by BARC 1 » Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:41 am
Interesting and since I got back into slotting I was questioning why everyone running proxies seemed to require urethane or rubber. IMO Silicone is the best gripping tire, and I used to run silicone on all my old Cox 124 stuff. I never realized the silicone was laying down a path of anything, and if that is the case then I see why guys don't want to run them in proxies.
I have since switched to urethanes, as it seemed a must if you wanted to run in proxies. They seem better then stock rubber, but not as good as silicone to me. They true easy, but they also leave a lot of marbles on the track when running them.
So I finally have the answer of why silicone fell out of favor. Much like tire goo or any of the other product used to make rubber soft, it comes with a price. I guess the logic is if you use urethane tires only, the results are based on chassis set up , not tire choice. In addition since urethane is unaffected by chemicals you don't have the issue of chemically altered rubber tires showing up leaving a residue.
So I am now enlightened over silicone.
For me I found the best traction out of my urethanes comes with a final wet sanding on 1500 grit sandpaper. My new track has never seen silicone tires so residue is not an issue, and the traction obtained using the urethanes is very good.