clyde

(please forgive the crosspost)

To anyone that was at the WDCR-SCCA event at FedEx Field on Saturday May 7th...

I really hope that what I think happened didn't happen and instead I just somehow missed something, but...

Did anyone see anything unusual in the paddock on during the morning session May 7 at FedEx? Like someone taking a couple of dismounted wheels with street tires that had 50%+ tread remaining that didn't belong to them and replacing them with identical wheels with the same type of street tire that had next to no tread left? The tires are 225/45-18 Bridgestone Potenza RE040s on the OE 18" 5 spoke Mazda RX-8 wheels.

I can't say for sure that it happened at the event, but that was the last time that the wheels were off the car. When we took them off in the morning, as far as I recall, all four street tires had about the same amount of tread remaining (and a fair amount of it at that). John put them back on in the afternoon and didn't notice anything different about where they were in our paddock spot or anything weird about the tires themselves.

I just noticed it this morning. It's entirely possible that someone could have swapped them in the middle of the night in front of my house this past week, but that's harder to believe for some reason. I do not believe that the wear happened without me noticing. They come off the car too often. When we were in Atlanta last month and we were getting the car ready to leave to come home, the only way I could tell the difference between the fronts and rears was by the amount of brake dust.

Now, two of the tires look just like before with plenty of tread and two of them are down to the wear bars in the center, as if someone had done a lot of burn outs (save the "Can an RX-8 do burn outs?" joke...I've already heard it twice today :-P) or something. I've put about a 1,000 miles on the car since we left Atlanta and I do not believe that there is any way that the way the car is driven on the street that kind of wear could happen that quickly.

If anyone saw anything or has any information, please contact me. If there is a guilty party, and s/he's reading this, I'd like to have my tires back.

Thanks!

clyde

Tigger

iTrader: (3)

Wow! that sucks! I wasn't there, haven't made it out to the track yet this spring but I feel for you!

Q. I assume if these are stock 18's, they had the tire pressure system installed on them... if any of the rims got swapped, you should have had a TPS warning light come on when you put the wheels back on, as the TPS would not have recognized the new sensor(s) and it would have had to have been told to learn about the new sensor. before the light would go off.. unless of course you think they some how took the wheels away swapped them and got them rebalanced!

Sorry about the swap... I've never had anything go missing (that wasn't later returned after an honest mistake) let alone anyone try and "pull a fast one" like that.

I always consider track/tech days and the people at them pretty darn honest... I mean, were all trusting each other when we leave a pile of tools, tires, and the like alone to hit the track. Really is disapointing when you run into one of the few that can't seem to live up to the respect that the event diserves.

Hope someone comes forward.

--Tig!

clyde

good point! I hadn't thought of this.

In the three years of going to events at FedEx with an average of about 220 drivers each, this is only one of a very small number of incidents that I've heard of (assuming that something hinky actually did happen in this case...the TPMS thing really has me wondering).

Thanks. This really is helpful.

clyde

:o :o :o :o :o

oops

I should better than to shoot my mouth off.

:o :o :o :o :o