Cooper Tire Europe has announced a new feature to its presence at the 2013 Rally Day event. The company’s 4×4 zone will offer visitors the chance to ride in one of DriveTech’s 4×4 machines, which swaps speed for sheer inclines and drops, mud, water and more as the Cooper rubber is put through its paces in a demanding off-road course.
Marty McCormack and Phil Clarke clinched the inaugural West Wales Rally Spares RAC Rally Championship with one round still to run as they slid their Kumho-shod MKII Escort to a fourth consecutive victory on 8 September’s Red Kite Historic Stages event. Commenting on the result, Kumho’s European motorsport manager Steve Thompson said: “Marty and Phil have performed faultlessly throughout this excellent new championship and thoroughly deserve their win. We are naturally delighted with the way our tyres have aided their cause.”
While many motorsport series take a summer break in August, Yokohama says there was still plenty to keep its tyre engineers busy across Europe and the world last month. The Japanese brand supports more than 35 race series in the UK and Europe with more around the world, including the USA and Asia, including the FIA World Touring Car Championship, the FIA European Rally Championship and the UK BRDC Formula 4 series.
Rubber prices are entering a “bull market” as futures hit a three-month high following indications that China's economy is likely to demand more rubber for tyres. According to a Bloomberg report, rubber for delivery in January advanced as much as 3.2 per cent to 278 yen a kilogramme (2,817 a metric tonne) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, 22 per cent up from this year’s lowest close.
World Rally Championship tyre supplier Dmack pronounced itself pleased by the performance of its new S3 version of the DMT-RC asphalt race tyre, introduced on the challenging Rallye Deutschland. The German round of the FIA championship has three distinct asphalt surfaces, which allowed Dmack to supply the DMT-RC for the first time since the mixed winter conditions at Rallye Monte Carlo in January. Dick Cormack, Dmack motorsport director, said: “It’s important that we constantly progress.”
Previewing the coming German round of the FIA World Rally Championship, tyre supplier Dmack has revealed the ways in which it views the all-asphalt event as another tough challenge. The first full asphalt event of the season attracts fans from across Europe, Dmack is looking forward to testing its tyres on Germany’s demanding special stages as it aims to follow WRC2 victory at Rally Finland. Dick Cormack, Dmack motorsport director, said: “We are hoping to follow the success in Finland on gravel with another solid result on asphalt.
WRC competitors will be able to select tyres from an additional manufacturer in 2014 after Pirelli registered as an official supplier to the Championship. The FIA confirmed on 1 August that the Italian manufacturer will join existing suppliers Michelin, Dmack and Hankook, who continues to supply tyres to Junior WRC.
Falken Tyre Europe is sponsoring a ‘rally with a difference’ this month. Yesterday, cars competing in the Black Sea Circle rally headed off from Berlin, and Falken says this – Europe’s most eastern rally – is “about driving the way it used to be.” The rally route takes competitors around the Black Sea as far as Odessa, a total distance of 7,000 kilometres (4,350 miles).
China’s Shandong Yongtai Chemical Group, manufacturer of the Durun tyre brand and the DMack tyres used in the World Rally Championship, and UK tyre wholesaler Treadsetters have jointly acquired automotive supplier Covpress. The two companies are believed to have paid £30 million to buy the Coventry-based firm, which employs around 450 people and manufactures body panels for vehicle manufacturers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Renault. Chinese and UK media sources report Shandong Yongtai will hold a 70 per cent stake in Covpress and TIA Group company Treadsetters the remaining 30 per cent.
Supertracker has given wheel alignment support to West Midlands father and son driving team, Keith and Dylan Evans and their Subaru Legacy Estate in the annual Help4Heroes 4×4 European Rally 2013. The team was awarded Total Off-Road Magazine’s 'Best Non Land Rover performance', having been primed by Supertracker, which set up and adjusted the wheel alignment and sourced special Landsail tyres for the 14-day trip across a number of European countries, visiting numerous battle locations and memorial sites from WW1 and WW2.
Tyre supplier to the FIA World Rally Championship Dmack has been chosen as the first fitment to three of the five new Ford Fiesta R5s built by M-Sport debuting on the Neste Oil Rally Finland next month. Local driver Jari Ketomaa and Norwegian Eyvind Brynildsen in Autotek-run Fiesta R5s wrapped in Dmack 2013 livery, and Robert Barrable from Dublin, Ireland in his CA1 Sport Fiesta plan to line up at the start of the event in Jyvaskyla with Dmack’s DMG+2 gravel tyre. Dmack, a brand manufactured in China by Shandong Yongtai and developed over the past few years in tandem with Carlisle-based Dick Cormack, faces stiff competition from the other WRC tyre supplier, Michelin. Dmack launched a range of passenger car and commercial vehicle tyres through a number of global distribution partners in 2012.
Spectators watching this Sunday’s DTM round at the Norisring circuit in southern Germany will no longer have to puzzle over which tyres each driver has selected. Championship tyre supplier Hankook has decided to visually differentiate the option tyres by printing its brand name in larger, yellow text on the sidewall. Viewers at home will also be helped in the tyre department through additional on-screen information; graphics shown on televised coverage will now also indicate which tyres a vehicle is using. This information is transmitted via the rim-mounted sensors each DTM car has used since the start of 2012 to convey information on tyre pressure.
Data from Bridgestone’s Safety Campaign 2012 has revealed that 78.3 per cent of tyres on the 28,700 cars inspected across Europe throughout the year were under-inflated to varying degrees. Additionally, 25.6 per cent of the tyre population was found to be worn below 1.6mm. The company completes a survey during its safety check workshops across Europe each year, and the latest data shows an increase in the number of tyres found to be under-inflated.
An 11-year old racing driver has gained tyre brand Falken’s support alongside her first victory in the National Ministox series. The Japanese manufacturer supplies tyres to Catherine Harris as part of its expanding presence in UK grass roots motorsport. The brand recently announced its intention to back the ANWCC Under-17s AutoSOLO and the K11 Micra Rally series, and is using this involvement as a way of raising the awareness of the importance of tyres to the next generation of car drivers.
In accordance with the new regulations in the FIA European Rally Championship (FIA ERC), Michelin launched its latest range of asphalt rally tyres at the GEKO Ypres Rally between 27 and 29 June. The French tyre maker describes the new Michelin Pilot Sport R range as “streamlined” and “cost-effective” – music to the ears of ERC organisers, whose proposal to restrict tyre usage as of the Ypres Rally was agreed upon by the FIA on 24 May. Organiser Eurosport Events says these measures have been implemented to “reduce the cost of competing in the flagship competition.” This decision followed new tyre regulations introduced by the FIA on 1 May.
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