200 TW Tire Sub Class Interest

[BryanL]

Wanted to get this out to everyone. Have spoken to a few who haven't been racing, have been racing sporadically, or racing all the time and seems there is some interest in more experimentation with running a longer lasting tire with less drop off. Seeing as there are several events upcoming and Discount Tire will be having a sale this weekend I wanted to let everyone know and if you have interest to please PM, call, or text me.

Prefer not to make this into a big arguing thread but if interested feel free to reply Interested and I could gather everyone on an email string? If you have suggestions/experience about which tire to run that is constructive please share as the goal is to find a tire that doesn't fall off after multiple events. This is to try and continue what seems to be a successful test by Sook/Alford/Records last year with the Falken 615+ which Spec Vette runs.

The goal would be to gather enough who would be interested in trying to run a longer lasting tire to either pick a tire or pick a few to experiment with. If you still want to run the RR for the money races that's cool as you could use this in non Toyo races, warmup, practice, etc. Plan would be to find out how many would do this and go to Will to follow the same formula Time Trial has done. With more than three people running I'll donate some sort of trophy and could look for a sponsor/donations. I see this as an excellent way to bring new drivers into the class who are concerned with the largest cost of running a car being the RR.

Currently I'm targeting to order a set of Falken Azenis RT 615+ from Discount Tire this weekend during their Presidents Day Sale if you use their card I expect a 10-15% savings. In the interest of making this experiment about helping racers budgets the 255/40/17 tire is $150 each so I'm thinking a full set could be had for $510-540. The 275 is $201.

Could also reach out to Phil's Tire as they show a few Federal and Nankangs that are $158-185 per tire.

[michaelmosty]

A couple of questions:
What results were seen from last years testing that has individuals wanting to do more experimentation?
Are those that want to do more experimentation willing to share those feelings for all of us to understand the reasoning?
Also, how do you see this being a benefit to CMC?

[BryanL]

A couple of questions:
What results were seen from last years testing that has individuals wanting to do more experimentation?
Are those that want to do more experimentation willing to share those feelings for all of us to understand the reasoning?
Also, how do you see this being a benefit to CMC?

Are you actually interested? If you are then just say your interested or send me a PM, email, text, call, etc. I'll gather everyone who is interested together to discuss further and dive deeper into your questions to keep the arguing off the board as past discussions make it pretty clear who those are that are against a different option. This is the same issue our close relative A Sedan has been struggling with for years and I'm trying to give people another option as opposed to not racing at all or suffering a similar fate.

[michaelmosty]

Are you actually interested? If you are then just say your interested or send me a PM, email, text, call, etc. I'll gather everyone who is interested together to discuss further and dive deeper into your questions to keep the arguing off the board as past discussions make it pretty clear who those are that are against a different option. This is the same issue our close relative A Sedan has been struggling with for years and I'm trying to give people another option as opposed to not racing at all or suffering a similar fate.

I am not interested in a street tire option, I am however interested in keeping the CMC group together and growing as much as possible. I just don't agree this is the way but am always open to all options.

I also feel like this has absolutely nothing to do with the issues A Sedan has been struggling with. Carbs, 16" wheels, and $10k engines is what was hurting them, not tires considering we are running a similar tire to 95% of the other race groups in NASA.

Just my opinion though.

[BryanL]

Again. Let’s keep the disagreement out if this thread and just let those interested to respond ‘Interested’ or they can reach out to me directly.
If you have a suggestion please just send it to me privately as well.

[michaelmosty]

If you want to have private conversations with those that respond as "Interested", you are free to do that.

It is not fair to ask those with a different opinion than you to not post on this open forum.

[ShadowBolt]

If you want to have private conversations with those that respond as "Interested", you are free to do that.

It is not fair to ask those with a different opinion than you to not post on this open forum.

I don't want to speak for Bryan but I think he was just trying to keep this thread from going to shit. If he does not get enough people that say they are interested in his idea then it's all a moot point.

Most, if not all of us can afford to buy RR's but it sure seams like a waste to me. Of course if Jay and I ran up front more and my RR's were free or almost free I'm sure I would not give a damn how much tires cost for the mid-pack and back of the pack slackers. I may be wrong but I think the cost of tires is keeping some away from racing. Not just in our series. Even if you do like Michael and Kevin and get two race weekends out of a set you are still talking what......six or seven hundred dollars per weekend for RR's? It really does not make a shit to me. I'm 62 years old and my days of racing are numbered and going to a street tire is not going to extend that time frame. I do wish we had done something to attract new racer years ago so we could have had 20 car fields.
Off my soap box.

JJ

[Pranav]

You're wasting your time testing anything outside of a Toyo or Nitto brand of tire.

The whole issue is spending $ on tires that fall off rapidly and the perception keeping racers away.

The solution to this issue is

1. Setup/driving.

What are the faster guys doing to make a set last longer instead of burning them down to the ground each weekend? Kevin myself and others do an aggressive rotating strategy where the newest tires run Quals and R1/R3 races, second best tires for inverts and warmups, third best for friday TnT. If I weren't missing MSRH/MSRC this would be a 3 set season for me. What else are they doing different on setup and driving style to make them last?

And/Or

2. Be realistic.

NASA is sponsored by Toyo. While it is increasingly accepted by other organizations that classes grow when people are not forced to buy tires that fall off quickly and have to spend cubic dollars to stay up front, it makes no business sense to approve letting a spec class walk away from their product line to some random 200 TW non Toyo brand street tire. The Nitto NT01 supposedly is the original thin to win compound that works great, and its a Toyo sub brand. If we'd spent some time testing on this specific tire and presenting it to management, maybe we'd get some traction on a solution.

This would also be easier to coordinate with drivers in other classes to make a solid effort on everyone trying the same tire and sending the feedback up to NASA mgmt. I'd even go as far as saying I wouldn't mind paying 20% more for a Toyo-labeled NT01 if it meant having a tire that was more consistent through its lifespan.

[ShadowBolt]

You're wasting your time testing anything outside of a Toyo or Nitto brand of tire.

The whole issue is spending $ on tires that fall off rapidly and the perception keeping racers away.

The solution to this issue is

1. Setup/driving.

What are the faster guys doing to make a set last longer instead of burning them down to the ground each weekend? Kevin myself and others do an aggressive rotating strategy where the newest tires run Quals and R1/R3 races, second best tires for inverts and warmups, third best for friday TnT. If I weren't missing MSRH/MSRC this would be a 3 set season for me. What else are they doing different on setup and driving style to make them last?

And/Or

2. Be realistic.

NASA is sponsored by Toyo. While it is increasingly accepted by other organizations that classes grow when people are not forced to buy tires that fall off quickly and have to spend cubic dollars to stay up front, it makes no business sense to approve letting a spec class walk away from their product line to some random 200 TW non Toyo brand street tire. The Nitto NT01 supposedly is the original thin to win compound that works great, and its a Toyo sub brand. If we'd spent some time testing on this specific tire and presenting it to management, maybe we'd get some traction on a solution.

This would also be easier to coordinate with drivers in other classes to make a solid effort on everyone trying the same tire and sending the feedback up to NASA mgmt. I'd even go as far as saying I wouldn't mind paying 20% more for a Toyo-labeled NT01 if it meant having a tire that was more consistent through its lifespan.

Pranav,

Your number one answer requires that I bring 12 tires to every event. I personally have no way of even transporting eight tires and wheels.

Your number 2 answer assumes the NT01 is really the old RA1 and that even if it is it will hold up to todays speeds.

JJ

[BryanL]

Quick update and some data I compiled last night.

I have four who are willing to buy a different tire for their next set. Likely would have had another but he ordered a set of RR's the day before. I have had two people reach out that I had not spoken to before I posted. Before I posted I had four who were interested, another one was interested but with more stipulations. This is why I decided to post it as there seemed to be interest. There are several who I haven't reached out to and I have only reached out to one who hasn't been racing for awhile so far.

Data-Last year we averaged 8.4 racers per weekend from Texas at 5 events. There were 15 different racers throughout the season. So to increase that field by 33% would only be 5 new/old racers to come out.

Michael-great chat last night. I'm just asking for the respect to allow those who are interested to let it be known without getting argued with. Like Jerry said if there isn't interest and I was the only one then it's moot.

After we give it some time for people to contact me and me to reach out to others who have cars sitting around then we can see whether it's worth spending any energy to consider there being an option.

I'll close with the reminder that within Time Trail they have a sub class that uses a 200 TW tire that I need to check on to see what they are doing for 2020. CMC and NASA was started because they wanted a different option from the way SCCA and A Sedan was going so it's part of the culture and I don't it to become what it tried to get away from.

[michaelmosty]

I'm not trying to kill this topic but I do want to address that Will has let me know that NASA and CMC have a national agreement with Toyo. CMC is not an open tire class and the approved tires for CMC is the RR and RA1.

If anyone wants to do testing you are certainly welcome to do so but it is not possible within the current CMC rules.
I love CMC and have invested 15 years of my life to the AI/CMC family. I want was is best for both the current and future CMC racers.

If anyone has any questions on this matter please feel free to give me a call on my cell phone.

[BryanL]

I'm not trying to kill this topic but I do want to address that Will has let me know that NASA and CMC have a national agreement with Toyo. CMC is not an open tire class and the approved tires for CMC is the RR and RA1.

If anyone wants to do testing you are certainly welcome to do so but it is not possible within the current CMC rules.
I love CMC and have invested 15 years of my life to the AI/CMC family. I want was is best for both the current and future CMC racers.

If anyone has any questions on this matter please feel free to give me a call on my cell phone.

Who is the Race Director this year or at Cresson? AIX is open tire I believe.

22.5 Fun Runs
A driver may be allowed to participate in a race and be classified as a “fun run.” A fun run will not earn any
trophies, points, team points, prize money, etc. Cars must comply with ALL applicable safety rules. The Race
Director must approve fun run entries before the start of the race. No lap records should be awarded to any
driver or team that is participating in a fun run.

[Trublu]

I'm not trying to kill this topic but I do want to address that Will has let me know that NASA and CMC have a national agreement with Toyo. CMC is not an open tire class and the approved tires for CMC is the RR and RA1.

If anyone wants to do testing you are certainly welcome to do so but it is not possible within the current CMC rules.
I love CMC and have invested 15 years of my life to the AI/CMC family. I want was is best for both the current and future CMC racers.

If anyone has any questions on this matter please feel free to give me a call on my cell phone.

I guess I don’t have a dog in this particular fight but I agree totally with Michael. This was debated throughout last season and for the sake of the entire AICMC group it was good to see it finally die down. I’d much rather see this taken off line, get some real data not just anecdotal rubbish and assess the value of what you propose for the group versus what is lost for the group.

[BryanL]

The reason it died down was there wasn't much racing going on and there wasn't any follow up data provided that I'm aware of since. Meanwhile Sook continued to run the Falken. He ran them bald and didn't see the tire falloff after 8 weekends! His opinion is they are about as fast as RR's after the RR falls off but it stays that way for it's whole life. Again only one set but Sook gets more track time than I think anyone here and has won in both platforms so I have a lot of respect for him as well as for other reasons. Here is some data he provided last year during a tire test he did on his own. http://www.aicmctexas.com/showthread.php?6013-Falken-Azenis-Tire-Data-MSR-Houston-March-2019-CCW.

All I know is there was interest back then and there still is today. I wanted to get the word out to find if there were any others that I wasn't aware of that would reach out to me which they have. What I wanted to try and find out is if we could get some people who have cars sitting at home back on track (this has brought me to another thought for another thread) I am not trying to get the class to make a change right now or anyone else. But I am going to try and provide some follow up data to offer up and follow up on what Sook/Records/Alford did last year. I would like input (privately) on how to do this and what any possible goals would be.

The goal in my mind would be to provide an option if there is a tire that wouldn't fall off as much, last longer, be more affordable. If nothing else to find a tire to suggest to people to use for practice days that behaves similarly but is cheaper and lasts longer. If it helps the newbie get on track more then I think that's a win and worth it to me. Daniels feedback was that it 'feels' similar on falkens and RR's. If it understeers with one it will understeer with the other.

To that end let's try and make this more productive and take offline. I would love input from anyone on what tires to try (Falken and NT01 is what I have heard from most), what data/comparisons you would like to see. I'm willing to run something at Cresson/ECR/Hallett if time allows me to make all those events (I'll be on a campout during COTA). I'll fun run, class in AIX, go to TT I don't care but like Al said ever since the original RA1 was taking away and NASA/TOYO gave us the 888 there have been issues with tires that we didn't see with the original RA1.

If you don't have my email or contact info please send me a PM and discuss offline.

[ShadowBolt]

I will never get over all the lies about Toyo tires. After the new RA1 came out I talked to several higher ups in NASA and I was told the new RA1 was exactly the same as the original one......exactly the same. I was then told the reason the tires were falling off with heat cycles was due to us all being so much faster and harder on the tire than we had been with the old RA1. I assumed that was all true until a few nights ago I spent a few hours on several forums reading about how the old RA1 was fastest right before cording. I was not reading a NASA CMC thread but several classes in SCCA and others like Porsche club. I read over and over about how the RA1 was not great but it just got better and better until it corded. I remember Jeff Burch and Glenn going to nationals and taking what we all called "thin to wins" to use in the championship race. Show me someone trying that with the new RA1 or the RR. So I assume the higher up within NASA were lied to by Toyo. There is no other reason for them to say what they said about the new RA1 when it is obviously not true. Can you imagine the first group of NASA Texas CMC racers like Al, Todd, Eric, Wayne, Adam Jeff Brooks and the other pioneers being told their tires would go away after 12-14 heat cycles. My guess is the class would have never gotten off the ground here in Texas. I certainly do understand why Toyo would not want a race tire to last without falloff. If our class is a TOYO class I don't see what we can do about it. It seams to me they have us by the short hairs.

JJ

[Rob Liebbe]

It can be said that some are voting with their wallet (partially my reason - work, time and current car issues are my other reasons). The Nitto NT01 seems to be a really good tire and is used by a friend of mine when running very fast in DE events in a Shelby GT350. I know Nitto is a sub brand of Toyo and is heavily involved in other race types, Drift comes to mind immediately.

Maybe a pitch to Toyo is that showing the Nitto name in a class that is not based on high spending (all racing is spendy) would be good advertising for the depth and variety of the Toyo family of tires.

Just an old racer who randomly checked the forum today.

[AI#97]

I will never get over all the lies about Toyo tires. After the new RA1 came out I talked to several higher ups in NASA and I was told the new RA1 was exactly the same as the original one......exactly the same. I was then told the reason the tires were falling off with heat cycles was due to us all being so much faster and harder on the tire than we had been with the old RA1. I assumed that was all true until a few nights ago I spent a few hours on several forums reading about how the old RA1 was fastest right before cording. I was not reading a NASA CMC thread but several classes in SCCA and others like Porsche club. I read over and over about how the RA1 was not great but it just got better and better until it corded. I remember Jeff Burch and Glenn going to nationals and taking what we all called "thin to wins" to use in the championship race. Show me someone trying that with the new RA1 or the RR. So I assume the higher up within NASA were lied to by Toyo. There is no other reason for them to say what they said about the new RA1 when it is obviously not true. Can you imagine the first group of NASA Texas CMC racers like Al, Todd, Eric, Wayne, Adam Jeff Brooks and the other pioneers being told their tires would go away after 12-14 heat cycles. My guess is the class would have never gotten off the ground here in Texas. I certainly do understand why Toyo would not want a race tire to last without falloff. If our class is a TOYO class I don't see what we can do about it. It seams to me they have us by the short hairs.

JJ

Toyo is writing some VERY large checks to NASA...remember they paid a $70k purse at COTA in 2018 to the Spec Miata winner and I am sure they are lining the pockets of several NASA partners to be the title sponsor. that is how things work. They also LISTENED to racers who complained about having to shave the RA1 because there were exactly THREE shops in the US of A that could do it properly. I'm not defending NASA or Toyo at all but the imperfect situation has gotten all the spec classes to where they are right now. Tarriffs are probably going to start jacking things up too so Racing is just going to keep getting moar expensive. Suxx but that is life. At least you aren't buying tires that are $430 ea and last 3 to 4 heat cycles. And those aren't even the fastest tires I NEED to buy to be at the sharp end of the field. Those are $600 ea.

[Fbody383]

At least you aren't buying tires that are $430 ea and last 3 to 4 heat cycles. And those aren't even the fastest tires I NEED to buy to be at the sharp end of the field. Those are $600 ea. CMC doesn't/can't exist in that paradigm. I think you support the point - one of the original hallmarks of the series was NOT having to outspend the field in tires.

[AI#97]

CMC doesn't/can't exist in that paradigm. I think you support the point - one of the original hallmarks of the series was NOT having to outspend the field in tires.

True but toyo has no incentive to do better because the only options are to switch to Nitto NT01 or go to Hoosier/other. Remember, they are probably only catering to somewhere between 500 and 700 customers buying spec tires in the entire country and most of those are buying the 205/50/15 tire. I doubt toyo sells much of the non-spec sizes of the RR to track day folks. to go to anything else to keep costs down means going slower and NASA isn't going to do that until someone shows up with MOAR cash than Toyo.

I know WRL is about to announce a new tire sponsor program and it might be Nankang from the tire size list they sent out. won't know till they announce it though. I've run on them and they remind me of the old RA1...just not sure how they heat cycle yet.

[Supercharged111]

It can be said that some are voting with their wallet (partially my reason - work, time and current car issues are my other reasons).


A dozen or so drivers speaking with their wallets isn't going to get the attention of Toyo to get them to change their recipe. If the rest of the folks Nationwide and in all classes running RRs aren't speaking with their wallets then you're wasting your time. I'm betting there aren't all that many current racers who've experienced the original RA1 so most just accept the tire situation for what it is, not knowing that it could be better.

[AllZWay]

I wish you guys all the best of luck in getting somewhere, but it is painfully obvious that neither NASA or Toyo have any desire to help the situation and simply don't give a rats ass about it and therefore you are mostly peeing into the wind.

Just another old racer who randomly checked the forum today.