In everyday life, the performance capacity of the average tire is more than enough for the average person. If you respect the limits set by the highway code, your car will never come close to reaching the maximum safe speed of your tires. Unfortunately, the rubber used by real track cars that allows them to adhere at breakneck speeds is not very useful on the highway.
To get that kind of power with a tire strong enough for life’s journeys, you need a rubber with special additives and excellent quality. It seems that this is exactly what Michelin has managed to do by making the headlines following the establishment of a new world speed record.
The car onto which the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s were installed also had its part to play in this drive at over 500 km/h. It is the all-new SSC Tuatara. You’ve never heard of this model? Don’t worry about it! After presenting a prototype in 2011, Shelby Super Cars took nearly ten years to market their product. It has only been available for a couple of months as of October 2020. The result is a supercar that breaks all previous speed records, not unrelated to the Michelin Sport Cup it holds.
Can a tire really increase the speed of a car?
At first glance, a vehicle’s tires may seem relatively unrelated to its performance. After all, what really makes the wheels turn are the engine’s pistons and belts, right? Technically, that’s true, but that doesn’t take into account many physical phenomena. The whole car has to be designed to reduce the force of the resistance applied to it. This includes air resistance, of course, which is reduced by aerodynamic curves, but also rolling resistance. This is where quality tires come into play.
For a standard production car, it is rather to reduce fuel consumption that this resistance is reduced. To do this, manufacturers add various additives to the rubber and design the treads in shapes that make them more efficient. Michelin has already taken this process to extremes in its supercar tire design.
The last car to hold the coveted record, the Bugatti Chiron, was also equipped with Michelins tires that were reinforced with carbon fiber especially for the occasion. However, the Tuatara does not need this kind of reinforcement. The same Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires that are available on Blackcircles.ca were used on Route 160 in Parham, Nevada on that fateful drive.
That says a whole lot about the quality of Michelin tires! The modern technology surrounding the manufacturing of tires offers the consumer the same performance as the fastest car in the world… at least in terms of tires. If you’ve always wanted to test drive your vehicle on the track, make sure you have the right equipment and, most importantly, the right tires before you do so. It will only enhance your experience!
