Is this safe? (victoracer question)
 

I recently got a set of 245/45 V700s from a friend with only about 6 autox events on them, and had them mounted on my 2nd set of stock wheels. Well they were sitting for about a year in his climate controlled basement, so I decided to put them through a heat cycle today before my autox tomorrow.

Well when I got back and took them off to cool down, I noticed that one of them has a 1/4 inch slit in the side wall, just through the very exterior of the rubber, not all the way through.

Should I be ok to run 6 runs tomorrow at my event on them?

It's tough to say without a picture but if you're CERTAIN the cut is only in the outside rubber covering and none of the sidewall structure in the tire was severed, you're fine.

The tire sidewalls transmit all the loads from the contact patch to the vehicle and they see terrific amounts of stress. If the tire structure is damaged at all I'd avoid it to be safe. If it's just in the rubber I see no harm in using them.

Thanks Damon. I took some pictures and the slit is longer than 1/4 inch, but I pulled it back gently to check and it is indeed NOT through the inner sidewall structure. I even put a little water over the slit to see if any air bubbles were coming out and there were none.

http://photos.imageevent.com/section...slit%20001.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/section...slit%20002.jpg

Just because it's air tight doesn't mean it's good. There is rubber on the inside of the tire as well so you could completely severe the cords and not lose air. If saw no severed structure I think you're fine. You certainly want to keep an eye on it though.

Will do, and I certainly don't plan on doing any HPDE on them either, not to mention that I wouldn't want to run my first DE on R comp anyway.

Thanks again Damon, I'll keep a close eye on them before and after each run, and I'll run this tire at the rear too just in case.

my question would be what make the cut in the tire? It looks suspiciously like it hit a curb. this could have severely damaged the tire's side wall area. I personally don't use any tires with any type of side wall damage unless I know how severe the damage was. Racing puts large stresses on tires and other parts of the car, and if the tire failed what would happen? Car could roll or hit something else nearby. not worth the risk tires are cheap.

Is it just me or is that cut not perpedicular to the sidewall?

Anyway, my experience racing on the original Kumho Victoracers has shown them to be very tough tires. I wouldn't have a problem running them if the cords are intact. I don't see and scuffing that would indicate the tire took a hit that would cause internal damage.

Thanks for all the input guys. I ran this tire on the rear and had no problems at all, and it held pressure just fine. I ended up 1.8s off FTD, i was hoping to go faster, but i'm still new to these tires so hopefully I'll get quicker as I learn how they do. My god do they stick, I can't imagine how well the V710s stick.

Glad to hear they worked well for you. I used my first set of Victoracers for a long time. Too long in fact. It became difficult to get heat into them. This was verified wit ha pyrometer, BTW. I bolted on my brand new set of Victoracers and went 1.5 seconds faster on a course that normally took me 1:36. Even the old ones worked reasonably well once you got heat into them, but it took several laps around PIR to do so.