The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is Continental’s Max Performance Summer tire that was designed to be the fastest "off-the-shelf” tire in the world. Intended for ultra-fast, high-end customized sport cars and performance sedans, the ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is the first road tire certified by Continental for speeds of up to 220 mph (354 km/h), a speed at which the tires must withstand revolving approximately 50 times every second while they carry the vehicle 330 feet (100 meters) down the road. ContiSportContact Vmax high-speed capabilities were certified by independent experts and entered the Guinness Book of Records in 2007 as the world’s fastest standard production tire. The main challenge for the ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is to master the extreme centrifugal forces on the tire surface and dissipate the heat. As tires roll faster, centrifugal forces and tire temperatures grow. With several tons of weight per square inch stressing the tread at high speeds, tire temperatures can heat up beyond 200-degrees Fahrenheit. An additional challenge of high-speed tires is that standing waves may develop in the tread area and sidewall. A radial tire’s tread flattens and its sidewalls bulge where it comes into contact with the road. At low speeds, it’s easy for the tire to transition between the tire’s loaded shape and its relaxed shape before returning to its loaded shape as the tire contacts with the road again. However at high speeds, this process occurs so rapidly that the tire may not be able to switch between shapes before the tire’s next contact with the road, causing a ripple in the tread area and sidewall. The tire’s structure must provide the control required to avoid the destructive heat generated during this transformation at high speeds. The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is not intended to be driven in near-freezing temperatures, through snow or on ice. The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax tires feature a tread compound molded into the familiar ContiSportContact 2 asymmetric tread design with several important design differences to help keep temperatures down. The tread ribs have been modified by enlarging the existing grooves and adding circumferential cooling grooves and lateral notches to reduce the rubber volume while increasing hydroplaning resistance on wet roads. Sipes in the tread pattern make the tread more supple, and beginning tread depths have been reduced by about 15 percent (molded at only 8/32-inch compared to the typical 9/32- to 10/32-inch) to cut heat generation by about one half. The tire's internal structure includes exceptionally strong steel belts, nylon belt reinforcement and a multi-radii tread contour to distribute the forces on the belt more uniformly and reduce the stress on the belt edges to ensure that the tire can withstand high speeds. The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax has been designed with a reinforced sidewall and the number of wires in the bead core has been increased from 25 to 36, thus guaranteeing the tire resists standing waves and holds the rim firmly.