Letters

KEVIN CAMERON

Kevin’s column mentioned Yamaha’s MotoGP bike having premature rear tyre wear.

What if the rear wheel diameter is increased by 1/2 inch to I assume 17 1/2?

Obviously that would also affect the dynamics elsewhere’ but I’m sure that could be easily resolved.

Steven Burton

The riders or translators refer to it as wear, but it’s actually chemical change in the tread rubber. This is what they refer to as ‘drop’, and there can be more than one. When I get with a cooperative tyre engineer, I’m told this results from changes in the distribution of clumps of carbon black in the rubber compound. Tyres today are able to deliver fast laps near the end of races, something that the old compounding methods could never do. You’d see