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Re: E36 M3 Tire Pressures

* With the M3 they had the following results,
*which may be of interest to M3 owners who are wondering about the best
*tire pressures for a track event. 

i've omitted the actual numbers; i have a question based on my
general lack of respect for MT as a source of automotive
information: to wit, did they discuss whether they had done
anything about tire & pavement warmup?  in other words,
how controlled were the conditions for this test; did they account
for changes in tire temperatures as the weather changes and
as time goes by and heat in tires go up?  how long did they run
(in the course of a full day of hard driving, the wear on a tire
makes a significant contribution to the behaviour of said tire.)

*cut the "margin of error" making them more prone to spin. 

this may be more significant than is commonly realized.  i find
that overinflated rears (by as little as 2psi) can trigger snap
spins in some well balanced rear drive cars in corners like big
bend and the left hander at lime rock, particularly if the driver
is good at trailbraking.

for those who are really _serious_ about vehicle dynamics, i can
heartily recommend _Race Car Vehicle Dynamics_ by William and Douglas
Milliken, SAE, 1995 (i got my copy from my wife for christmas); this
book is for the serious Automotive Enthusiast/Engineering Geek, as
it is stuffed with formulas, charts, and graphs.  The second chapter,
on tire behvaiour, is 70 pages long and quite exhaustive.  if you
already have Van Valkenburgh and Smith, and find them inadequate,
then this book is the next place to go:  it's not cheap (ca. $85),
but i don't know of any other place to find a lot of this information.

richard