[longish] RE: Rally tire/Winter tire question

["Crane, Damien" <d3c@TENNANTCO.com>]

Jon, 

You make an excellent point.  Nothing messes up you year like an accident
where you do serious damage to valuable property or worse, hurt someone.  No
matter how much fun something seems, If you really hurt (or God-forbid,
kill) someone badly, you will wish you had never been born, and it _will_
take the fun right out of cars possibly forever.

I have not set the Scirocco up for winter yet, so I may agree that having
snow tires on the front will not be safe.  I will see.  I do take safety
very seriously, and I don't screw around on streets and any appreciable
degree unless I know the only person/thing I can possibly screw up is me/my
car.  When it snow (I live in Mpls.) I come to work at 5:00 am so I have
some chances when no one else is around.  

As far as the potential for spinning a car is concerned, I will be testing
that very carefully.  For me the most important thing is knowing--really
knowing how my car handles and how it will respond in different situations.
I have gone off semi badly in rallies a couple of times.  In both
situations, the culprit has been understeer.  One of them resulted in an
excursion into a large, unaccomodating tree at 50 mph.  So I'm sensitive and
intolerant to it.  In an over-the-limit situation, once understeer sets in,
you're screwed.  Give it gas--more understeer.  Get on the brakes--more
understeer.  My tire plan is to compensate for the inherent understeer built
into the chassis.  But I will be doing this carefully and with much safe
testing.

I have to disagree with you on the front vs rear wheel drive issue.  (By the
by, I also lust after the Stratos and have even considered building a rally
Fiero because it would emulate (give me some latitude here) the Rally 037,
but a Delta S4 or Delta Integrale EVO are the 4wd cars that crank my mojo).
I think that rwd is fun, but that there is a real art to driving a fwd car
fast on a loose surface.  In order to have a good speed/control combination
with fwd, you must have the chassis set up right and then you really have to
be good at judging the speed at which you enter the corner.  If you do it
just right, you can stay on the gas pretty hard all the way through the
corner.  It may not make that much difference on snow because the traction
is fairly low, but in a gravel corner, being able to have the car pulling
hard through it make the corner fast.  Unfortunately in a rally, you don't
know how the corner will finish, so it is very difficult and risky to do.
If you look at the stage times for the STPR rally there was one guy in a
Golf who was up among the Open class 4wd turbo monsters (running as high as
3rd overall--incredible).  If you're willing to take the chances, and have
the skill (for me that would be no, and no) fwd can be extremely fast on the
loose.

Anyway, I'm glad you responded.  (can you tell I don't feel like working
today?).  And don't worry about the hen thing.  If there is one thing this
list needs, it's the occasional voice of reason (Where has Mannix been
lately, anyway?) and reality check.

Damien

> ----------
> From: 	Jon Auringer[SMTP:J.Auringer@astronautics.com]
> Sent: 	Friday, November 13, 1998 10:20 AM
> To: 	Crane, Damien
> Cc: 	scirocco-L@scirocco.org
> Subject: 	Re: Rally tire/Winter tire question
> 
> Crane, Damien wrote:
> 
> > Being a rally guy, I have an irrational need to be sideways, I plan to
> get
> > some good snowtires (probably Guardex) for the front and leave
> > all-but-one-seasons on the back.  (There is _nothing_ like balancing a
> full
> > opposite lock slide all the way around a cloverleaf!!!!!!     ...in the
> > middle of the night when there is nobody else around, of course)
> 
> Damien,
> 
>  As a rally guy, I would think that you prize balance over
> tail-happy. If you really like to run hard in the snow, I would
> recommend finding a good rear wheel drive vehicle. My 66' Type 1 was
> an absolute blast in the snow. It gave a level of control that a
> front wheel drive car will never be capable of. My personal choice,
> If I had any money, would be a Lancia Stratos. Of course a Sport
> Quattro would be a lot of fun too.
> 
>  As for the Scirocco, a car known for great handling, I would have
> to say that matched snows all the way around is the way to go. The
> balance will be much better, and the tail (at least in my car), can
> still be brought around on trailing throttle if you desire. Your
> blasting around the clover leafs may not be as much fun, but having
> the car swap ends under heavy braking in traffic on a snowy morning
> could be a major bummer. Bridgestone feels strongly enough about the
> subject, that they will only let their dealers sell Blizzaks in sets
> of four. I know that you are an adult and can make decisions for
> yourself, but there may be people on the list that may take your
> lead without knowing the full ramifications of the decision.
> 
>  Sorry if I sound like a mother hen, but I hate the thought of
> people getting hurt when we are supposed to be having fun.
> 
> Later,
> 	Jon
> 
> Jon Auringer
> J.Auringer@astronautics.com
> 

--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send email to scirocco-L-request@scirocco.org,
with your request (subscribe, unsubscribe) in the BODY of the message.