Hi All,
It was good to see you all (well most of you!) last weekend!

Apologies for missing the rounder’s match, I was rather disappointed to hear we lost to the Caterham’s. Sadly I was still prepping my car after my not so clever departure from the track in Qualifying……

As most of you may know, my father Andy) and I tested some Hancook radial tyres over the race weekend (hence us entering in Proto), myself in a fixed axle Mallock Mk27 and my father in an IRS Gem.
We had heard much information on the subject prior to the meeting, so decided to test them for ourselves.
From my understanding, the general belief was:
- Radials may give an unfair advantage to the Independently Rear Sprung (IRS) cars over those with fixed axle (as they can run with 3 degree camber on the rear)
- They are likely to wear quicker, due to the increased amounts of camber they require to work optimally
- They may take longer to ‘switch on’ than the current Dunlop’s
Having tested the Hancook radials on the Friday and completed qualifying and race on the Sunday I can draw the following conclusions (FYI, I used 3 degrees camber on the front):
- They appear to have similar feel/characteristics to the Dunlop’s
- They appear to perform similar lap times to the Dunlop’s
- I was able to push hard on them from the start
- Wear was comparable to the Dunlop’s
- The temperature from inner to outer tyre was approx. 2 degrees Celsius (consistent)
- The tyre did not fall-off in performance during the race
- Drawback; may have to re-align camber for wet conditions
Conclusions:
Certainly, the tyre performed better than my expectations.
At £500/set off the shelf, they seem to be cost effective.
However, I am not a regular driver, so appreciate my findings should only be taken only as an initial guideline, for others to investigate further.
My father was also pleased with the tyres on his GEM but as he admitted, was not lapping at sufficient race pace to make any lasting conclusions.

I would suggest that x2 front running drivers, x1 with fixed axle and x1 with IRS are chosen to evaluate the Hancook radial in comparison to the current Dunlop.
Lastly, I would like to thank Paul Dyas from Mr Tyre Motorsport for spending his Friday morning with us, to help evaluate the tyres.
Regards
Adrian (Borat)

Thanks for the update Adrian(Borat).

I would like to give my thanks to both you and your old man for taking the initiative to test the Hankook tyres. From my observations I would say that they do appear to offer us a possible route to a control tyre to replace the Dunlops.
It was encouraging top hear that the 'feel' of the car was similar to the Dunlops - which is contrary to the received wisdom from certain so called experts - and your lap times were competitive too.

I've already been in touch with Paul Dyas who seems to be up for another test and I do agree that a live axle and an independent car driven by regular front running drivers would be good. Any volunteers....?????

Hi guys

Interesting stuff regarding the Hancooks, I volunteer as the solid axle car for testing if you want me, as I have competed on the Avons as well it would be good to compare the differences of all 3 tyres, a test at brands might be beneficial as I have data/lap times achieved on new Avons and part worn Dunlops. Do the Hancooks have a similar size and profile to the Dunlops?

Speaking of Avons I have been meaning to voice my finding on them which I will now do, yesterday I was at Oulton Park on a track day reverting my setup on the car to back to run on Dunlops, the difference in drivability and confidence was more than I expected (and this was on my old used set of Dunlops).


Avon A11

-Brands Hatch
Initial big difference I felt compared to the Dunlops was the floatieness due to the softer side walls, during weight transfer when corning you could feel the car take a set but then move a bit more on the tyres. It felt a bit weird to get used to because you almost felt like you needed to opposite lock a bit mid corner as it give you the feeling the car was 4 wheel drifting/sliding

-Silverstone
During the start of both races they felt good and were as competitive as the Dunlops but at half race distance the car promoted massive turn in understeer and the car would not turn into the right hander of vale, on the 2nd race it also did this round Brooklands, during high speed corners I didn’t feel any difference

-Croft
Race 1 was obviously wet. Race 2 (the 3 laps I achieved) the car was undrivable around slow and medium corners due to the front end not turning in at all, this is reflected by my best lap being several seconds off Alex’s

Off the line subjectively the Avons felt better but without measuring 0-60mph times it would be difficult to positively say.
In the word of Borat the tyres did “switch on” straight away with minimal requirement to warm them up and you could push hard from the get go. However they do go away from you.
I spent a lot of time adjusting the suspension set up and wheel geometry in between and during the races with little significant improvements made.
Last year on a new set of Dunlops at the start of the year I completed 7 qualifying sessions and 6 races, after which the fronts were worn down to the canvas on both tyres (after Rockingham 1st race).
The Avons have complete 3 qualifying sessions and equivalent to 3 full races, the condition of the front and rears are not down to the canvas but on the front you can’t see the outside wear indicators, so it would be fair so say that they last half as long as the Dunlops.

Brands Hatch my fastest laps
2013 Race 1 Cloudy/Dry Used Dunlops 49.365 seconds
2013 Race 2 Cloudy/Dry Used Dunlops 49.141 seconds
2014 Race 1 Bright/Dry New Avons 49.837 seconds
2014 Race 2 Bright/Dry New Avons 49.502seconds


At Oulton yesterday I could feel a big difference in car turn in, the Dunlops felt much more precise and at high speed rather darty compared to the Avons.
On the limit at high speed (1st corner) I found that when traction was broken (back end stepping out) you could recorrect and get it to regrip but it was a handful as it would brake traction again and then regrip in an aggressive snappy manor whereas the Avons would be a big hero style slide that was more controllable.
Braking and harsh acceleration didn’t seem all too different in terms of traction limits but the Avons felt more stable under heavy braking compared to the Dunlops.

In conclusion the Avons performance is not too bad but compared to the Dunlops they just don’t last races and speaking for myself I don’t want to/can’t afford more than 2 sets of sliks a year. On top of that the ride height among other setup changes on the car needs to be altered for the Avons, this makes it very difficult to run Dunlop wets as your rain tyre which I found out at Croft as my mechanics were running around franticly changing everything on the car when we made the decision to change tyres. On top of all that I even had to lift up my body work by about 45mm to accommodate the larger fronts to prevent them rubbing on the wheel arches.

Hope this information help.

Regards
WYD

Is there any information from Marcus about the Hoosiers that he is running on? Do they provide similar grip,longevity, and size to the Dunlop?

Thanks WYD - good feedback.

Howard has also offered and may be one other tba.

Let's get our heads together at Oulton and work out the best testing plan.

I'm just off to the Nurburgring for the Oldtimer GP this weekend......

Pete

First of all I have to fill you in on a few facts/items.

By accident Adrian and I used different front tyres. I used 180/530R13 fronts as this was originally supplied to us by Paul Dyas.

Adrian used 170/515R13 on the Mallock front as Paul Dyas felt they were nearer the Dunlop dimensions, we both used 210/570R13 on the rears.

The GEM has F3 sized wheels (9” fr and 11” rears) so we decided to use the wider front tyre (180/530R13 ) on the GEM.

The tyre wall on the front of the Mallock (8” fr 10” rear) looked quite vertical, the rears had a small curvature, pre-test Borat was worried about this. The tyre walls on the Gem had a large curvature of the front and a medium curvature on the rears.

During Friday we had four sessions of 30 mins, the tyre temperature gradient was fine on all cars/wheels. When we packed them away you could still see the moulding mark around face of the Rears.

We did not adjust any camber settings during the day as the temperatures were even across the width of the tyre.

We were warned that the radial tyres might take longer to “come in” due to the fact that they do not work the contact patch as hard as cross-plys. Borat felt he could push hard from the start (insensitive Bu**er), I felt that they had come on by Sunny In.

We were worried that the tyres would run on the wheel arches but neither the Mallock nor the GEM had any contact issues.

One thing I do feel is that the Radials give you better braking, both our cars boiled their brake fluid on Friday and we had to revert to regular Mintex pads (as opposed to Carbon).

Both Borat and I made good starts that may also be due to the radials, I can’t prove it however.

There are several compounds available from Hankook we were I believe running soft, again that was because Paul Dyas felt that was the closest compound to Dunlop. There are softer and harder compounds available.

We did not have any Hankook wets to test. Although again I am advised that radial wets work better than cross-ply wets, again as they allegedly control the contact patch better.

So our personal conclusions were:-

1) It was hard to tell the difference (from memory) to the Dunlops, as you know we asked to see if we could borrow some spare wheels so that we could run a back to back test against the Dunlops, unfortunately none appeared to be available.
2) We need to be careful with size selection, or maybe give a choice as I would not want to put the 170/515R13’s on the front of the GEM the 180/530R13’s had quite a contour on them.
3) The tyres appeared to last the race with Borat’s last 3 laps were all within 0.1 sec and his fastest laps. My fastest lap was the last lap but that’s a sad reflection of my driving.
4) I like the price :0)
5) They seemed to have worn well.
6) Consideration needs to be thought out for Classics as they can run in two championships (HSCC and BARC)

So there we are I am pleased to see that the Register is going to do a more serious test(s), I would echo Wyd’s views that it may be better to test separately from the race scenario, especially if you have data.

Hopefully we can look at all the options and make a decision sooner than later as I have two suspension re-designs for my winter job, obviously the sooner I (we) know what we shall be running the easier my job is.

Totally away from all tyre issues I have to thank Paul Gibson, who’s start money paid for the majority of my Lorry diesel, thanks Paul. Secondly, despite the Lorry breakdown, Borat’s high speed reversing demonstration and the spearing of the Mallock Rad with some aluminium angle I found it a very enjoyable meeting amongst friends. Finally I do hope that Clive is OK I notice there is no update on the forum.

Thanks for all that useful data Andy.
According to the Hankook specs the tyres Borat used are virtually identical in dimensions to the Dunlops including revs/mile.