Heat Cycle Chemistry
Let's look at what a heat cycle is, and what it does to the tire. We will concentrate on the tread compound, but there are similar benefits for the other compounds in the race tire that actually hold everything together. To understand what happens in a heat cycle, let's talk about the molecules that make up the compound. For those of you who don't remember your high school chemistry classes, the molecules that make up polymers are long chains of atoms. To kind of visualize this, think of a bunch of rubber bands. Imagine that they have all been cut with a pair of scissors so that they are not closed loops anymore. Now throw a bunch of them into a box and shake it up. Those represent the polymer molecules.
In addition to being highly intermingled, these molecules are connected, (or attracted), to each other by a variety of chemical networks. For simplicity, we will refer to all of these networks as chemical bonds. These bonds, (or attractions), are what we are concerned with here. During the manufacturing process, these bonds form in a more or less disorganized way. Some of the bonds are very short and strong. Some of them are very long and weak. The rest of them vary between the two.
Now, when you take that tire and run it, things start to happen. The molecules get stretched and compressed. This first causes the weaker bonds that connect these molecules to break. When the bonds break, heat is generated. As the heat builds and the flexing continues, more bonds break, more heat is generated, stronger bonds break, more heat is generated, and so on... Remember that these bonds are what connect the molecules to each other. They give the compound its strength. When this strength is reduced, the compound can't grip the road surface as well. It rubs off instead of holding together. The result is less grip, more slip on the road surface, more heat generated, and more tread wear.
So then, what happens in a heat cycle that can improve the performance and durability of your brand new tires? Well, actually, the situation described above is the first step in the heat cycle process. You want to break all of those "uneven" bonds. What happens next is where the real magic of alchemy comes into play. After these bonds have broken, and this heat has been generated, and the tires are finally allowed to be set aside and relax, the bonds tend to REFORM! But now they reform in a much more uniform manner! This means that they are more consistent in strength. Therefore, the compound becomes more resistant to losing its strength the next time the tires are run. That doesn't mean that you can't make the tires give up anymore. The bonds will still break if you exceed the limits of the compound, (both mechanical and thermal). But they will be more resistant to it because they are working together now as equals (in parallel), instead of individually (in series). And, given the time to relax again, they will reform again in the same uniform manner. Here is the most important thing to learn, and remember about this process. These bonds MUST be given ENOUGH TIME to do their magical reformation. The tires must be allowed relax for an absolute minimum of 24 hours after that initial heat cycle. If you don't give the tires enough time to reform those bonds though, then you are going out on tires with a weakened compound and their performance will show it. Understanding how this works, and how to use it to your advantage, is important to getting the most from your tires.
.... and run it in by the book, which ever book that is... I’m picking it up on Saturday and have 3 days to do the required miles before I return it on Tuesday for the first service. 
