Re Mike Hawthorn, I worked for Dunlop Racing in the days of Moss, Stewart, McLaren, Hulme, Hill, Clarke, Courage etc there was always talk about the tyres on Mikes car as far as I am aware they were standard tyres and not experimental however I believe they had been re-grooved (in other words the pattern was changed slightly) on Mikes request, as I say its in the dim and distant past. I do remember the self inflating tyres Jackie Stewart tested them in Kylami in the off season. Yes I still have my Groundhog stickers too.
We used to hand groove the tyres in those days and hand stud the Rally tyres. We used a tool very similar to a lino printing tool that we used in Art but it was heated and the Technical bods used to give us the patterns which were transferred onto the "slick" tyres. With the advent of alloy wheels and tubeless, came the air leakage problem new valves had to be made and an inner linner was put over the centre of the wheel or it was sprayed with hair lacquer (as per the 1950/60's beehive hairdos) this was quite effective. I have a very funny story about being arrested at Schipol Airport with a bag full of these new valves two days after Lila Khalid tried to hijack an aircraft at Schipol.....but it will wait till a later date. Gone are the days when Racing Drivers were mates in the pits and would help each other, they would go from F3 to F2 to F1 cars all in one day, can you see the likes of Hamilton, Button and co doing that now and I still cringe when I see Max Mosely and Bernie Ecclestone I had no time for them then and still dont.
Dyan in NZ
We used to hand groove the tyres in those days and hand stud the Rally tyres. We used a tool very similar to a lino printing tool that we used in Art but it was heated and the Technical bods used to give us the patterns which were transferred onto the "slick" tyres. With the advent of alloy wheels and tubeless, came the air leakage problem new valves had to be made and an inner linner was put over the centre of the wheel or it was sprayed with hair lacquer (as per the 1950/60's beehive hairdos) this was quite effective. I have a very funny story about being arrested at Schipol Airport with a bag full of these new valves two days after Lila Khalid tried to hijack an aircraft at Schipol.....but it will wait till a later date. Gone are the days when Racing Drivers were mates in the pits and would help each other, they would go from F3 to F2 to F1 cars all in one day, can you see the likes of Hamilton, Button and co doing that now and I still cringe when I see Max Mosely and Bernie Ecclestone I had no time for them then and still dont.
Dyan in NZ