I bought a set of tyres for one season that were supposed to be "the control" tyre, only to get the final regs saying that tyres were "free" (to Blue Book 1a/1b). So that left me on rubber much harder than a lot of the competition. I tried a couple of "softening" products on tyres, including "GRIP", but found that they only seemed effective for a few laps. I even tried soaking them in so much softener that when I left the paddock I was leaving black stripes on the concrete... still only lasted half the race!
Some time later I was chatting to a kart racer who said that tyre softener products are aimed at "reclaiming" old tyres. He said that when soft racing tyres are stored over the winter they can go hard on the surface. The softener product will help it return to its original state, but this is a completely different concept from changing a tyre compound into a softer compound. I'm inclined to agree. Now if you invent something that can physically change the basic compound of the tyre, you may be onto something
