Which tire.......

So I'm going to be shopping for some new rubber for the back of my truck and I think I've got it narrowed down to two choices, unless you guys know of a tire that you think would work better for me. I'm looking at either the Good Year 2792 Dragway specials, 28 inch diameter 10.90 tread width D5 compound I believe or the Hoosier Drag Radial 325/50-15 which is 28 dia. 11.75 tread width.

I was running BFG drag radials at the bash last year which I wore out while I was down in owensboro. I purchased a set of Hoosier 276/60-15 drag radials after I got back home and have been really happy with them except for the fact that they don't seem to last very long. I now have 10 inch wide rims instead of 8 inch wide and I hopefully stepped up the power some over the winter so I was thinking I would get a little more tire under the truck right away. So which tires would you guys buy if you were in my shoes?

I got started on the drag radials because they seem to make the truck feel tighter on the big end of the track. I don't care for the wiggley feel I had when I ran borrowed ET streets one nite. Good year claims the dragway special D5 compound tires are for heavy vehicles so I was considering a bias-ply tire again. Would the Good Years hold up longer than the Hoosier drag radials? Do I need to change my burnout technique or something? Tires aren't cheap obvioulsly, so I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. What you seasoned veterans think?? Thanks,

How long are you warming the tires I have seen my buddy (557 mazda) hold it and do a real smokey burn out and seen him just pull up hold it 3 or 4 sec. and the car would hook the same.I used to do them real smokey burn out with my old 69 mustang thought that was how I had too to make the tires stick but not after watching Rick do his burn out with the bbf 557 rx7 and he runs in the mid 5s.I only ran in the 8s in the old mustang.But I am not sure on the tires you are talking about.Some say you have to burn the tires down doing a real smokey burn out and some say just hold it for a few sec. but what I have seen from the rx7 only takes a few sec to heat them up he is running 33x10.5x15 MT.I am older now and a little bit wiser not much but alittle so why waste the rubber to just make a show if you don't have to make them stick. Just my 2 cents.

I tend to stick with Mickey's but they are all good tires. I am partial to the 28x10.5s or 29.5x10.5s tires but I think the new Goodyears are pretty good. I like how the Hoosiers hook but they sure don't last.

I like to do a burnout that is long enough to dry the tires. We look like rookies out there in the burnout box. Actually people laugh at us. I had a guy, who we might as well call Sir-spin-a-lot, come try to teach us how to do a burnout and tell us what we were doing wrong. He usually 60's about a 1.38 on a bbc nitrous combo that runs in the 5's. During testing the other night we went a couple 1.30 60's leaving at 4lbs boost and babying off the line with this same burnout.

Do enough burn out to clean them off,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, then stage.

Even in my dragster, I dont break the staging beam.

and don't do that 1980's dry hop stuff either. save that for the junior dragsters.

the only time we go through the beams if we are finishing off a set of tires and want the crowd on their feet. the fans pay our winnings so we try to keep them happy.

Hoosier or M/T's are the best in my opinion.

Never really liked Good Years. They seem to have the shortest compound life span of them all, almost like once you reach the 1/2 way point on the tread depth they go to siht damn quick. M/T's are probably the best all around slick figuring price, life span, & their few compounds "fit" a surprisingly large group of car types.

I do like to see one or two high gear "rolling" across the line burnouts when it's a new built/setup car to get an inital idea which direction the car might launch since the direction the car tries to point/drive in the rolling burnout is often the same direction it will point/drive on the launch.


Ahhhhh yeeeeeaah, ripping 1 or 2 dry hops before staging........them were the good-old fun days. They were a blast to do, but so damn hard on everything. Especially the guys that would rip 4, 5,.......or 10 of them before staging.

we usually switch sides every race. do most guys do that?

tires^^^^^^^^^^

Well on the bash video from last year a few of the burnouts probably were a little excessive but the tires I had were at the end of their life anyway. I usually try to just get the tires rolling in first gear shift to second bring up the rpms to 5000 or so and wait till I see smoke in my mirrors and left off the brake and a second later roll off the gas and then roll up to pre-stage.

I mentioned the good years because they are cheap and the ones I listed in the first post are suppost to be for a heavy vehicle which I think my truck at 3900 lbs. is considerably heavier than most of the race cars out there.

Guess I'm leaning towards staying with the drag radials unless I can't get them to stick this year. I have a few passes left on the Hoosier 276/60-15's drag radials so hopefully I can make a decision on either getting a bigger drag radial or trying the Bias-ply tires by the end of this weekend. Got our first race of the season up here at Wisconsin International Raceway this weekend. Just want to get my ducks in a row before the bash.

M/T now has a 295 drag radial that is a 28x10.5 tire.

whatbumper wrote:we usually switch sides every race. do most guys do that?

That's always been one of those deals where it depends on who you talk to. Some say swapping sides every so often wears out the sidewalls faster. But then others say you have to swap sides over & over to keep the tread "ripping-up/ocean waving" under control & help maintain similar rollout numbers.

I guess on a car that has no major rollout difference between the two slicks, swapping side to side shouldn't be a problem as far as launching straight/preload settings are concerned.

whatbumper wrote:we usually switch sides every race. do most guys do that?

tires^^^^^^^^^^

I swap side to side every 5 passes. seems to help the tire be more consistant when they get past 40 passes, but Im sure there are other opinions on wear. Some 10.5 guys flip them every pass. That seems excessive, but if thats your routine and it works why change it.