Slick Tires

Slick tires are your go-to if you are running your car just on the racetrack and in dry conditions. So, what are basically slick tires? These tires are different from your everyday tread tire as they lack any kind of tread pattern on their surface. These are made from a much stickier and softer rubber compound.

These tires perform a way better-driving response than regular street tires in a performance car under the right temperature and conditions. They provide much better acceleration in launches as well as in turns. This is all due to the reason that they have a greater surface contact with the road in comparison to the street tires.

Slick tires do not perform well under cold conditions, but after they get warmed up under track use. The rubbers get tackier and softer and it gains considerably more grip on a dry track. They tend to get better with every lap as they get warmer.

With slick tires, you also need tire scraping after a period of use. This is because of their stickery nature some pieces of asphalt and marble gets stuck onto their surface that can affect your tires’ balance and performance.

Why Can’t You Use Slick Tires for Everyday Use?

So why can’t you just use slick tires on your daily driver for extra performance? So, the slick tires are meant to perform well under narrow circumstances on a track on a dry road and at optimum temperature and are not allowed to be daily driven on public roads. Whereas the street tires are all-rounders and are made well to perform on dry or wet asphalt, snow, mud, or gravel.

Aquaplaning

Slick tires lack any kind of tread and this leads up to almost 0 tractions when the track gets wet. 0 tread on the tire leads to a phenomenon called aquaplaning, which causes a thin layer of water to stick with the tire surface in contact with the road. This causes the slick tires to lose most of their grip under wet conditions.

Road Tires

Road tires are equipped with channels in the form of a tread pattern which allows water to collect and slip through these channels. And provide better contact with the asphalt even under wet conditions.

Semi Slicks

Semi-slicks are basically slick tires but can somewhat be drivable on a wet track as well. They have a slim tread pattern to avoid aquaplaning. Semi-slick tires, in comparison to slick tires, can be daily driven but they have inferior grip in cold and wet conditions.