Talk:Racing slick

Comments
I'm not really clear on how it is that slick tires give better traction (on a dry road). To a first approximation, the friction forces between a tire and the ground are proportional to the weight and the coefficient of static friction but not the area. (The explanation is that in this model, the surfaces conform to each other in a way that increases with pressure (force per unit area), providing an amount of force that is proportional to pressure per unit area - that is, proportional to the total weight.)

But slicks do give more traction; why is that? Is it because they are made of softer materials? If so, why not make treaded tires out of similarly soft materials? (Perhaps the treads would deform excessively, or the wear would be excessive if the road contact pressure were increased.)

There are other, more complicated advantages to having a big contact patch (including resistance to localized damage to the road surface or tire), but in simple braking, slicks do seem to be better than ordinary tires.


 * Since slicks are softer than road tires, the tire "sinks" into the groves of the gravel, and this ensures a truly maximal contact patch. The slick's rubber is like putty oozing around the gravel kinks, completely in contact.  Compare this to hard road tires that are stiff enough such that the tire cannot "wrap around" the gravel perturbations (as much as slicks).  Couple this deficiency with the further lack of contact between the open groves of a road tire and the gravel, and you see why the performance gap widens even more between slicks and road tires. --K3rb 08:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Erm, tire traction is complicated. --Interiot 14:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The article implies slick tyres are not treaded tyres. Is it really true that slicks don't have treads? I think they have treads but no grooves. Grassynoel (talk) 05:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually it says correctly that these tires do not have a tread *pattern* which is different from not having treads at all. Chimaera2005 (talk) 14:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That is so, but "Slick tyres provide far more traction than treaded tyres on dry roads" implies slick tyres are not treaded tyres. I have changed it. Grassynoel (talk) 16:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Removal of brand-loyal statement
I've removed " M&H Tires are still known today for being the most "sticky" tires for drag racing due to their rubber compound." due to it being a brand-loyal statement. Although there are a lot of racers using M&H's, there are very competent, arguably better slicks made by Mickey Thompson, Goodyear, Hoosier, etc. It really comes down to a racer's preference, and stating that M&H's are the most "sticky" is strictly an opinion.Burnout1320

More talk about better traction
It is true that the max friction force before slipping is independent of the size of the tire. It is just a factor times the weight of the vehicle. So friction alone cannot explain the benefits of slicks. But I believe the concept of adhesion is the true benefit of slicks over treaded tires. Slicks allow more intimate contact with the road surface by having low air pressures and softer compounds. It is similar to a plastic sheet adhearing to the surface of your refrigerator. Friction does not keep the sheet on the fridge, it is adhesion. It is known as dispersive adhesion and is attributed to Van der Wall forces. These are weak bonds between molecules. But over a large area in intimate contact, add up to a significant total force. Another benefit of the slicks would be that the soft compound tire would be better able to conform to the surface imperfections in the road. This would the provide a mechanical way to push off of the roadway over many small hills filled with the soft tire. Sabrejim (talk) 01:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Sabrejim

Link Rot
The first link http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/071121092728.shtml has suffered link rot. Δεκλαν Δαφισ  (talk)  10:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Tires, not Tyres
The British spelling is not correct for this wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.190.29.150 (talk) 14:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, there are rules about what language to use - if there's a good reason to prefer one to the other (eg locality), use that. If not, first come first served. Another main point is don't change it for the sake of changing it. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:41, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Several points for the IP: one, the original article was created as "tyre". Two, per WP:ENGVAR, either spelling is considered correct. Three, per above, there is no reason for changing it other than your preference for "tire". As such, the spelling should remain as is. --Ckatz chat spy  17:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * According to the rules, it needs to be consistent within the text/links inside of it. The tires were INVENTED in the USA, popularized IN THE USA, and the links directing outside of here all say it the "USA way". It is not my problem the first person to start the wiki used the incorrect variant spelling.66.190.29.150 (talk) 17:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It is your problem in the sense that the rules governing this project consider either spelling to be correct. You cannot arbitrarily change it just because you disagree with those rules. As for your claim of a "British POV", I'll point out that I am Canadian (and use "tire"). I can, however, accept that this article uses "tyre". --Ckatz chat spy  17:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That's nice you can accpet it; so what? It doesn't make it any more relevant or correct. The weight of the evidence is on the side of the American spelling. Simple as that.66.190.29.150 (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It's obvious, from your attitude here and at other articles, that you really don't understand the principles this project is based upon. -Ckatz chat spy  17:46, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The "project" you seem to be involved in is baltant British POV pushing. I'll have no part in that jingoistic project. Thanks, but no thanks.66.190.29.150 (talk) 17:49, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Attempting to hide your own aggressive behaviour behind a wall of spurious, unfounded accusations is the issue here. You have disrupted this page because you cannot accept the standards of the project, you have disrupted the Falkland Islands article because you cannot accept legitimately cited material, and so on. Why? --Ckatz chat spy  17:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem isn't with legitimate cited information. The problem is, that wiki is claiming "something" is found in a cited source, yet the cited source does not contain the supposed "something". That's called lieing. Continue it if you wish, but don't you point your finger at me for trying to correct blatant lies and biases on wikipedia. 66.190.29.150 (talk) 18:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Strange to see a reference to the United States department of Transportation w/ the UK spelling. However, it also references Formula 1, which is kindof a European thing, isn't it? 76.120.65.8 (talk) 05:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Although it seems that this "discussion" is over, I would like to point out the inaccuracies of one of his statements, if you were to do a very simple amount of research you would find that tyres were invented by a Scottish man called Robert Thomson who patented them in 1846, then about 40 years later they were independently invented by John Dunlop another Scottish person, tyres were in no way invented by an American or in America.Golden Dragoon (talk) 02:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I propose changing the intro statement to: A slick tyre (in Commonwealth Nations such as UK, Australia, and others excluding Canada) or slick tire (in American English and Canadian English), also known as a "racing slick," is a type of tyre that has no tread, used mostly in auto racing. Thoughts? Cactusframe (talk) 07:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, that's what has been done in the lede of tire, but I don't know if that means we should do the same here, or that the wikilink in this article to that article is sufficient. At this point, unless there is a compelling reason for change, and I'm not aware of one, I'd rather we left it alone so as not to arouse the inevitable bickering that this issue seems to attract. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * A look at the article history, and this very discussion, shows that despite it happening several years ago, there was no agreement to make the change from the already established (And as per article created) "tyre" to "tire". I see where the commentary about the article move comes from - this article previously being titled "Slick tyre" - compounding the reasoning to retain the tyre spelling.  The article move discussion makes no commentary on whether it should be "tire" or "tyre"  Chaheel Riens (talk) 10:23, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Disputing claim that Race bike tires are unsusceptible to hydroplaning in wet conditions
this recovering broken kneecap im sitting with here is proof enough that racing bike tires DO hydroplane, especially in turns. the tread on those tires is to minimize this, but the tires still suffer from a loss of traction in moist conditions. this is normally done to reduce rolling resistance. its a tradeoff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.38.222.2 (talk) 00:14, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no need for hydroplaning to occur in order for wet pavement to cause a reduction in traction. The water merely acts as a lubricant, and the resulting loss of traction is independent of tread. Thus, a single crash does nothing to prove that racing bike tires do hydroplane. -AndrewDressel (talk) 19:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved to the singular, per the arguments from WP:ENGVAR (specifically WP:COMMONALITY), stats for WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:PLURAL. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Slick tyre → Racing slicks – Per WP:ENGVAR, we should favor wording that avoids spelling differences between American and Commonwealth English. Relisted. Favonian (talk) 20:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC). Powers T 14:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Good catch. --BDD (talk)
 * Comment Should it not be the singular Racing slick ? — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Could be, but I think WP:PLURAL allows plural use here -- because who uses just one? But I won't get too fussed if racing slick is preferred.  Powers T 18:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - They're usually simply referred to as "slicks" or "slick tyres". "Racing slicks" seems like a curious way of describing them. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose - current wording is the WP:COMMONNAME. Kahastok talk 21:17, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence of that claim. Google Ngrams shows otherwise.  Powers T 17:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're making an AmE vs. BrE point WP:ENGVAR applies here just as elsewhere. I've had a look through a few of the books quoted.  Many clearly establish context by referring to tyres within a few sentences, and all have already clearly established that they're talking about cars at this stage.  Several actually refer to "racing slick tyres/tires".  I accept that referring to slick tyres as simply "slicks" in the context of tyres or even cars is not unusual, and one might add "racing" on the front to establish that it's the style of tyre used for racing - but none of that applies when context is not established.  And we don't necessarily have this context here - how a racing slick differs from an oil slick will not be clear to a reader without an interest in motor racing. Kahastok talk 17:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * We do not use article titles to provide context. Article titles often provide context as a side effect of the other criteria that we do use, but contextualization is not one of them.  Your argument about context might fly except that the "current wording" doesn't even register at all on ngrams.  I'm not making an ENGVAR point at all; the ngram I linked is for all English sources, not just American English.  Even if you switch the language to British English, "slick tyres" registers a big fat 0.  Now, maybe there's a problem with Google's British English corpus, but I'm just putting the data forward.  If you have evidence for your claim that the current wording is the most common, please provide it.  Powers T 19:12, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, in that case it is an ENGVAR point because "tire" and "tyre" are the same word with different spellings. Even notwithstanding that, it's trivial to disprove the conclusion you're inviting us to draw that "slick tyres" isn't used.  Do a Google Books search and you will find it used.  Google ngrams is not a perfect mechanism here and I wouldn't give it a huge amount of weight.  That "slick tyre" is used should be unsurprising given the popularity of Formula One in the UK: F1 uses "slick tyres" or "slicks" when context is clear, and basically never refers to "racing slicks".


 * It also seems to me that your argument against adding terms for context also applies to the word "racing". If we're not providing context why not just call it a "slick", the one common word between all variations and a word that is regularly used on its own?  Of course, since that would need disambiguation and WP:AT prefers natural disambiguation, and the obvious natural disambiguation is "slick tyre" - a title that is far clearer about what it's talking about than "racing slicks". Kahastok talk 16:43, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The word racing is added not for context but for disambiguation, as you note. It is preferable to "tyre" because it avoids having to choose a spelling of the word "tire", a route that ENGVAR specifically recommends when feasible.  Powers T 15:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose, WP:COMMONNAME should take precedence over avoiding WP:ENGVAR. Zarcadia (talk) 10:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe it should, but it doesn't. --BDD (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Support - "Slick tyre" is not the WP:COMMONNAME, at least not on this side of the pond. The WP:COMMONAME would be Racing slick or, alternatively, Slick (tyre) (as it would be just "Slick", but dabbing is necessary). - The Bushranger One ping only 16:13, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Clearly the current name is not the common name in some countries.  There is no reason to favor one version of English over another when there is an alternative available.  While I'm not doing research on this, I have only heard of racing slicks.  I have not heard of the current name, no matter what the spelling.  Vegaswikian (talk) 00:10, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Qualified support for racing slick, per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PLURAL. Note that tire is singular. ENeville (talk) 21:43, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Tread" vs "Tread Pattern"
As noted in some of the previous discussions, the term "tread" refers to the rubber on the circumference of the tire; the grooves in that rubber that are found on non-slick tires are properly referred to as "tread pattern". Slick tires have tread, but not pattern. This article was inconsistent in its use of the word "tread". I've attempted to rectify that. MrRK (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2013 (UTC)