Next weekend's Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio is quickly shaping into a futuristic theme with the now two new technologies that enhance the at-track experience for fans to make their competition debut in the Verizon IndyCar Series during the weekend.
Beyond the new LED position panels set to make their debut next weekend at the track, new rain tires from Firestone Racing will be available to the teams beginning at Mid-Ohio.
The new rain tires feature a new silver stripe similar to that of the red stripe of the alternate tires used at road/street circuits; this will make identification of who is using the rain tires easier for fans along the racetrack as well as those watching on TV at home and teams along pit lane.
Goals of safety, reliability, and raceability on varying degrees of wet surfaces were met through a year-long development process for the new tire, although the tread pattern and depth are the same as the previous rain tires that were introduced a year ago.
Prototypes of the tires went through wet friction tests to determine which had the most traction on a wet racetrack.
“There are a lot of things we’re doing behind the scenes to make sure we’re putting the best possible product on the racetrack," said Dale Harrigle, chief engineer for Bridgestone America's Motorsports and manager of race tire development. "For the first time, we used a lot of our company’s internal tools to look at the compound on a small scale."
Once testing was completed, a handful of tires were built and taken to Bridgestone’s proving grounds in Texas for wet traction testing in addition to “other machines in-house that we can run full-size tires on to evaluate wet traction,” Harrigle said.
“We took all of those tests and boiled it down to which compound performed the best and that’s the compound we picked for this rain tire,” he added.
Teams of the Verizon IndyCar Series provided data that was used in the development of the new tire.
Per Harrigle, the new tread compound that is optimized for grip on a wet track is a key feature of the new rain tire, as well as the silver stripe that differentiates the other tires used at road and street tracks to fans both at the track and watching on TV.
Harrigle said he expects rain tire wear to be about the same as the previous rain tires, which had a softer compound.
“A lot of it is surface-dependent,” he said. “It will be a learning process for teams and drivers. The biggest challenge for us is the concrete, which is smooth.”
The forecast for the race weekend is sun with temperatures in the mid-80s - so perhaps we won't see the new rain tires in use just yet.
Follow @VAVELIndyCar on Twitter for live coverage from the track next weekend, and don't miss our IndyCar Twitter chat Tuesday, July 28 from 6-8 pm ET.
Aaron Durant is the editor of the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @DoubleA291.