Reply to "High-performance tires and cold, wet weather"

I am comforted to read that no one was injured. It could have been much worse.

Your car can be repaired without a doubt - and hey - its only money.

Like the others I am grateful that you took the courage to post your expereince. We can all learn from this.

I read your praise of 6339 (you first). Why did you let her go?

Finally, I would like to add a comment: I have a '74 with Pirelli P-7s. It could be the age of the rubber but ....

Applying a good dose of power at an inappropriate moment, will cause my rear end to fishtail right. This condition is amplified when driving on wet roads.

I have had the opportunity to drive some formula cars and older Porsche 911, 912 on race tracks (in dry conditions). These cars, with their rear weight bias tend to overstear (be loose) if you unweight the back end. As was explained to me in training and practice: You want to apply power on these rear heavy cars, so that the interia shift causes the rear wheels to "weight" and thereby get better grip. For a car that has more of a front weight bias (ie. understears) - we want to lift on power to unweight the rear so as to balance for more traction in the front. Applying power on an overstearing car tends to be counter-intuitive to most drivers as we tend to lift on power when the rear breaks. Our daily drivers are usually front end heavy understearers (pushers).

I can say that when my P7s break, on acceleration or in a turn, I have learned from race school driving to keep the power on -or add even more power. As a result, if my car feels like breaking I apply power and fortunately the car has snapped back into line.

The only down side with the heavy rear end biased Pantera, when she breaks, she snaps so fast it comes as a real stunner - as your experience has shown.

B.G.