Quote:
Originally Posted by nativepaul
Do they do tractor pushes in reverse as well as tractor pulling, sure looks like the green and blue tractors in that link have there wheels on the wrong way round.
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Back in the day, in the mid and late 80s, I used to compete in RC Tractor Pulling, and it was common practice to run the tires (like pictured above) backward on certain tracks and track conditions. If the track was a high-traction circuit, like moist red clay, running the tires the correct way (forward) produced way too much traction and just lifted the front end way too high no matter how much weight was added to the front of the puller (some classes have a weight limit). Turning the tires around and running them backward gives just the right amount of traction on the above mentioned high-traction and moist red clay tracks, resulting in clean runs and long pulls, even quite a few full-pulls!
It's just like real 1:1 competition rock crawlers...they commonly run their tires backward to the way the manufacturers designed them to be run, because they work better in certain situations and on certain courses that way. For example (this example is based on "forward" being from left to right (
-›-›-› ), a "V" tread pattern tire running forward (correctly) allows the rock(s) to follow the "
>" toward the outside of the tire, causing it to slide or be pulled off the driver's desired line, which is not good. If the tire is run backward "
<", the rock(s) follow the "
<" and are forced toward the center of the tire, not only increasing traction, but also (most importantly) allowing the tire to stay exactly on the driver's desired line.
There are many situations and circumstances where it is better to run a directional tire backward to the direction it was designed to be run.
Edit: Wow,
JThiessen beat me to it...heh!