I am not slow I am tire challenged.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:58 pm

True, Chuck, but I am pretty sure SCCA didn't make that move for the serious competitor; rather, the intent was to lower entry costs for local hacks like me, and to keep cost barriers down for new folks. (Edit: I think the tire rule change specifically helps Steve and folks in his situation, as he now has an option to be relatively competitive with the purchase of one $110-130 street tire. Not bad, certainly better than feeling the need to buy 4 Hoosiers)

Nationals-type drivers are going to spend the money regardless, whether it be for Hoosiers or multiple sets of 200tw tires.

While off topic from Steve's OP, FWIW,I have not experienced any performance change throughout my time with two sets of fully-worn past the wear bar Rivals, including close to 10k street miles. I will be changing tires this year because the new crop of tires is better, not because the Rivals heat cycled out. I got beat a lot by people driving nearly-no tread RS3s, who were beating my by the same margin when those tires were new.... so if the Hankooks drop off, it isn't by much. I have not heard any autoX types complain about Z2s heatcycling out, although it could be happening in roadracing since I don't follow that much. I do recall people complain about the RS2 doing that. I didn't experience heatcycling with the Z1* (2sets) on my camber challenged WRX...those wore to the wear bars pretty quickly. The Toyos were good to the cords as well, but were prone to overheating on warm days or on heavier cars.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 2:44 pm

RS3s aren't very good at full tread but definitely stay fast until they cord in my experience in Jeremy's car with them. Very unlike their predecessor, the RS2 which are renowned for heat cycling to bricks unless you shave them to less than 50% of their initial tread.

I am not sure what the mileage/tread of your Rivals Steve when I drove your car twice but they felt great to me (though the stiffer sidewalls made turn in a lot faster than the RS3 so it took a few runs to get used to them).

Steven Spampinato · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 2:56 pm

I just wanted to thank everyone. I think I will scrape some pennies for two front tires.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 4:41 pm

Steven Carter wrote:

True, Chuck, but I am pretty sure SCCA didn't make that move for the serious competitor; rather, the intent was to lower entry costs for local hacks like me, and to keep cost barriers down for new folks.

100% agree along with breaking the monopoly of Hooiser/Kumho R-comps. The benefit I like the best is driving to events on the tires and not loading/unloading, installing/uninstalling them, etc, especially during those wonderful 95F+ heat index days in full sun. All of that gets old REAL quick when you're in your mid-50s.

BriceJohnson · **Joined:** Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:33 am **Posts:** 2230

My approach has always just been to run extreme performance tires as my daily driver tires. Sure, it gets a bit hairy in huge downpours, but the tires don't heat cycle out before they are dead since you are wearing them down some with normal street wear. I did it on my mazda3, and plan to do the same on my miata. Sure you don't get QUITE the mileage you would out of a normal street tire or quite the absolute grip you would with dedicated tires, but its a LOT more fun on the street. I got ~17k miles our of Z1's (average over 4 sets) on my 3. I guess it just depends on what "street tires" you can tolerate driving. I would put something high performance on there anyways, so at best I might improve that wear to 30k by using a seperate set of wheels for events, but then you are left with crap tires at the end. If you are putting 800 treadwear tires on for the street, your results may vary.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2014 3:06 pm

Interesting you say that you get that many miles out of the Dunlops Brice. I'm debating on the same situation; extra wheels (~$200) & a set of Hankooks for autocrossing or simply just toss a new set of Hankooks on for full-time duty whenever I kill these stock Michelins on the Scion. 7-8k miles was about what I got out of a set of Azenis around town and a season of autocross in the white Integra so anything has to be better from today's tire options. In the rain, especially in highway stuff, I don't speed and never really feel safe at times with DWSes at 50%+ tread.

Therese has absolutely zero interest in driving 'my' car so I'm leaning toward option 2 and not having to store/change tires. Guess there's a few months to figure it out.

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Thu Jan 01, 2015 12:38 am

[/quote]

That's one reason why moving stock classes to street tires from R-comps isn't a huge money saver for the serious competitors since they will all have dedicated "street tires" that they mount at events, and for tour and national events, they will have freshly scrubbed in new tires.[/quote]

Rcomps are street tires.....

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Thu Jan 01, 2015 6:53 pm

For the Camaro, i'm planning ahead for my next tire purchase, wheels and tires in 20" are very expensive and I just don't have the budget right now to buy 2 sets of wheels and tires.

I've contemplated running a extreme performance tire like a Nitto NT05, I don't really have to worry about snow but cold temps and rain I do since it's my daily driver. Right now it has Nitto invos which do pretty well, but aren't the best summer tire out there, they handle the wet and cold pretty well on the street though. I'm guessing somebody liked to get in the throttle on straights before I bought this car, the rears are getting fairly low but the fronts have tons of life, I think it's a little too late for autocross and track time to correct though lol.

I think one of my options right now are some Continental DW either in the stock staggered 245/45 and 275/40 or going with 275/40 all around. The wider front will help cure some of the understeer the early Camaros have without having to change sways. I'm afraid NT05s will just wear out too quickly, but they should offer lots of grip for a street tire. My Invos have a 260 UTQG and the NT05s are a 200 tire. Actually the class I register for doesn't allow less than 200 treadwear tires, so that makes it easy since I can't run a R comp anyway.

Tire shopping on somewhat of a budget is always fun, lol. It's a delicate balance of practicality and wanting the most performance, lol. I guess I could just put more miles on the FZ1, tires are WAY cheaper for it, lol. I can actually put the best tire out there on the FZ1 and it costs me only a couple hundred bucks, lol.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Thu Jan 01, 2015 7:20 pm

I didn't quit running r-comps because of cost since it's pretty close if you can make a set of them last almost a season. It's the inconsistency of grip once they get 30 or 60 grippy runs depending on whether you're in a fwd Honda or Vette, respectively. Just an example of course.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Thu Jan 01, 2015 8:06 pm

Matt McGrain wrote:

I didn't quit running r-comps because of cost since it's pretty close if you can make a set of them last almost a season. It's the inconsistency of grip once they get 30 or 60 grippy runs depending on whether you're in a fwd Honda or Vette, respectively. Just an example of course.

Spoken by my former D-stock competitor who didn't get to experience "the fun" of a camber challenged stock class RWD car cording the edges (Hoosier edge-of-death) $300/tire 18" A6s after 16 runs...

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I am not slow I am tire challenged.

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