's my understanding it has only gotten worse.

[racerj5]

I ran a National indoor race in Batesville, MS a few years back. 2 day show with over 1,000 entires. They only take the top 20 for each class in a 5 lap transponder qualifying session. There were 50+ I think in my class. I qualified 17th on the one new set of tires I took (4sets total). The guy who pitted next to me spent $16,000 on tires for the weekend. That is part of why I got out of karts and into a late model. Guys will spend $1,000 on tires to win $100. I got really good at the tire prep game, but in the end, it's tough to compete with guys shot gunning new shoes every race. A new set of tires is good for 3-4 tenths over one that's had a heat cycle run thru it. It's crazy, but $10,000 to win shows are commonplace now, and you gotta have a HUGE tire budget to compete.

[ride height]

Tell me about it. We took jr to the Daytona WKA nationals about 12 yrs ago. There were teams running out of NASCAR haulers . I cant imagine how ridiculous it is by now. I just thought maybe i came up with an idea for the LM crowd with my slicks brainstorm.

[drtrkr244]

I know a couple teams in my area that cut their tires, but its really limited to where you would be able to do that. They mainly use them in the feature if the track slicks off from top to bottom with very little chance of crumbs being slung across the track. You only have about a .25 inch of tread to work with so you have to be sure not to cut too much off.

[crownman25]

I remember back in 1978 or 79 at a ndra race at Dixie speedway .bud Lunsford Charlie mincey put true asphalt slicks on during a day race on a sunday,times was nearly half second faster no sipes grooves nothing...I never will forget that it took a few laps but when those baby fired you talkin about fast...

[Dirtmod13]

I remember back in 1978 or 79 at a ndra race at Dixie speedway .bud Lunsford Charlie mincey put true asphalt slicks on during a day race on a sunday,times was nearly half second faster no sipes grooves nothing...I never will forget that it took a few laps but when those baby fired you talkin about fast...Don't some tracks in the south make the guys run nascar take offs ? Slicks I presume