It's here...BFG Rival-S

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:29 am

Well, it's here....the BFG Rival-S. Apparently "officially" announced last week. It doesn't replace the Rival, apparently, but is an additional model which is interesting. TW200 still. Does this mean that there are some conditions for autox where the original Rival is still better? I doubt it. Perhaps for track use it would last longer hence they kept the original compound/design on the market for now. Only 10 sizes initially available in April -- see link.

http://www.bfgoodrichracing.com/streetautocross-bfgoodrich-g-force-rival-s/

Quote:

BFGoodrich g-Force Rival-S

New for 2015 alternate compound g-Force Rival S in select popular sizes
Extreme high-performance street/autocross tire for national level SCCA Solo and Pro Touring competitors
Updated compound for quicker warm-up, maximum dry, and improved wet grip; sacrificing some wear while still meeting UTQG 200.
Enhanced construction to improve shoulder wear on camber challenged cars
Tested at Lincoln Air Park on 2014 Tire Rack Solo Nationals West course with SCCA National Championship drivers and at Michelin Laurens Proving Grounds (LPG) Black Lake
SCCA National Solo legal after April 30, 2015 for Street Touring (ST), Street (S), and Classic American Muscle (CAM) classes requiring UTQG 200 minimum

Also Tire Rack link: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=BFGoodrich&tireModel=g-Force+Rival+S

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:21 pm

Just need them to make some tires in real car sizes. The Camaro is the best selling US muscle car there is but nobody makes tires for them! lol.

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:02 pm

Can we just go back to hoosiers now instead of having to figure out who makes the softest 200 tire for the next few years.

Quote:

Just need them to make some tires in real car sizes. The Camaro is the best selling US muscle car there is but nobody makes tires for them! lol.

Buy a Vette

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Thu Mar 19, 2015 8:56 pm

Unlikely to go back to Hoosiers in Street class. In most applications, street tires are still cheaper than Hoosiers (even if by only $30-40) and the convenience of not changing tires before/after events is very appealing for the local types and new-to-autocross drivers. Competitive drivers are a different breed, and have an opinion that may not represent the commonly held viewpoint.

If you have a car with 18-19" wheels, then you are out of luck pricewise...everything is expensive, and Hoosiers are almost exactly the same price! Ouch.

In re Rival S, it will be interesting to see how it compares against RE71-r, Z2SS and v2RS3. The original Rival wore really well, had a broad grip peak, and handled the heat without spraying, but was really at a disadvantage in the wet. I'm keeping an eye out for the TR and GRM tests, and using a healthy dose of skepticism for people who seem way too excited about one particular tire... You never know who may be getting paid for a positive review.

They are not cheap in STR sizes, though. But at least I don't need a second set of wheels and a trailer. ..Yet :stick:

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Thu Mar 19, 2015 11:16 pm

Pfft, 18-19" is for chumps, try 20" oem wheels, haha.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

Chad Culbertson wrote:

The Camaro is the best selling US muscle car there is but nobody makes tires for them! lol.

My internet research may be faulty (see list of hastily obtained sources below), but what I found was that Chevrolet manufactured 28587 2014 V8 Camaros of all types, and Ford manufactured 46519 2014 Mustang GTs and GT500s. Note that I have purposely excluded V6 models, which I think you will agree cannot be called muscle cars any more than a V6 Accord.

hastily obtained sources:
http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=379269
http://themustangsource.com/forums/f726 ... rs-532567/
http://s1190.photobucket.com/user/gmagn ... s.jpg.html

Now maybe a few of those Mustangs may remain to be sold, and model years are not the same as sales or calendar years. To support your claim, I also found an article, which I have conveniently lost, that said overall slightly more Camaros were sold than Mustangs in calendar year 2014, but I think the Mustang 'wins' on V8 production.

Back to your actual complaint: Assuming your OEM wheels are 19", will an 18" wheel of the same or greater width clear your brakes and suspension? If your OEM wheels are 20", then they probably weigh too much anyway.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 8:57 am

Steven Carter wrote:

In re Rival S, it will be interesting to see how it compares against RE71-r, Z2SS and v2RS3. The original Rival wore really well, had a broad grip peak, and handled the heat without spraying

I'll let you know Sunday afternoon. My RE71's are mounted. I really liked the OG Rival and hope the RE71 is just as good.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:11 am

Cool. I will be there too to see it in action. I think some CS cars will have them too. You usually beat me by a small PAX margin, so it will be interesting to see how much larger the margin is, as I am still on original Rivals from 2013.

I bet you will love those tires! From the description they seem to be made to favor strut-based limited camber cars.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:17 am

Steven Carter wrote:

Unlikely to go back to Hoosiers in Street class. In most applications, street tires are still cheaper than Hoosiers (even if by only $30-40) and the convenience of not changing tires before/after events is very appealing for the local types and new-to-autocross drivers. Competitive drivers are a different breed, and have an opinion that may not represent the commonly held viewpoint.

If you have a car with 18-19" wheels, then you are out of luck pricewise...everything is expensive, and Hoosiers are almost exactly the same price! Ouch.

In re Rival S, it will be interesting to see how it compares against RE71-r, Z2SS and v2RS3. The original Rival wore really well, had a broad grip peak, and handled the heat without spraying, but was really at a disadvantage in the wet. I'm keeping an eye out for the TR and GRM tests, and using a healthy dose of skepticism for people who seem way too excited about one particular tire... You never know who may be getting paid for a positive review.

They are not cheap in STR sizes, though. But at least I don't need a second set of wheels and a trailer. ..Yet :stick:

Never again for me running Hoosier A6/7 on a stock class camber challenged car. That infamous edge of death (cords) after 16 runs on a front pair of tires ($300 each) kind of took the joy out of it.

Re tests -- from an engineering viewpoint, I always have problems with most tire tests since they never discuss platform dependence of the results. Testing 16" tires on a 2700lb 240hp FWD car versus 18" on a 3600lb 400+hp RWD car is a huge difference, yet people latch onto whatever the results shown are for whatever car was used for the test. Similarly other variables that have significant effect on determining "which tire is best" are often overlooked and/or not properly discussed in said tests. This is especially true with car mag tests where they do things like use the car manufacturer's recommended pressures as opposed to working with pressures for each tire to figure out what works best which I believe GRM has done in some tests.

Now add to that the crony-connected potential as you've mentioned and we're left with almost useless results from any published test. :roll:

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:20 am

Steven Carter wrote:

Unlikely to go back to Hoosiers in Street class. In most applications, street tires are still cheaper than Hoosiers (even if by only $30-40) and the convenience of not changing tires before/after events is very appealing for the local types and new-to-autocross drivers. Competitive drivers are a different breed, and have an opinion that may not represent the commonly held viewpoint.

If you have a car with 18-19" wheels, then you are out of luck pricewise...everything is expensive, and Hoosiers are almost exactly the same price! Ouch.

In re Rival S, it will be interesting to see how it compares against RE71-r, Z2SS and v2RS3. The original Rival wore really well, had a broad grip peak, and handled the heat without spraying, but was really at a disadvantage in the wet. I'm keeping an eye out for the TR and GRM tests, and using a healthy dose of skepticism for people who seem way too excited about one particular tire... You never know who may be getting paid for a positive review.

They are not cheap in STR sizes, though. But at least I don't need a second set of wheels and a trailer. ..Yet :stick:

You missed the point. Autoxers consider Hoosier A6s "race" tires. They are not. They are street tires, the 200tw number tire will turn back into what we had before. I'm not opposed to cheap tires, I'm opposed to dumb rules. The implications here is that Street, ST, and SP may be back on the same tires shortly.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:46 am

Rob Keehner wrote:

You missed the point. Autoxers consider Hoosier A6s "race" tires. They are not. They are street tires, the 200tw number tire will turn back into what we had before. I'm not opposed to cheap tires, I'm opposed to dumb rules. The implications here is that Street, ST, and SP may be back on the same tires shortly.

your initial point was not well-stated. :wink:

Certainly everyone has their opinion on the matter, but there is no evidence to support your contention that we will all be back on Hoosiers shortly.

There is some subjectivity in the UTQG rating system, yes, but a tire manufacturer cannot misrepresent a tire as having a higher rating than what it is. Yes, Hankook and Toyo re-classified their 140/180 tire as a 200TW tire, but I am pretty sure you would run afoul of gov't standards if you claimed a tire was 200 TW street tire, designed and built for daily driving with a focus on sporty cars, was really an 80.

I understand the complaint about an escalating tire war and the associated costs of testing, comparing the new crop vs the old crop of tires, etc. From that perspective it will be interesting to see what happens for the pointy-end crowd. i wonder if we end up seeing a Spec tire situation at some point, but that seems hard to pull off.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 9:48 am

Steven Carter wrote:

There is some subjectivity in the UTQG rating system, yes, but a tire manufacturer cannot misrepresent a tire as having a higher rating than what it is. Yes, Hankook and Toyo re-classified their 140/180 tire as a 200TW tire, but I am pretty sure you would run afoul of gov't standards if you claimed a tire was 200 TW street tire, designed and built for daily driving with a focus on sporty cars, was really an 80.

The problem with UTQC system is it cannot be compared accurately across brands. The whole thing seems arbitrary to me.

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 10:06 am

I think it is arbitrary. I think the solution is a spec brand for Street and ST.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 10:29 am

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Re tests -- from an engineering viewpoint, I always have problems with most tire tests since they never discuss platform dependence of the results. Testing 16" tires on a 2700lb 240hp FWD car versus 18" on a 3600lb 400+hp RWD car is a huge difference, yet people latch onto whatever the results shown are for whatever car was used for the test. Similarly other variables that have significant effect on determining "which tire is best" are often overlooked and/or not properly discussed in said tests. This is especially true with car mag tests where they do things like use the car manufacturer's recommended pressures as opposed to working with pressures for each tire to figure out what works best which I believe GRM has done in some tests.

Now add to that the crony-connected potential as you've mentioned and we're left with almost useless results from any published test. :roll:

The TR and GRM tests use one car (well, IIRC TR uses several identical BMW 3-series with different tires), right? To me that seems to control for all variables except the tire, therefore the conclusion is sorta accurate in that X tire is faster than Y tire after controlling for all other variables. But the caveat is that we don't know if that same stratification of performance applies to ther car types and suspension setups. That's what we get for wanting free or cheap advice, right? :lol:

I agree that some in-depth discovery of how each tire responds to tweaks in pressure, camber/toe on a single platform would be really cool to see. As would be cross-platofrm comparison--you are absolutely correct that extrapolating results from a BMW 3-series to an STF car, or Andy Hollis' STC car to a 2015 Mustang are stretching the conclusions beyond rational application.

It would be cool to have the time, opportunity and $ to do that testing.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:46 am

Rob Keehner wrote:

I think it is arbitrary. I think the solution is a spec brand for Street and ST.

Nope.

Hi, yeah you are new, ohh I see you don't have the spec Humpmaster tires on your car, you get to run in Street Prepared.

The UTQC system is certainly not arbitrary, it is an actual test, that has actual specified methods to perform. A manufacturer can specify a Lower number if it so wishes (obviously for marketing purposes) but it does indeed meet the lower number.

IMHO, the real barrier to a treaded Hoosier A7 "r-comp street tire" is that Hoosier can't label them "NOT FOR HIGHWAY USE".

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It's here...BFG Rival-S

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