It’s 30 years since Tire Technology International launched. To celebrate this remarkable achievement, we’re reconnecting with those who have shaped the magazine over its lifetime, and asking them to revisit some of their favorite memories. In this first anniversary look-back, we hear from Graham Heeps, who edited TTI from 2004 until 2008, and from 2012 until 2018. Look out for more anniversary content throughout 2023.

I’d been offered a rare chance to visit a cutting-edge tire manufacturing plant. It was quite a scoop. “We’ll show you around but we’d like to fact-check your copy before publication,” said the tire maker.

Continue reading Tire Technology International’s 30th anniversary: Graham Heeps at Tire Technology International.

When the 1,000bhp EVs of the Nitro Rallycross series went ice racing in Canada, TTI was there to witness Yokohama’s resourceful approach to creating a bespoke studded tire for winter events.

Rallycross was created in the 1960s as a TV-friendly motorsport. Its short-duration, action-packed format is perfect for the digital age, in which extreme sports have garnered huge followings online. But in the past decade, different rallycross series – including an FIA-sanctioned world championship – have struggled to achieve lasting success.

Nitro Rallycross (abbreviated to Nitro RX or NRX) is a relatively new kid on the block, born of star driver Travis Pastrana’s Nitro Circus action-sports events.

Continue reading FEATURE | Yokohama & Nitro Rallycross at Tire Technology International.

Goodyear has signed up to continue as top-level NASCAR’s sole tire supplier for the foreseeable future. Director of race tire sales Greg Stucker reflects on the first year with the 18in tire and looks ahead to the 2023 race season.

In a form of racing characterized by continuity and tradition, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season was something of an outlier. Brand-new ‘Next Gen’ cars with unprecedented levels of standard components leveled the playing field, serving up 19 different race winners across 36 races, in one of the most unpredictable Cup seasons on record.

At the heart of it all was Goodyear, which likewise developed brand-new tires to facilitate the Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota Next Gen cars’ switch from traditional 15in steel rims to modern, 18in alloy race wheels (see NASCAR goes large, bottom).

Continue reading FEATURE | NASCAR tire development at Tire Technology International.

Driving simulators, artificial intelligence and other digital and simulation tools are making tire development an increasingly virtual process. TTi rounds up the latest in digital design and testing

Third-party model integration
For the first time, driving simulator software specialist rFpro is integrating third-party tire model suppliers directly into its road surface model software, TerrainServer. The first tire model provider to be integrated is MegaRide, whose customers are already benefiting from the new solution, rFpro claims.

Access to highly detailed road surface data helps motorsport teams develop more advanced tire models, but rFpro confirmed to TTi that the integration opportunity is also relevant to tire development engineers.

Continue reading Feature: Digital updates at Tire Technology International.

Top-class international kart racing presents a host of design and development challenges for tire manufacturers. TTi gets the inside line on creating tires for the stars of tomorrow

Karting is where household names like Lando Norris and Max Verstappen cut their teeth in motorsport. It’s also a thriving form of racing in its own right, with its own junior and senior FIA World Championships. Kart tires are highly specialized products that balance the needs for outright grip and consistent performance. In this article, TTi is focusing on race tires that are homologated by the FIA’s karting division, the Commission Internationale de Karting (CIK-FIA), as opposed to the less sophisticated rental kart tire market – but many of the principles apply to both disciplines.

Continue reading Feature: Karting tires – Great and small at Tire Technology International.

We look back to March 2021, with Graham Heeps’ feature on NASCAR’s return to racing on the dirt

NASCAR stock-car racing originated on rough-and-ready dirt surfaces across the USA. Even the showpiece race in Daytona was partly run on the beach until the paved Speedway opened in 1959. But as the cars became faster and the races more popular, the emphasis shifted to concrete and asphalt racetracks. What most people thought would be the final top-tier, Cup Series race on dirt was in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1970.

For the 2021 season, NASCAR decided to take a step back in time by covering the half-mile (0.8km) Bristol Motor Speedway in red clay ahead of the 250-lap Cup race in late March.

Continue reading 2021 in review: NASCAR dirt tires at Tire Technology International.

Graham Heeps speaks to Cooper Tire’s Jenny Paige about the tire maker’s latest hybrid-terrain design – the Discoverer Rugged Trek

Cooper’s latest hybrid terrain tire combines aggressive looks with on-road refinement.

North American light-truck and Jeep drivers are increasingly opting for aggressive-looking tires for their modified rides, but full-blown mud-terrain (M/T) rubber isn’t suited to everyday highway use. Tire makers are responding with products like the Cooper Discoverer Rugged Trek, a hybrid-terrain product that was launched earlier this year and has just been 3PMSF winter certified in eight of its 18 available sizes.

“Our enthusiast M/T product, the Discoverer STT Pro, is great for going to Moab and doing extreme off-roading, but we saw that we were losing some customers because we didn’t have the M/T look with a quiet ride and long tread life,” explains Jenny Paige, product manager at Cooper Tire.

Continue reading Profile: Cooper Discoverer Rugged Trek at Tire Technology International.

Qingdao Sentury Tire has appointed Martin Winter (pictured left) as its new global technical director OE. Together, Qingdao Sentury and Winter plan to leverage their combined experience to develop business with the leading OEMs, establishing “competitive partnerships and relationships” on European and global products for all kinds of vehicle/tire segments in PCR and light truck, according to the company. Sentury has manufacturing bases in China and Thailand.

“The way we develop tires and customer processes, and implement our company’s own processes, is being influenced and defined by OEM requirements,” says Winter. “Factors such as the current and upcoming R51.03, Euro 7, high load capacity tires, and intelligent and smart tires are also important, and we must keep a keen eye on the specific discussions around sustainability.”

Winter has more than 20 years of experience in tire manufacturing and OE development at Continental (Romania, Malaysia and Germany), Goodyear Dunlop (Germany and Luxemburg) and latterly Hankook.

Continue reading Qingdao Sentury appoints Martin Winter as global technical director OE at Tire Technology International.

During 2020, Graham Heeps revisited a number of tire technologies from the past. In this edition, he asks if the airless tire’s time has come at last

There aren’t many futuristic tire technologies that are older than the pneumatic tire itself, but the airless tire is one of them. Naturally we don’t envision a future in which autonomous pods will go bumping down the street on solid polymer donuts, but if the recent, production-intent concepts do make it to mass production then it’s possible that, a few years down the line, at least some of us will no longer be riding on air.

Continue reading 2020 in review: Air-free future at Tire Technology International.

Yokohama Tire finds the right mix as it attempts to recapture market share

Back in the early 2000s, Yokohama Tire had a 10% share of the North American UHP tire market with its Advan brand. At the time, its major competitors were Tier 1s like Michelin, Bridgestone and Continental, but since then, the likes of Hankook, Toyo and Falken have all made major plays for the same business. With Yokohama’s focus on the SUV and light truck market and an ageing product, Advan’s seemingly unassailable position eroded away.

“We did not move with the market and ended up with product that was 10+ years old,” acknowledges Fardad Niknam (below right), senior director of consumer product planning and product marketing at Yokohama Tire Corporation.

Continue reading Yokohama in UHP tire market comeback at Tire Technology International.