I'm gonna throw in my 2cents worth on this very important subject.
To start with a drag radial is the best straight line traction tire made, and BFG rules in this department.
What many people are not aware of is the compounds in the tire are lost after each burnout, or in the case of the club sport tires, after each session at the track. They really do require heat to function properly. The compounds are a mixture of oils and chemicals.
As these compounds are depleted the tire looses a great amount of traction.
The heat cycles are what doe's this not the tread loss.
OEM tires do not have the same compounds in them. They are made for longer life.
and as mentioned above warmed up tires do very well not because the rubber has become soft due to heat, but it's the heat that releases these sticky compounds. When the compounds are depleted the tire will no longer have good traction no matter how hot it gets.
Different brand drag radials such as the Nitto Extremes are very long life compared to BFG's but they do not have the same compound formula.
This is one of the reasons that any type tire will loose traction with age even though they have never been ran hot. They slowly loose these compounds over time, not to mention what ozone damage they have suffered. Just running a tire on the hot pavement at high speed will start releasing these compounds.
About ten burn outs on a set of drag radials, and they are nearly worthless, but they are still better than a convential tire. Replace them with new tires, and you will see a huge difference.
By the way watch out for tire vendors with special tires that are on sale. Check the DOT date. Old tires that are brand new suffer much damage from ozone when sitting around for two or three years, regardless to what they say. I know of vendors that have sold such tires to the Viper community, and claimed no degredation. Shame on them.
I'm not sure if it's the compounds in the rubber or the actual rubber that's depleted from age, but they are lousy tires compared to fresh stock. This is why the OEM runflat's are fair when brand new. They are usually very fresh tires if you bought the car shortly after it was built. The factory tires are allways the best, compared to the ones at the tire store.
Clup sport tires are depleted very fast when doing burnouts for drag racing.
