SoCal R/C Motorcycle Club -- Mini-GP RC Club of San Diego

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Racing Tips & Setup

NAVIGATION ICONS AND WHAT THEY MEAN!

Important

Stop

Update

DO NOT

Tools

Hazard

Quick Links to get you started....

About Racing Forks
About Tire Warmers
About Drag Bars
About Race Tires

1. About Racing Forks

Fork setup is very important when racing and proper adjustment 
can make a world of difference between slow and fast lap times. 
The first thing you should consider is purchasing some high end 
racing forks. There are currently several brands of forks on the 
market including tornado, NF Pro Forks and Alleven. You can easily 
spend hundreds of dollars on a set, but it is well worth the 
investment to obtain the best track configuration.

Over the years I have tried many different fork setups and I’m 
currently using both tornado’s and Alleven forks on my bikes. 
I have found that 80 weight shock oil offers a very decent; 
but stiff feel and allows the bike to maintain maximum speed 
on the track. Too much rebound will hinder the bike and can 
dramatically cause the bike to slow down.

Another important item that I wanted to bring to your attention 
has to do with temperature & forks. As you complete more laps 
on the track the temperature continues to builds inside the tube. 
Allot of people run 30, 40 and maybe 50 weight shock oil, but I 
normally run 80 or higher, because the higher viscosity does not 
soften up as much when the temp increases. You must try different
weights  yourself and see what your comfortable with, but from 
trial and error I’ve learned that higher is better on the track. 

You want to keep the forks as stiff as possible when it’s cold, 
so when you do hit the track it will start to loosen up to the 
perfect setting. Nitro bikes generate allot of heat and this heat 
can also force higher temperatures inside the fork tubes. Keep
this in mind when you decide on what weight oil to use, what seems 
perfect at first can suddenly get very loose on you after several 
laps. Subtract 10 to 20% for electrics as they do generate heat, 
but not as much.

2. About Tire Warmers

Tire warmers are a nice feature to have if you plan on doing 
some serious racing, but they are not really required. The point 
of tire warmers is to generate heat inside the tire prior to 
racing, which allows you to rip from the start of the race.
 
Under normal conditions the racers must complete a few laps on 
cold tires and this means longer lap times. But with tire warmers 
you will already have the required temperature in the tires, 
which allows you to get on the throttle much earlier then the 
other racers. 

I currently know of two different tire warmers on the market and 
they are not cheap, but for the hardcore racers it’s about beating 
the other guy and not cost. The tire warmers rap directly around 
the tire and hold together via Velcro on each side. Any 12 volt 
source will work and they do get very hot. In my opinion this is 
a very important accessory for any racer.

3. About Drag Bars

At one time drag bars use to be very long and so long they would 
drag on the ground with least of lean, so it was like having two 
wires dragging constantly. Now, with the much greatly improved 
handling, steering setup, tires and so forth the wires are getting 
shorter and shorter. Of course the length of the wire greatly
depends on the driver and how well you can control the bike. 

A good driver can now pop the throttle and upright the bike with 
extremely short drag bars, which of course protect the body from 
scratches. The quality of tires also greatly effect the length of 
the drag bars, but tires will be covered later. When you have 
enough drive time under your belt, then you can slowly shorten the 
wires, which greatly improves the lean angle, but yes! Tires will 
keep the lean going and again this will be covered separately. 

The days of using just drag bars made of just solid steel continues, 
however we now use wire coverings that are made from many materials 
including, nylon, carbon, plastics and even springs. The coverings 
offer less friction on the ground and keep the bike from grabbing, 
hence.. crashing.  Everything can affect how the bike handles, but 
the goal is to shorten lap times and shorter drag bars means 
increased lean angles, hence speed!

4. About Race Tires

I don’t know if you have seen the movie “Days of Thunder” but 
during the movie Robert Duvall makes a statement that tires win 
races, which is a true statement. If you burn off your tires then 
you cannot finish the race. Over the years bike tires have greatly 
improved with patterns and compounds, slicks, treaded and rain 
rubber. We even have duel compound tires now! PMT’s, GRP’s, NF 
all make excellent race tires, which will continue to improve.

What tire should I use on this track?

This question can be difficult to determine without trial and 
error. Lets say the track Is medium temperature on a 75 degree 
day, well what type of tire would use? Should I run a soft compound 
on the front and hard compound on the rear? Maybe that would be 
fine, but remember the first few laps could be fast until you 
generate heat and the tires over grip the track? You don’t want so 
much grip that you start to slow down so this is why tire choice 
is so difficult.

The track could be cold so you figure why not use a soft compound 
tire, which might be great if the temperature remains cool 
throughout the day. This can be a very tough choice for any racer 
and track conditions change constantly. At the 3rd annual R/C 
motorcycle championship I wasn’t able to get traction until the 
track cooled off, but I didn’t have the right tires that weekend 
and I suffered because of it.  So it is impossible to say what 
tire works best for such conditions until you try a few compounds. 
Everything comes into play now, forks, engine, brakes and this is 
call R/C motorcycle racing.

As a general rule though you can use this type of tire suggestion, 
but the variations are almost endless depending on forks, inserts 
and so forth, but this is a good starting point.


Cold day: Soft “Slicks” front,  Soft or Medium “slicks” Rear.
Medium day:  Soft “Treaded” Front, Soft or Medium “Slicks” Rear
Hot Day: Medium “Treaded” Front,  Medium  or” Hard “Treaded” Rear

You also need to take engine torque into account, will hit hookup 
under hard acceleration? Did you balance the wheels? This will 
prevent high speed wobbles and will eliminate loss of corner grip. 
Treaded tires offer excellent grip and will stay cooler on the 
track then slicks, but both offer a different type of grip on the 
track and overall bike handling. 

Rain tires on the  other hand are specifically designed for wet 
track conditions and they are made to displace water and offer 
better grip under such conditions. Slicks on a wet track would be 
like roller skates on ice, does not work. My best suggestion is 
to purchase several different compounds and run them into the 
ground until you find the best match for your nitro or electric 
motorcycle.

Any questions that you need answered, ask away! Lorenzo