The following text is intended as merely a guideline based on the experiences over the years. We acknowledge there will be other opinions that may be as successful or possibly even more successful than those set forth below. There is no one "right" method. As racers, you may want to use the information as a starting point and modify your technique based on your own experience and success at the track you are racing.
Siping Only
When applying this technique to a dirt sprint tire, siping will do many things.
- First, this will help the tire build heat quicker which will help the tire "fire" better.
- Siping will also dissipate heat when the tire gets to operating temperature and the sipes open up.
- If you are using a fairly hard tire, siping will help create a "graining" effect which will help keep the tire from "sealing" over.
- The only sprint compound not normally recommended siping is a D10 tire because it is already very soft and may result in "tearing" of the tread blocks and will result in loss of traction. As such, you rarely see Hoosier sprint tires siped for qualifying since the D10 compound is normally the qualifying compound.
- Never sipe a tire more than half the depth of the tread block. Any deeper than half the depth of the tread block may cause the sipes to rip or chunk out. How much you sipe a tire will come from your own experience through trial and error. Also, like all good racers, pay attention to what techniques your competitors are using. They may have learned something you have yet to experience.


Grooving Only
- We recommend grooving a tire if the track is very wet and heavy or if the track is a hard surface with a lot of loose dirt blowing across the surface.
- Grooving will help channel the dirt out the tire to help maintain a good contact patch between the tire and track surface--just like the grooves in your street tire which help keep your car from hydroplaning.
- Grooving will also create more edges for better traction or grip.
Just as with siping, how much you elect to groove your tires depends on what you have experienced in the past along with watching what the top finishing drivers are doing as well.


Siping & Grooving
Combining both siping and grooving is normally done in both heat and feature races. You may need the grooves for cleaning but yet you also need to do some siping to help the tire "fire" and to allow the tread surface to properly "grain".

Proper grooving and siping techniques will ultimately result in a better performing sprint tire which will in turn result in higher finishes.