Tire Rotation Direction

[Chris Genovese]

My fronts are pretty close to done. I just bought a new set, but I'm wondering if I should try to squeeze one more race from what's on the kart. The fronts have worn on the inside edge most, and the left tire is more worn than the right because the last 3 races have run the same direction on the track. Here is my question:

Initially I was thinking I'd swap right to left so that the inside edge is now the outside.... but that worn left tire would go over to the right at the same time that the track will be running counter clockwise thus putting the wear on that same tire. So... MG tires show that they're directional, but they're slicks so I'm not sure why they're directional. Is it a bad idea to swap the tires backwards onto their respective rims and run them backwards to put the wear on the tire that has more rubber?

Or should I just go ahead and swap them to the new set now lol? Even though the wear bars have tread left that inside lip on my front left tire is pretty worn.

Oh, and I'm running MG Reds in the 206 Senior Class for reference.

[Paul Jones]

The directional nature of the tire is due to the construction of the tire (inner ply overlaps), and not tread. Not sure if there is a performance issue when run backwards, but I suspect there is. The inside wear of the tire is due to the conning effect of the tire under load in the high G corners. The wheel is literally forced out, creating a cone in the tire, with the inner edge being larger diameter than the outer edge, thus putting more weight and wear on the inner edge. This is observable in both the front and back tires. The fronts get extra wear due to any understeer or "push" effect you might have. Some racers do swap tires, but keep rotation direction the same, requiring remounting the tires. Like most things, it may be in your best interest to test these options under practice days before putting it to work in race conditions. Hope this helps some.

[Chris Genovese]

Thanks for your input! I ended up swapping the fronts for the new tires last night after doing a little research. The front right could have made another race but the left front tire was pretty much done. The rears I think have a couple more races in them and have even wear across the tire thanks to the solid axle.