Steven Shelikoff, the racing expert wrote:


Actually, the area of the wheel exposed to the gas in a race car tire is
pretty large compared to the area of the tire since they are wide and
low profile.

Not in all types of racing. Actually, in some types, the narrower the
better, less contact area, less friction. Take a salt flat racer, for
instance.



Though it doesn't apply much to boat trailer tires, the heat
conductivity of the gas would work against tire cooling in the case of
race cars and aircraft since it would serve to increase the rate of tire
heating in heavy brake application. Many aircraft tire failures are due

Of course it all depends on the type of racing. During most racing like
road racing, twisty corners, etc, heavy braking is applied but for very
short durations. Superspeedway racing, not at all.

Are you really trying to say that on superspeedways, they don't use
brakes at all? That's pretty stupid. They actually use brakes as
opposed to letting off the throttle, trying to keep the enginer RPM's
up. It takes forever to get those restictor plate engines back up to
speed. They do, however, use completely different brake setups,
smaller rotors, pads. These smaller, thinner rotors will get quite
hot, quite quickly.

There's plenty of
cooling air ducted to the brakes and the rest of the suspension
components can also act like a heat sink since they are directly
attached to the brakes and wheel. On the other hand, the tires are
always generating heat whenever the car is moving, and especially in
turns. Heat is the enemy of tire life and whatever can be done to take
away more heat from the tire will help. That being said, I sure
wouldn't want hydrogen in my tires.

Now that I can agree with.