More durable/affordable tire option?

[BryanL]

Great points throughout this thread. Ever since we left the original RA1 I think the tires have hurt our series. I don't care if lap times are two seconds slower-finding a tire that doesn't fall off past 20 heat cycles I believe would only help our series.

Completely agree this isn't the sort of class that someone should have to budget what their car is worth in tires alone. The tires have doubled the cost of a season of racing if you want to be at all consistently competitive.

If it works for Spec Corvette then it should work for us (I hope). They have more power than us and about the same weight and if we could get 4 weekends out of a set I think it would be awesome. It would also help people wanting to run test days and practice.

I agree with whiny Records. I'll also throw out if we are all on a different tire without a contingency then we could all hit Hallett again and see if their Comma group would put us in a race class or one with a separate start. Jerry and I discussed and we would rather go to Hallett twice a year now that we have lost TWS.

If Discount carried them you could stock up when they have their sale and likely knock another $100 off a set. But sounds like I would only need 1 set per year which would be awesome.

[drecords]

Great points throughout this thread. Ever since we left the original RA1 I think the tires have hurt our series. I don't care if lap times are two seconds slower-finding a tire that doesn't fall off past 20 heat cycles I believe would only help our series.

Completely agree this isn't the sort of class that someone should have to budget what their car is worth in tires alone. The tires have doubled the cost of a season of racing if you want to be at all consistently competitive.

If it works for Spec Corvette then it should work for us (I hope). They have more power than us and about the same weight and if we could get 4 weekends out of a set I think it would be awesome. It would also help people wanting to run test days and practice.

I agree with whiny Records. I'll also throw out if we are all on a different tire without a contingency then we could all hit Hallett again and see if their Comma group would put us in a race class or one with a separate start. Jerry and I discussed and we would rather go to Hallett twice a year now that we have lost TWS.

If Discount carried them you could stock up when they have their sale and likely knock another $100 off a set. But sounds like I would only need 1 set per year which would be awesome.

Discount sells em. If you catch it right and sign up for their credit card you can get some screaming discounts...

[t500hps]

I'm on the east coast (VA) so our tracks and temps are different but none of us have problems with RRs falling off like it seems all of you have. We field 10+/- cars per race and seems everyone gets 3-4 weekends out of a set of RRs. I've actually noticed I'm not as fast in the first 3 H/C of new RRs. With careful rotating I've gotten 36 H/C out of a set (however they were falling off). We run VIR often and last year I set the track record on a 3 year old set with 22 H/C on them.

Now, I have no issue changing tires if it makes the class cheaper to run but I have 3 sets right now with various use, including a 2015 set I intend to "finish off" when we start the season. I'm just curious if we are "giving something up" with car setup that allows the tires to last much longer than yours? Wish I could have made the trip to COTA to compare!

[Supercharged111]

I'm on the east coast (VA) so our tracks and temps are different but none of us have problems with RRs falling off like it seems all of you have. We field 10+/- cars per race and seems everyone gets 3-4 weekends out of a set of RRs. I've actually noticed I'm not as fast in the first 3 H/C of new RRs. With careful rotating I've gotten 36 H/C out of a set (however they were falling off). We run VIR often and last year I set the track record on a 3 year old set with 22 H/C on them.

Now, I have no issue changing tires if it makes the class cheaper to run but I have 3 sets right now with various use, including a 2015 set I intend to "finish off" when we start the season. I'm just curious if we are "giving something up" with car setup that allows the tires to last much longer than yours? Wish I could have made the trip to COTA to compare!

My tires seem to be good to around 20 HC as well, but I did have a set with just over 20 that tried to kill me during practice last April (bad batch?). Then in November we did more cheater practice and I had around 30 cycles and they were busy, but not trying to kill me. I ran within a few tenths of the record at HPR with ~20 HC tires back in early Sept, record was set in July. Do they use different materials to build the tracks in TX? We generally get up as high as the low 90s for a high here, though typically it's more in the 80s range. I have Bryan to deal with here in RM, so we're not really driving miss daisy. Pueblo was resurfaced back in 2012 I think and High Plains was done last winter, both asphalt.

[ShadowBolt]

I know some of you get tired of hearing this but I was getting some instruction from Eric Foss at TWS a few years ago and he told me if I put on new RR's I would drop 2 seconds a lap. I did and he was right. He said he knew that was going to be the case because he had been with Tyler the day before and when Tyler put on sticker RR's he dropped two seconds per lap. The tires I took off were in the 14-16 heat cycle range. This is the only time I got lap times from old to new tires in the middle time of day on the same track. half an hour apart.

JJ

[mach1]

Can everyone please post up and confirm when you’ve placed your order for the new tires, I probably will not be ordering until later in the month because we need to get the car on the Dyno first and figure out where the horsepower went. The Fact that spec Corvette is running the same tire successfully is very exciting!

[ShadowBolt]

I am going to run the tires that I bought new for COTA at Cresson (may be a mistake). Then I am going to need a new set of something for Hallett. The way the schedule is I doubt I will run more than those two events this year (unless we end up running ECR). I doubt I will run COTA or NOLA (for two different reasons) and the Roval sounds fun but not in August (I'm a wimp when it comes to hot weather).


JJ

[mach1]

Also, you can probably off load sticker RR's to AI for more than you would pay for a set of the 615's

[liquidroam]

To answer the question about numbers in the series, I was absolutely one of the people that probably would have lasted an additional season before having to take a sabbatical to rebuild funds. As most know there were some extenuating circumstances for this year but it would still make a huge difference for me to be able to run competitive. My first season I ran used tires that were between 8 and 20 HC. Huge savings but ran mid to rear pack. Since contingency is not a concern I vote verbally (not with my wallet yet) that commit to one (Azenis) for this season and re-evaluate at the end of the year.

[AI#97]

If it works for Spec Corvette then it should work for us (I hope). They have more power than us and about the same weight and if we could get 4 weekends out of a set I think it would be awesome. It would also help people wanting to run test days and practice.

.

Comparing tire wear and performance on a C5 corvette to a 20-30 year old pony car chassis is like comparing a fine wine to a greasy crecent wrench. Sure the tires are round and black but the alignments they can run and chassis/suspension and shock dynamics they can run are decades better. Having owned all THREE chassis I can say I would not take that data point to heart to make this decision. After chatting with Daniel about the tires we ran in WRL (Hankook RS4's at under $700/set) I warned him that you guys need to remember what driving a track prepped car on 200TW street tires at 10/10ths or 10.5/10ths is like....especially without ABS and in heated battles for 25-40 minutes. If you think driving is sloppy now, it will only get worse and body repair bills will go up. 200 TW tires just don't have anywhere near the grip or heat resistance a true race tire does. Those that have done WRL type events can attest to this. James did rip off a 1:25 on a 255/17 200 TW Hankook at Cresson in a car he had never driven and he had not been on track for a few years.....BUT, you can only do that for a lap or so and you drop time dramatically. These tires at COTA were 4 seconds off Qual times for CMC on RR's...at hour 8 which is just ONE heat cycle.

I suggest NT-01's. Wear VERY well and not badly priced. That being said, you can all agree to go back to the RA-1 too and keep the contingency in place and rotate rain tires into your wear calcs....granted that tire is expensive too but I don't recall there being a drastic fall off on the "gen2" tire? I never ran them in AI.