As someone who never inspected tires … that was also my immediate thought on seeing that last tire.
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The F1 tire is also made of a much stickier rubber compound (for grip in the corners), which would slow it down on the decent.
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The first tire was accidentally handicapped. As it rolled down the ramp, it veered into a rough section on its right and stayed on that until it left the ramp. What a gyp! The tire handler was noticeably more careful with the other tires.
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I’d imagine the air resistance/weight would be the dominant factor here… i can’t see grip even being something worth noting here.
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An interesting experiment would have been to spin the tires up and launch them.
Then compare these experiments to tires dropped on sleds. Stability would be a problem. That’s why shit spins, folks.
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This is a lot of fun, but immensely more satisfying to me would be watching all four tires that were on my 1990 Ford Taurus go down that jump. While still attached to the car.
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To think I spent thousands of hours studying Japanese so I could watch clips like this without subtitles ten years later…
Worth it.
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I’d be interested to see the experiment repeated with some kind of hubcap on each side of the tire, making them cylinders instead of toruses. Curious to see if that would increase the jump any. Also, obviously, a more robust ramp for that last test!
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…and entirely naked
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Lion-hunting in a Mono-wheel! Cooooool! 
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That was a lot of fun. I’m off to Google “Ski-Jumping Cars.”
Edit: Blimey, even with the addition of rockets, Ski-Jumping Cars is less impressive than Ski-Jumping Tires.
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I learned that the Japanese word for “tire” is “tie-yah.”
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When my wife, then girlfriend, was looking for a car in college she talked to the mechanic around the corner and they told her to get whatever she wanted as long as it wasn’t a Taurus. They wanted nothing to do with that car.
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I think the wider tires tended to wobble, which slows them. A narrow hoop shape is self stabilising. Because Physics.
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So exciting.
If you mean the song at the end, it´s Tsubasa o Kudasai , a 1970 song by Michio Yamagami and Kunihiko Murai, that is still enormously popular.
It’s often associated with flying because of its lyrics.
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I meant the whole sound track. Lots of Sturm und Drang for rolling tires.
Do you know who did that ?
Size matters… Who would have thunk!
Not personally, I wouldn’t know.
But Shazamming the clip suggests “Sky jump” by John Sky , and “Sinking Plane” by Jerry Goldsmith.
Hope it helps
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Thanks! I can see Jerry Goldsmith writing that!
