Daddy Dave’s Deception – Sneaky Small Tires! (Deleted Scene)

I was always taught that drag racing is a moving game of chess. Growing up in a family and group of friends that bracket raced, this meant something different than what you’re seeing in this video from Discovery Channel featuring Daddy Dave as he prepared to take on Team Canada as seen in last nights episode of Street Outlaws, but the concept still applies.

Dave decided to run Goliath on small tires against our neighbors to the north, but understandably wanted to put as much rubber as possible on the street, so he made a bit of a compromise, and did some creative editing to the sidewall of the tires to help cover up his sleight.

In the world of drag racing slicks, there are two main classifications: big tire and small tire. For the most part, these are easily and immediately distinguishable from one another with little more than a glance at the width of the tire’s contact patch. Dave even shows the two side by side and the difference is immediately obvious to even absolute newcomers to the racing world.

However, thanks to a years-long debate, the particular tires Dave has elected to run fall into a sort of grey area thanks to a single letter in the size and a total of one inch in “tread” width. That letter – the “W” at the end of the tire’s size – designates that the tire is extra wide, putting approximately 11.5” of rubber on the ground as opposed to the 10.5” from a non-W ten five tire. It may not seem like a huge deal, but between the two tires, that’s a total of two extra inches of rubber on the ground, and if you know anything at all about 10.5 racing from its heyday back in the mid-90’s and early 2000’s, that two inches makes a huge difference in potential elapsed times on the track.

So Dave, being the wily veteran that he is, decide to shave the sidewall of his tires, not only removing the “W”, but the whole size designation. This would leave his competitors with only a guess as to what size tire he had tucked under Goliath, just proving that in the moving chess game of drag racing, Dave is always one move ahead!