This year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, racer Perry McCarthy was disqualified for swerving to warm up his tires. It makes little difference that McCarthy’s ride was a downhill racer designed and built by engineering students at Coventry University in England. Lord March was ultimately concerned for the safety of every racer in attendance, so McCarthy was disqualified. We in America would scratch our heads at this sort of posture, ‘Just why on earth would Lord March do that?’ The reason of course is that swerving to warm up your tires does absolutely nothing except cause accidents.

When this strange phenomena began in the early nineties, it was quickly hailed as the essential racer’s edge, despite a plethora of first-turn and practice lap pile-ups. As crew chief for Dunlop Motorsports, I noticed something more. The racers that did this were tearing the open surface of their tires. Road race tires are a delicate balance of incredible grip over decreased longevity to accomplish control of the immense power and incredible speeds that modern machines attain. To compensate for this lack of tire life, most talented racers patiently pace their laps so that the traction surface warms gradually and begins to open up uniformly to provide the grip necessary for the task at hand. If you ‘blister’ the tires on hot laps, the tires will not heat up uniformly and evenly; presenting the evidence of this in a rapid and costly fashion. A racing slick should ‘peel’ the surface back to expose the fine sandpaper-like finish from sidewall to sidewall in a determined and precise manner. Failure to do this can cause the tire casing to warp or ‘squirm’ which in turn can ultimately result in chunking or an out of balance tire.

Early on, Dunlop Tires wanted to know more about this swerving trend. They figured that this knowledge could help them in the development of their racing program. They did repeated testing across their entire product line with regards to this growing proclivity. They took pyrometer readings of even their Jaguar Series race tires to calculate just how drastic the practice of swerving warmed the tires more than the proper method. The results were shocking.

The very best riders are masters of consistency who massage their race rubber to exhibit the finest characteristics of both grip and traction. This process cannot be hurried or forced, but is accomplished through skill and diligence. Paul Bray was particularly adept at this. He produced a tire that was nearly a work of art, perfect from left side to right, uniform in every aspect. If you do not know how to do this in practice, perhaps you can learn from one of the masters. The results will show in your final race finish as well as your reduced tire budget. Each corner should be tendered with just the gentlest application of throttle and balance to yield that 180 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper surface that is the most desirable for a race ready scuffed tire.

The Dunlop scientists worked for months on the outcome of this one trial, to know first hand exactly what swerving did to improve your race day traction. The conclusion surprised even the experts. It did absolutely nothing, except cause crashes. No amount of aberrant swerving behavior is going to heat up a cold tire. You will only zig when someone else is zagging, prompting you both to spill while the entire field runs over your ignorant posterior and your accomplice. Warming a race tire can only come about with patience, throttle control and precision balance.

So when Lord March requested that the participants avoid swerving under threat of disqualification, he wasn’t just trying to be English, he was being practical. You see, Lord March, like many others, knows that you can’t go fast if you’re laying on your side.

Vaya con Dios