The Racing & High-Performance Tire: Using Tires to Tune for Grip & Balance (R-351) First Edition

So although it might not seem appealing to read a book about tires, Paul Hanley has done a SUPERB job at gathering a lot of information, chewing it up and presenting it in a way which is a pleasure to read.Despite me being an Engineer with some racing knowledge, I learned a great deal about tires and could see this as being great for non-technical people as well thanks to the author's way of presenting the information. Paul presents the reader with interviews, Graphs,diagrams and pictures and takes you from the begins of rubber, through the chemistry of tire compounds up to tuning the chassis to work with the tires.I highly recommend this book

The tire is the most important part of an automobile, and the least covered by the literature. That's why any information about tires is a treasure. The complexity of the structure and behavior of the tire are such that no complete and satisfactory theory has been propounded. Books on vehicle dynamics are available but they are mostly written by academics who emphasize mathematical rather than clear explanation of how things really work. The tire might be the most useful and complicated device humans make, but the tire manufacturers provide no useful information to their customers. People are forced to buy tires mainly on the basis of price and company reputation. Even race teams get tire data only sporadically, and that data is pretty useless anyway. Tire performance is necessarily highly dynamic, but tire data comes mainly from testing under static conditions.This book describes basic properties of components of the rubber compound, carbon black reinforcement, and so on. It also shows mechanical model for rubber: "If you apply a cyclic force the rubber will deform mostly like a spring and give back the force applied to it, but also partly like a damper which is sensitive to the speed (frequency ) of the applied force". The book breaks rubber friction into adhesion (molecular bonding) and mechanical keying (deformation friction). Mechanical keying becomes more important when the road surface is lubricated by dust, water or ice; here is where another interesting property of rubber, viscoelasticiity comes into play. "Press your thumbnail into a street tire and the rubber rebounds. Press it into a racing tire and the mark stays there, recovering only slowly. This is a simple but crude test of hysteresis, or energy loss, in rubber". The book analyzes surface texture effects on rubber friction - how the slope of the asperities affect friction, and "the myth of off-line in the rain". Tire behavior is another major issue of the book.The last 75 pages of the book (chapter 11) are not directly about tires, and devoted to "Basic Vehicle Dynamics", in case if you don't have an appropriate book on that topic, e.g. "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics" by Milliken Bill and Doug.I also recommend "Mechanics of Pneumatic Tires". It is a PDF that you can freely download from the publisher's website using an internet search engine. This PDF is an excerpt from "Theory of Ground Vehicles, 3rd Edition" by J. Y. Wong.

Great book. First one I have seen written on the subject. Author does a good job explaining how a tyre works and how to read them. Highly recommend it for anyone interested in leaving about how to get the best performance out of your tyres.

I have Paul Haney's 2 other books and this one is just as informative and entertaining. a must read if you want an unfair advantage

Superbly written and ultimately informative - if you are into such things. If you are not, you will find it disturbing that people could read this stuff. Well illustrated, well documented, and will give you confident understanding of what appears to be obscure notions. If you are a four or two wheel enthusiast, add it to your library of knowledge.

A book I recommend to anyone trying to improve the performance of their Formula SAE car, go kart, autocross car, or whatever other race car they are learning to tune and make the most of.

As the book says, an area little understood. That it explores this and helps the reader -excellent. A greatly needed book.

It is a history book about the tire, it has to few about racing and performance tire information, very disappointed