Is there a expiration on Racing slicks??
 

Well, I inherited some goodyear racing slicks 2-3 years ago.. Before I throw them away, Is there a such a thing as expiration date?? The tires are quite hard and even the rings pretty stiff.. Its been sitting around for too long in my basement and before 1-2 years at someone else's basement.. but it has good tread and little wear (well no tread but have plenty of rubber).

So, should I pitch it or should I tried to get it mounted and use them??

Last time I checked, these were $400-$500 each tires..

if they are that old,they are no longer good.....

For your purposes they're probably fine if you coat them with Formula-V tire treatment. I've known of people doing that even for National/Runoffs races, and I've used a number of times on old old old Toyo's with good results.

Thanks for that info.. I've heard of that but wasn't sure if it was affective.

Youre right.. for my purpose (just track days), I think it shouldn't make too much difference.. Just wanted to see if it was worth it to save or just throw them away..

The big killer for performance is the number of heat cycles the tire has gone through. The tire can have rubber on them and been heat cycled so many times they just dont grip. My understanding is that Goodyears are good for 10-12 heat cycles. Goodyears are expensive tires so I have not run them.

i would becareful they may take a while to heat up and scuff the old rubber so it could be slippery, but if they are not dry rotting you might as well try them.

I'll take some pics and post it here and see what you guys think.. they are pretty expensive and far as what the original owner told me was that they used it twice on the track.. But the age is questionable and hence why I'm thinking about throwing them away..

Maybe I'll just post it on Ebay and see what happens? LOL!

What compound? Are these bigwidehumongous cantilevers, or a DOT-R?

I'd say just run them, unless you're horribly worried about lap times. Based on my limited experience with fullsize car slicks and DOT-R's, I think even then you're probably better off with old slicks vs. new DOT-R's when it comes to grip and ultimately laptimes, if thats what they are.

On Formula-V, 2 time FP National Champ Jesse Prather runs most of the regular season on old slicks treated with Formula-V. Can't get much better proof or testimonial than that.

Grassroots motorsports just had a Q&A with tire rack about this. Its in the back of the latest issue

gracer7-rx7, you are not going to hint at what they said in the mag :(

National road race champ Jesse Prather wins 2 new slicks for each National SCCA road race that he wins. He doesn't run all year on someone else's used tires. For each race weekend, there are practice sessions and qualifying sessions and then there are the actual National races. Used tires are fine for practice, and sometimes they may even work for qualifying or even a race IF the competition is way slower. But, if comptetition is very fierce and Jesse needs that extra 1 to 2 second a lap advantage that new road race slicks provide, then Jesse will most likely pull out those new tires that he won earlier. You don't win the National Championship race on someone else's used tires.

Virgin slicks can last up to 5 years in my experience. Once they have even just one heat cycle on them, then their storage life goes down to about 1 year, to at most about 2 years. I have been using Goodyear slicks for about 11 years now.

The soaking compounds do soften a used tire for awhile, but the softening effects do not last for an entire 45 minute race.

I'd go look for the thread WHERE JESSE EXPLAINED AT LENGTH HOW TO TREAT TIRES WITH FORMULA-V AND THAT HE RAN WITH THEM but its not worth my effort.

Also note OP is not attending a competition event, or alluding to such.

"Also note OP is not attending a competition event, or alluding to such"

Excuse me. I would think that if herblenny was using a tire that had the words "For Competition Use Only" molded in the side of the tire, that he would be using them for competition. Excuse me for making the assumption that he would want to use a racing tire for racing.

I would like to read Jesse's post on tire treatment. I did searches for tire treatment and tire soaking in the Race Car Tech Forum, but was not successfulat finding one by Jesse. Could you post the link to the thread you are referencing?

Finally, please note that I said Jesse wouldn't start a close race on someone else's used tires. I did not say that he didn't use his own used tires. From my personal experience, there is a huge difference between using someone elses used Goodyear slicks (where you never really know exactly how much and how hard use they have seen, and the reason they got rid of them is because they are not good) and using your own used tires where you do know their exact history.

I have been road racing and winning with Goodyear slicks for 11 years now, and I was trying to share MY firsthand experience ... not repeat something heard from someone else. Christaylor, I started racing RX-7s before you were born.

That thread Chris is referring to was on the production forum, but I think it got lost when the forum crashed a few years back. There may have been a shorter follow up thread since then.
Funny I had my first RX before Chris was born as well, actually 2 of them.:) Man were showing our age now. Speedturn, your a lucky man to have been racing for so long. I think Chris was having a bad day when he posted.