gfirth77

I use a qstarz GPS receiver with an Android phone running RaceChrono. Works perfectly. 10Hz GPS and you can analyse your lap data on the phone as soon as you stop the session. Quite a few people at the track do this, but it's a poor mans solution compared to a Starlane or some other full dashboard product. RaceChrono is free and works on Android and Nokia.

I'm doing ride school level 2 and 3 in Jan when ride school starts up again so I'll try out the Dunlop D211 Hard which I know is soft compared to road tyres and see how they last. Maybe if I get down to the low/mid 1:40's I'll definitely need some track worthy tyre's. Perhaps its better to not hit the limit before its too late

So in my circle of friends we ride track days at various levels. For this conversation I'll use Philip Island because that is where we ride 100% of the time. As everyone knows it's also a new surface with humongous amounts of grip. These are track bikes, so no road use. The three of us quite often discuss tyres and bike setups. We have setup our bikes suspension as best we know given all our knowledge we have gained from reading and learning from others. Rebound, Rebound, Rebound... Can we talk tyre compound vs. lap times vs. tyre wear. Let's assume I have a good setup and am getting the most out of my tyres. My reasoning for this is, my tyres wear patterns seem right on the money and don't show signs of hot/cold tears etc. once a couple of sessions are run. Not from what I can tell anyway. I use tyre warmers and run lap times around 1:49-1:51 at Philip Island fairly consistently. As always after every session, we check pressures, tyre temp and visually inspect the tyre for wear patterns. tears etc. If we notice something we adjust accordingly. 99% of the time its pressure as the day unfolds and warms up from the morning to the afternoon. You can see the tyre cleans up after each session as you get closer and closer to the optimal setting. As we ride the same track all the time, other suspension settings rarely get touched. Rebound maybe if the temperature is really cold in the morning. Spending lots of $$ of race slicks or super sticky compound tyres seems to me a waste if I'm not running even near the limit of less sticky road based tyres. What I am trying to understand is at what point do these super sticky tyres have a benefit over less sticky, road based tyres and ones riding ability? I can buy a tyre that will give me 6-8 tracks days, maybe more if I push right to the wear indicator, or a super sticky tyre that gets me 3 track days, but in either case, my lap times are the same because of my ability. Currently I run about 33psi hot on the front and 24psi hot on the rear. Front is a Diablo Rosso Corsa and rear is a Battlax race slick 190/645R17 I got from someone who had raced it. I've done 3 track days on it now and it needs replacing. What I am trying to understand and maybe see if I am off the mark here is, do all these different tyre compounds etc. only make a difference when you are near or close to the limits? If I'm 15-20 seconds off what my current tyres can do am i wasting the tyre? I've been told I should go for a medium compound for grip, but I think I should go for a hard for longevity. For me, using less tyres is better for costs. I would think if I was running in the 1:30's and looking for tenths of seconds I would look at compounds etc. Does this make sense to those out there? I guess my point is people say get the sticky rubber its better, but is it really for the average track day rider?