Grooving tires

[joncowen]

Anyone groove their own tires for rain?

I recently bought a tire groover to use for my tractor. It got me thinking if it would be allowed in the rules to groove a set of tires. Then, if i did, what points would those tires carry? Would it be based on the original tire before grooving? For instance, if i groove a Hoosier R6, would it carry R6 points?

I couldn't find anything in the rules that says you can't do it. I've read about people grooving all sorts of DOT and slick race tires, so it's not a new idea.

Hoosier has language about grooving for dirt track. Apparently, it's extremely common.

Thoughts?

[jeffw]

R6/R7 only start out with 4/32" of tread. Not much there to groove. H20 come as 8/32"

[cuda6666]

Once you go to the trouble and expense of creating a set of dedicated rain tires, you can be sure that it will never rain again when you're at the track.

[TroyV]

Perfect.

[jeffw]

Jon, please do this for us.

[Mick]

While you're at it make some snow tires.

[joncowen]

The main reason i bring this up is, the only real rain tires available carry huge points. Some people in some classes simply can't use them. If they were to groove a less grippy tire, they'd have a much better rain tire than a street tire, probably better than an NT01 or RA1. It seems like, if it were to rain, you'd have an advantage.

So, if someone was in this position, and ended up winning because of this, would people protest? And if they did, would there be any grounds for the protest to stand?
I don't see it as a safety issue. If you don't cut past the tread, you haven't damaged the tire's structure.

I shouldn't say this:
FYI, grooving is much easier than i expected. You can set the depth of the groove pretty accurately. Each groove, extending all the way across the tread, takes only a few seconds. You can get different groove widths and shapes, etc. I'd bet you can do a set of tires in a few hours the first time, doing it very carefully. My tractor tires took maybe 1.5 hours, but i wasn't being too careful.

Hell, you could buy tires, and wait for the forecast to groove them.If it never rains, you can use them as your regular tires.

V710 for example, seems like it would be a good candidate. Groove them, and you have a pretty good rain tire, with only 6 points compared to 10. No, not as fast as the H20, but i'd bet they would be superior to the 2 point tires, or street tires. Especially as an intermediate tire, where tread depth isn't as important.