As I was driving down the road tonight in the rain, I could feel myself hydroplane a bit. I naturally slowed down and then a weird problem came into my head.
As we all know, on a drag strip a racer does a spinning of the tires before they do the actual 1/4 mile or whatever. This makes the tires sticky and heats them up so that they will stick to the track during the actual race down the drag strip for improved take-off at the christmas tree (ie: red, yellow, and green light)
For improved design on tires, a tire warmer would work to grip roads better, or just natural driving will heat up the tires and make them grip better (in the short term - long term it will reduce tread and make the tire less grippy.)
My question is though, when the road is wet, what will grip the road better.
A "cold" tire, or a "hot" tire?
If they run drag runs in the rain (
) do they run the pre-heat of the tires as well? And if so, does it really help, or does it make it worse by adding the stickiness of the tire and the released oils from the rubber to the already "slippery when wet" track?