On street heat cycling

[Charlie Guthrie]

You would not be the first one to do their own heat cycling. In my local car
club the prevailing "rule of thumb" is 100 miles at freeway speeds is equal
to heat-cycling. Other members have a local freeway ramp sequence that loads
both sides of the car (left and right exits). Mostly you need to get the
tires up to operating temperature so doing it in February can be tough. I
heat cycled my last set of Kumhos between home and VIR International raceway
at night before instructing for a full course event. I probably could have
done a better job of heating them since it was cold, but where there was
little traffic, I swerved the car enough to warm up the tires.
Unless you are really planning to baby the tires, you should plan on having
them shaved. A full tread depth tire heats up more (tread squirm and flex).
Also, rubber which is very strong in compression is weak in tension
(pulling). When a full tread depth tire is side loaded, the outside tread
blocks are pushed toward the center of the tire which pulls the rubber on
the outside of the tire (tension) and can pull the entire tread block from
the tire carcass (chunking). An alternative to paying for shaving is to run
the tires on the street or a few autocrosses until the desired 4/32" tread
depth is reached....and then go tracking. Again, you would not be the first
track junkie to "street shave" his tires.
Charlie Guthrie