The Lakebed and Traction

[PrestonLK]

So most of you probably already know, but I didn't, and I want to make anyone who might have made the same mistake as me aware: You don't need to use off-road tires on the lakebed, you can use drag tires there and get better traction than the off-road tires would. Seems kinda backwards (at least to me), but it's true.

[Flacido Domingo]

It's a rather smooth surface on the salt flats, and it also should be very dry. Kinda makes sense once you think about it.

[PrestonLK]

Originally posted by Flacido Domingo:

It's a rather smooth surface on the salt flats, and it also should be very dry. Kinda makes sense once you think about it.

While a kinda smooth surface, it’s not one that stays together. Salt breaks away as you drive over it, so it wouldn’t perform anything like asphalt. This is why I assumed off-road tires would perform better.

[Flacido Domingo]

Well, can't say I've ever been to any sort of salt flats in person. From what I've seen on the videos of people breaking speed records on the salt, they seem to be using something that looks like slicks. A bit of salt sticks to the tyre and you get nice contact surface.

[PrestonLK]

I've never driven on a salt flat either, I'm just explaining why I made the assumption I did. I don't know what in reality would be best on this terrain, just wanted to let anyone who might've made the same assumption as me know they could use slicks fine

[Tahnval]

The game itself recommends offroad tyres for Dooga salt flats.

Has anyone tried drags and offroad of the same size? I'm thinking that maybe the size of the contact patch matters.

Me being me, I now have the urge to test it with my main dirt racing car...

SVX6-powered Walea set up for dirt tracks. 1132HP, 1146Nm. Does about 20s laps at Backyard and about 51.5s laps at Imalona. Not ideal for drag racing (e.g. D50 gearbox, Narnoo sports suspension) but it'll do for this testing. 255x15 wheels, which have all three types of tyres.

First runs fitted with new offroad tyres and a full tank, every part at 100%. Did 5 runs at each distance and took the best time.

400m: 8.57
800m: 14.02

Took it back to the garage, swapped the tyres to drags, repaired everything back to 100% if it wasn't already, topped up the tank and went back to Dooga salt flats to do 2x5 runs again.

400m 8.43
800m: 13.93

There was a brief loss of traction at ~6500rpm (recommended shift point is ~7500rpm on that engine) in 1st on offroad tyres. None with drags.

So I'm switching to drags for Dooga salt flats.



Here's an oddity at the top end:

The outright land speed record vehicles use solid wheels on salt flats. It's not a free choice for them because there aren't any tyres that could handle the speed. They have almost no grip at all above moderate (for them) speeds. It's not strictly necessary as the wheels don't drive the vehicles and steering is done mostly by air (the wheels working like a rudder on a plane), but even a breeze from the side upsets the steering. There's cockpit video of the current record holder (Thrust SSC) and the driver/pilot is almost constantly steering to maintain a straight line. Go off straight by 1 degree once and you die. I think I would have been screaming and wetting myself. He was calmly commentating. If you watch the video, note the use of a check list and contact with control before getting clearance and starting. Land speed vehicles nowadays have at least as much in common with planes as they do with cars. A shame that the team ran out of money on their attempt to up the record to 1000mph because COVID delayed the final run. They had the vehicle built and had run it up to 628mph in testing without using the rocket. It was all looking good for the 1000mph attempt.

[Tahnval]

On a related note, it's sometimes better to use drag tyres on a tarmac track too. Mostly with very powerful cars and mostly on the ovals. They handle a bit differently and the tyres wear faster the slicks, but I get slightly better lap times.

[Laben LLTS]

Do you think this would also apply to the mines? I have been using off road tyres there so far.

[Creative Pudding]

Salt Lake is special it is not dirt! Still, the off-road tires are the best in terms of traction, however there are very small differences with drag or street tires on Salt Lake, not like with dirt / tarmac roads. Since drag tires usually wider, it could have more traction then an "smaller" off-road tire.
Drag tires are good for straight line... they don't act well in turns and they really bad on dirt.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Creative Pudding:

Salt Lake is special it is not dirt! Still, the off-road tires are the best in terms of traction, however there are very small differences with drag or street tires on Salt Lake, not like with dirt / tarmac roads. Since drag tires usually wider, it could have more traction then an "smaller" off-road tire.
Drag tires are good for straight line... they don't act well in turns and they really bad on dirt.

That's not been my experience in the game.

I tested the same car in the same state of repair with off-road and drag tyres of the same size (255x15) and it was reliably faster using drag tyres in both 400m and 800m Dooga salt lake drags. Not much, but noticeably and consistently so.

Using drags on tarmac circuits can also be better than slicks in some circumstances in my experience. Maybe that's down to individual players, but I prefer drags to slicks in the game for some cars on some tarmac tracks.

No argument about drags on dirt, though. I mentioned trying that by mistake in another thread. I'd put drags on my main dirt racing car to see how it would do at the Gutta drag strip and I forgot to switch back to offroad before going on Backyard.

[Creative Pudding]

might be tire pressure was different? lower pressure has more traction but has more drag at high speed...
driving style and car setup are always different, so you might find drag tires better for racing. Slicks are very unforgivable (just like in real life). They are good until you overheat, slide out etc... street tires are the easiest to handle mistakes, but they are make you slower (somewhat which again, if you make mistakes you might be faster then using slick) Drag are somewhere between, they have different characteristics

[Tahnval]

Oh, I definitely make mistakes. Partly because I'm only somewhat skilled in racing games and partly because I'm using mouse and keyboard. Superb for most things, not for racing games.

I didn't change pressure for either set of tyres when I did my testing at Dooga, but maybe default pressure for drag tyres is lower than default pressure for slicks in Revhead. I'm fairly sure drag tyres are generally used with lower pressure than slicks in reality, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it's set up in Revhead.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Laben LLTS:

Do you think this would also apply to the mines? I have been using off road tyres there so far.

I doubt it. The mines are dirt, which is quite different to salt lake bed. Drag tyres are abysmal on dirt (and rightly so). When I did it (by mistake) on Backyard the results were hilariously bad. I'd suggest trying it with a car you don't mind crashing.

[Tahnval]

I've revisited tarmac tracks and slicks and I was wrong before. With the right car (Buthanbang) and suspension (Euroa 2), able to use 20 inch wheels safely and effectively while cornering, I took 3 seconds off my lap time at Yanagin Forest (which I use for testing tarmac circuit setups) by switching from drag tyres to 305 slicks. From 1m15.x to 1m12,x, so that's a large improvement.