Details

Category: Latest News

Created on Thursday, 24 July 2014 11:13

Click image to download

Nuts Bolts

Who’s Racing:

Tudor United SportsCar Championship (P, PC, GTD GTLM) – July 25, 2014 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge – July 25, 2014

Track:

Indianapolis Motor Speedway- 2.435-mile, 14-turn stadium road course

Length:

 Tudor Championship – 2:45 hour Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge – 2:30 hour time limit

Tire Sets:

Tudor Championship -P teams will be allowed 9 sets of tires (including dry and wet tires), PC 6 sets, and GTD teams will receive 7 sets.  

There is no set limit for the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge.

WHICH TIRE ARE THEY USING:

**Continental Tire has designated, Blacks, as the dry tire to be raced at all natural and street road courses in 2014.  If teams move to wet tires, the P and PC classes will remain on, Blacks, while the GTD class will be on, Golds.

P    Blacks – the same tire compound used at Sebring, Long Beach, Laguna Seca, Detroit, Mosport, Indy, Road America, COTA and Road Atlanta.  

PC    Golds – the same tire compound used at Daytona, Watkins Glen and Indy.  

GTD    Blacks – the same tire compound used at Sebring, Laguna Seca, Detroit, Watkins Glen, Mosport, Indy, Road America, VIR, COTA, and Road Atlanta

CTSCC – this tire compound will be used at all tracks this year.

Pit Window:

The pit window (fuel run) for the weekend is approximately 36-40 laps for DP, PC and GTD cars. The Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge will pit approximately every hour (or 36 laps) and will use roughly 3-4 sets depending on class and front or rear-wheel-drive. These are just approximations and does not account for fuel mileage, weather or caution flag laps.

Track Characteristics:

Both the Tudor Championship and CTSCC will move to the newer road course circuit this year. It is the same circuit used by Indy Car earlier this year and eliminates the banking through NASCAR Turns 2 and 1. Passing will be a challenge and entry into the corners will be key. Based on a test in June, it appears the track has more grip than last year so lap times should be faster.

FYI

• How many? – Continental Tire will bring approximately 3,000 tires to Indy to accommodate two series for both dry, and wet, conditions.  
• Change Up – The track configuration has changed for 2014. Continental Tire tested on the new configuration with several teams in June and with the deletion of the banking, it was determined the “black” tire, typically used for natural and street courses, would be used for P and GTD. The “gold” tire was kept on the PC car because that’s what tested best.
• Seeing double – Due to the unique set-up for Indy’s “Super Weekend”, Continental Tire will host two separate processing centers. There will be a processing center in both the Tudor Championship and Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge paddock’s. More than 25 people will help to process tires for the more than 100 teams in attendance.  
• Tire development - When designing the ExtremeContactTM Dry Race tire, Continental Tires’ team of engineers had guidelines set for by IMSA to help guide them with the development process. Some of the guidelines included:
  • Designing a tire with carcass integrity that would allow a car to go around the track and return to pit road with a flat tire.
  • A tire that would come up to temperature in a short amount of time.
  • A tire that works equally well on all chassis.
  • A tire that wouldn’t produce marbles to allow for multiple racing lines around the track.

Another challenge that the Continental Tire team was faced with was producing a tire that could run anywhere. From the high banks of Daytona, to the mix of concrete and pavement at Indy, to the 14-turn, 4.048-mile natural road course of Road America, Continental had to build a tire that would adapt to a variety of track surfaces and they did just that. Week after week, drivers and teams can focus on race strategy without worrying about the durability of the tire.

Download this release (Word® doc)