The Science Behind the 48-Pound Top Fuel Tires

No matter if you are a soccer mom headed to practice on a Wednesday night or one of the most competitive and fierce racers that the industry has to offer, one thing that absolutely everybody behind the wheel should be conscious of is the kind of tires that are under their vehicle. No matter what the task at hand might be, having just the right set of rubber can mean the difference between you making it to your destination safely or not making it to your destination at all and with all sorts of different combinations to pick from, well, you might just have a field day when you go tire shopping.

When it comes to some of the most powerful racing machines that you will ever see in top fuel cars, the tires that they elect to go with are certainly some of the most intense that you will see on any vehicle as they weigh in at a whopping 48 pounds! In a sport where every last ounce counts when races come down to hundredths of seconds and sometimes even less, why would teams elect to go with tires that are so heavy? Well, as you see, these particular tires have quite the strenuous life to live out and if they don’t do everything exactly correctly, it could end up being a very expensive and potentially dangerous situation.

If you follow along down in the video below, you’ll be able to hear about a couple of scenarios that a top fuel tire will go through on pretty much any given pass on race weekend. From being stretched out during the burnout to having to withstand insane temperatures and friction, let’s just say that these tires can tend to have a difficult life to live. When it comes down to it, every single fiber within these massive mounds of rubber is specially engineered to carry out quite a crazy task.