By Terri Hundertmark—Professional Race Car Driver

Before I became a race car driver, tires were the last thing in my mind when it came to driving my streetcar. I am a girl, girls don’t need to know those things. Many of us overlook a tires importance because they just are not familiar with tires. Most people think that as long as they are round and have enough tread on them to keep air in them that they are ok.

Believe me, tires are the most important component of your car. They are what keep you in contact with the road. The racing term is “contact patch”. This is the area of the tire that is touching the road at any time. The contact patch grips the road and helps you control your car. The are really three points of keeping a tire performing properly and keeping you safe. They are proper inflation, tread depth and buying a quality tire. 

Did you know that over one half of all motorists don’t check their tire pressure regularly? I always thought that that I was pretty good at keeping my car well maintained. I always looked at the tire sidewall and filled them up to what the tire listed as the maximum pressure allowed. I thought that the ride was a little bumpy but hey, they seemed to last along time! Did you know forty-eight percent of everyone does this? Fifty-five percent of us use an unreliable resource when we finally do check our tire pressure. As a racecar driver, I quickly learned that proper tire inflation is one of the most important factor of a keeping my racecar handling well and keeping me safe! How do you know how much air a tire needs? Look at your car owners manual or the placard on the car door. Your owners manual will specify the psi your tires need to perform properly. Your car manufacturer logged many miles on the track and road to come up with this value to keep your car performing at it peak and keeping you safe. Proper inflation effects handling, fuel economy, tire wear and braking. If your tires aren’t properly inflated they will wear bad or wear out early and use more gas. The worse scenario is that your tire inflation isn’t even from side to side and it pulls to the side during braking or your car becomes uncontrollable in wet or slick situations.

Tire quality is important! I thought that as long as the tire was round and properly balanced that was good enough for me. If I didn’t have any money when it came time to replace my tires, I would get those four, for a hundred-dollar tires to last a few months until they wore out and I had more money. A tire is a tire right? Wrong! You bought that twenty thousand-dollar sports car and you are ruining its performance and handling by using that hundred-dollar set of tires. I’m not trying to say buy a tire because of the trendy brand name, buy a better tire because your life that is in jeopardy. I am saying buy the best quality tire you can at the best price. Remember, how much is your family’s safety worth! Your speedometer might say your car can go 100 mph but those tires can’t. With a tire that isn’t right for your car it will effect you’re the way your steering feels, handling, braking, tracking and worse yet, control of the car! How do you know what tire you should buy? Go back to your owners manual and see what they recommend and talk to you tire salesman. Select a tire that is designed for your car and how you use it. Some tires are designed for touring or highway travel while others are more performance minded.

Tread depth is the last point of keeping a tire performing properly and keeping you safe. What does the tire groove do? Racecar tires aren’t grooved why should we worry about tread depth? Remember the contact patch? The tread design (grooves in the tires) channels water out of the area where your tire meets the road. If you have worn out tires, the water can’t escape and your car will hydroplane. That’s why racecars use grooved tires in the wet, control and safety. When I saw my tires starting to wear out I thought that I’d save money and buy two at a time, half the money right? This was definitely wrong! Uneven tread is was dangerous as having my tires improperly inflated or buying cheap tires! When you try to turn sharp with uneven tread on all four tires the car it will understeer or oversteer. Understeer is where you have no steering and the backend of the car takes control spinning you around like a pendulum. Oversteer is where the car has too much steering. The car acts like your snowplowing down the ski slope. Most of us have probably experience this condition when we brake hard on a sick road and the front end keeps pushing you right where you don’t want to go!

A quality, properly inflated, tire with tread on your mini-van is as important in keeping yourself and family safe as that baby seat. Tires do matter!