Technical
Gecko® Tyres – an innovative new tyre technology
Some history
Adams Racing limited (ARL) have developed a new way of producing foam rubber tyres. Like his father before him (who developed the 1/8th MRC Grand Prix RC rubber tyres in the early 80’s), Richard Adams spent a number of years in the Avon Tyres technical group. In 2004 he took the decision to combine a lifelong interest in racing car tyre technology with his polymer processing expertise and formed ARL. Winning an R&D grant from the DTI to help start the research and development he set up a small laboratory with some key equipment including an MDR foam rubber analyser and self designed/locally made jigs to measure grip, tyre wear & heat build up. ARL now have commercially available a range of 1/10th scale ‘new technology’ foam rubber tyres with other scale tyre developments in the pipeline.
Why are Gecko® tyres different?
Using an innovative ‘individual’ moulding process for the unique ‘in house’ rubber compounds produces consistent physical properties all around the tyre (hardness, cell structure, tensile etc…) which results in the notable high grip, good wear & chunk resistance of the Gecko® tyres.
The high grip Gecko® tyre enables you to take a tighter line around the bends, gripping with minimal slide, allowing the power to go on even sooner out of the bend. Therefore you are basically driving a smaller distance on the track and as you can accelerate more quickly out of the corners, all this usually results in quicker lap times.
The Gecko® tyres exhibit a consistent hardness across the width and around the circumference so optimising rubber in the contact patch. A criticism of conventional ‘laminated sheet’ foam tyres is that you do get a variation in the hardness across the tread width which means variation in density/weight and so, due to centrifugal forces, this will give an uneven contact patch profile at high rpm.
High grip is usually required
This high grip ‘Gecko®’ concept works well for many but not all scale sections e.g. high grip (front & rear) is required with 1/10th electric touring cars on carpet but drivers of 1/10th Nitro/IC 200mm touring cars on asphalt are more comfortable with a low grip/under steering front tyre. However these 1/10th IC 200mm cars still require high grip from the limited 30mm width rear – so the superior Gecko® technology applies again.
Gecko® wheels
ARL have developed wheels of different stiffness to suit application. Stiff wheels are used for the 1/10th electric touring cars where maximum grip & stability is required. All the deformation is in the rubber and not the wheel which means more rubber heat build up which means more grip. However, more flexible wheels are required for the 1/10th Nitro IC TC cars in order to deform with the different load angles around the various asphalt tracks in order to maintain the contact patch.
Quality assured packaging
Gecko® tyres are packaged in sealed PE bags to maintain the freshness of the compounds up until purchase. This is important as RC tyre compounds will gradually lose oils and other materials through evaporation over a few months and so their grip & wear properties can deteriorate e.g. this will happen if stored in cardboard box packaging.
Continuous development
All Gecko® tyres are in continuous improvement programmes with leading National & International drivers assisting the development.