AUTOMOBILES

Daytona Rolls on Yokohamas: At the recent 24-hour endurance race at Daytona, 15 of the entries ran on special racing tires supplied by Fullerton-based Yokohama Tire Corp. At four wheels per car, that’s 60 tires.

But racing isn’t simple--or cheap. Yokohama trucked 1,800 tires to the Florida track: 1,200 for the race (an average of 20 complete tire changes per car) and 600 for use in practice. About 70% of the tires were actually used, a company spokesman said.

There were 17 different types of racing tires--three specifically for rain, others concocted of a variety of compounds to attain varying degrees of stickiness--and 10 different tire sizes.

The company sent 15 employees to the track to help with storage and distribution and to assist the racing crews with tire selection. To get it all there required eight trailer-trucks.

Yokohama won’t disclose the cost of its racing efforts, which contribute to tire research and to name identification. The company imports its racing tires from Japan, but makes most of the passenger and truck tires it sells in the United States at factories in Virginia and Illinois.