As easy as it is with carpet tires, because the rules of the LRP Offroad Challenge only allow VTEec Kamikaze or Schumacher Cactus/Cactus Fusion and nobody ever runs VTec Kamikaze, with astro there was a bit more to learn. On (EOS) carpet, i can put on the Cactus Combo an i am good to go, maybe a glued flank, but that is rather uncommon.
On Astro there are two more types on the rear (Schumacher Mini Pin an Mini Dart) and three more types (Schumacher Mini Pin, Mini Dart and Wide Stagger RIB) on the front allowed. At least on the front, none of them will work without cutting them to the right condition.
Because there was no information about the necessity of cutting, nor any of the drivers i talked to about the topic told me what to do exactly, so i had to find out the hard way, of course during my first race on astro with newly bought astro tires.
I started with Mini Dart on the rear and Wide Stagger on the front. Race day started wet and it worked well on silver during the first heat but just as the track dryed, trouble started. The track had a lot of grip now and the car traction rolled a lot. Wide Stagger RIB seem to be pretty tame when you look at them but they have a lot of grip too. For my last heat i cut the outer row and that annoying traction roll was gone. The conclusion for me is, uncut silver when it’s really wet, but cut standard compound when traction increases.
When traction is really high it will be necessary to also cut the rear darts one row on the outside. For high traction astro surface i now run those cut darts on the rear and cut darts on front with two rows cut on the outside and one on the inside. This gives similar traction like the cut stagger but more overall steering.
Update after LRP DM 2021:
Glueing the flank auf astro front tires is key on high grip astro turf. The car has far too much steering even with 2 outer and one inner row of pins cut. It is still on rails and prone to flip over and very hard to drive.
