The Great Tire Debate. Big tire vs. Small Tire.

The great debate that seems to be happening at a lot of different drag strips is what size tire should be ran, especially on the street if that is your racing style. The argument involves if there is an advantage to run a big tire over a small tire and vice versa.

Many racers are going to have their own opinion on this, but it does seem the cars running a tire that is a lot smaller than what was once ran. The tire that is being ran is a 10.5 to11.5 inch tire in the 275 class. Before the 275 tire was popular a lot of racers were running tires up to 18 inches wide but lately many racers have found out they can go just as fast if not faster on the smaller tire.

Some of the advantages of the big tires is that they can hook on almost any surface while being in the middle of a snow storm. However they are costly and a lot of modifications need to be done to run a big tire. Advantages for the small tire is they are a lot cheaper, not too many modifications need to be made to a car for them to fit and they can have the benefits as most big tires under certain circumstances. Now think a little bit about those circumstances, a lot has to go right for these tires to hook well but they can do it and they can go just as fast as the big tire cars with the technology that’s out there today.

To help with this debate let’s think about Brad Edwards, Team Z drag racer that is the first person to run in the 3 second range on 275 drag radials in the 1/8^th mile. Brad went 3.99ET at over 190mph. A lot of big tire cars have problems running this fast let alone a car with a 10.5 inch wide tire on it. Racing has gotten a lot more interesting with the popular emergence of the smaller tire and Brad Edwards record breaking runs have proved that you can go just as fast on the small tire.

 

 Let me know what you think about the great tire debate in the comments below and check out the video below to watch Brad go 3.94ET on a 275 drag radial.