Video: What is Tire Deflection & How Does it Affect Your Race Car?

As you get more and more into racing, you’ll start to hear some new and important terms—and one of the big ones is “tire deflection.”

Tire deflection refers to the way your tires deform, distort, or bulge from the weight and torque of the vehicle. And as you’d imagine, tire deflection has a massive impact on the way your race car performs on the track.

The chassis and suspension experts at AFCO Racing know an awful lot about tire deflection and how you can manage it for optimal performance, so they put together this quick, informative tech video to demonstrate some tips and techniques.

With the help of some handy Longacre Tire Pressure Gauges, the AFCO folks will explain how things like tire pressure, sidewall construction, shock compression, and shock rebound all need to work together to mitigate the negative effects of tire deflection and deliver confident, repeatable vehicle handling performance.

Better yet, they’ll show you some easy things you can do to make sure that happens.

It’s a little over three minutes long and definitely worth the watch if you’re trying to get the best possible handling performance from your race car.