Interest in Goodyear D2704/D2703

[Shelby Goodyear]

I'm with Carroll Shelby Enterprises which is the Western Distributor for Goodyear Racing tires. We have spent a lot of time working and showcasing teams through the use of our website www.shelbygoodyear.com throughout 2012. We have a vested interest in the FSAE program and would like to see what type of interest there is in our Goodyear D2704 Dry and D2703 Rain tire. I would like to proposed to Goodyear that we need this tire back in the lineup and need to put together a business case. I am asking for your feedback as to quantities and such so I can put together a case to petition Goodyear to bring these two tires back into our lineup. Please send all feedback to jswift@carrollshelbyent.com. Thanks again and look forward to your response.

[Pippo69]

I really like yout attempt. These tires are really good and we need them to have more competitive tires for Formula Student use.

[theTTshark]

If they didn't want to stick around with MS&T still winning autocrosses with their tires I doubt they'll simply decide they were wrong. We were a Goodyear team for a long time, but when you find a big reduction in lap time on another brand what can you do? What we really need is a tire company willing to come into the game and be prepared to actually try. Use students to help develop them! I would love nothing more than to develop tires with a company.

[Kevin Hayward]

The last lot of Goodyears were fantastic tyres. The ECU guys certainly did not want to change. You might find that a lot of the teams that were running the Goodyears will have now made a shift to 10 inch wheels, which is a change most teams wont reverse.

Kev

[RANeff]

After driving on Hoosiers and Avons; without a doubt the Goodyears are a superior tire, you just need to use them correctly. I will say, the hoosiers do seem to be more forgiving for new drivers.

We at CSU are huge proponents of the GY and the R110 compound as a whole. Our cars since 2008 have been designed to use GY. Get us some 8 inch wide 13s along with the normal 2704, and Id be sold for life.

I do see the folly with GY pulling out, many teams went to 10's, and as said above, its likely they wont change back. Hopefully this will lead to a GY 10 in the future. Either way, they need to get back in to keep things interesting, I do not like seeing just one brand out there!

[Racer-X]

I'd love to see both the Goodyear tires and the Goodyear shootout make a comeback.

I believe the problem with the their last venture was loosing money on all the sponsorship they did. I imagine they should be able to do something like Hoosier does and sell the tires at cost or even make a profit. I know our team would be willing to pay a little extra to get the D2704's over the Hoosiers we have to run now.

[Shelby Goodyear]

This is all great. Keep up the comments and emails. This is all valid stuff that I can put into our business case to them.

[Tonks]

Adelaide has been using Goodyear's almost since the start of FSAE-A. They were a very usable tyre that we found we loved.

Last year we got stuck, with the last minute change-over to Hoosiers after Goodyear announced they were not making any more tyres. I agree with RANeff that the Hoosiers are more forgiving for newer drivers, yet the Goodyears were the better tyres.

We have yet to move to 10" wheels for various reasons, but if GY decide only to make 10's, I am sure we would be changing rather quickly.

As for quantities, the last time we bought wets were in 2010 and they are beginning to show their age after a number of runs on them. No doubt we would also get two sets of slicks for testing and comp purposes.

Madeleine

[Kevin Hayward]

The latest Goodyear tyre design ideas in a 10" version would be incredible, and I would dare say capture a large portion of the teams. The main advantage of the Goodyears was just how precise a tyre they were. In the hands of a beginner they were a bit more difficult, but once you put a guy in with a bit of experience they were incredibly fast. It meant less yaw angle required to get around a corner, which in turn meant less driver effort and a tighter cleaner line.

When they were both at operating temp the Hoosier had a slight edge on overall grip, and on a wide open track there was very little time difference between them. On tighter more technical areas the Goodyear was easily dominant. They also had a decent edge on skidpan.

Kev

[SNasello]

I would like to back up the notion that a 10" tire from Goodyear would be welcomed. If it were not for the cancellation of the D2704s, we would not have switched to 10s this year and still be running on them.

I can second the comment from Kevin that they were incredible in skidpad (coming from a skidpad driver). The intermediate version was by far one the best in the wet as well.

On a general note, it was very dissapointing to hear that Goodyear was not able to support Formula SAE/Student anymore. A diversity in tire compounds, constructions, and sizes is what make this competition so interesting from a vehicle dynamics and design standpoint. It is understandable that they do not make any money on their FSAE tires, as they are truly custom tires for FSAE (as apposed to Hoosier which just happens to have various tires in their lineup which work quite well).

To give you an idea of tire quantities that we used last year: 6 sets of dry and 6 intermediate tires (had to buy 2 more because one of them delaminated)