Goodyear Announces Development of New 14” Race Tire
Officials of the Goodyear Racing Division and Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl in Barre, VT have announced that the D2810 – 14” economy designed tire for a weekly type 4-cylinder short track division will be available for the 2011 race season.
Goodyear Racing and the American Canadian Tour (ACT), the Northeast sanctioning body that manages Thunder Road Speedbowl, have a long history of short track tire development. “I never realized how much work, expense, and effort go into bringing a race tire to the marketplace,” said Tom Curley, President of ACT and managing partner of Thunder Road Speedbowl with Ken Squier. “We have always tried to be on the cutting edge of technological improvements for short track racing, and Goodyear has played a vital part with us in that process for over 25 years.”
In the mid 1980’s, Goodyear Racing and ACT developed an 8” treaded groovedunit that is still one of the most popular tires in the Goodyear short track inventory. Over the past six years Goodyear engineers and ACT competitors have developed an economy Late Model 8” racing slick (D2672, D2882 and D2884), a 7.5” Limited Late Model unit (D2637) and will now introduce their latest short track tire, a 14” tire (D2810) that will serve a vast number of entry divisions around the country.
“This is absolutely the best tire I have ever used for 4-cylinder kind of racing – period”, said ‘Tommy Thunder’ Smith, long-time veteran of 4-cylinder racing at Thunder Road.
‘Wild Willie’ Hennequin was the primary test pilot and said, “Goodyear had made several development runs of the tire. We tested the final version of the tire for over 300 laps, at two different tracks over a three-week period. It repeated each session, and the times stayed consistent. The tire is going to be great for four-cylinder kind of racing and best of all, very cost effective.”
A host of Goodyear engineers have been responsible for the development of the various short track tires that are currently in use by ACT and its affiliate tracks throughout the Northeast US and Canada. “It seems that each year an opportunity presents itself to our short track racing program when we visit some of the Northeast tracks that work with ACT”, said Scott Junod, Goodyear Sales Manager, Short Track Racing. “All of our engineers have enjoyed working with various ACT teams in all three divisions, in the development of these various tires. The work that the ACT and their teams have done for us has been pivotal,” concluded Junod.
Sources: ACT PR