What do you guys run for tracks? My buddy had a set of Azenis RT615, and it didn't hold up well on the track. about 85-90 degree weather that day, and after the 1st 20min session (willow springs, streets of willow) his tires couldn't stick anymore.

Some people with an automatic accord coupe on REO1R's did pretty well. I am gonna do a track day there at the end of july, it will be even hotter, probably 100's, and I am try to decide what tires to run. I have sumitomo HTRZ II's right now, and I am trying to figure what tires to get, I am thinking about about the REO1Rs, reading more about the Toyo RA1's, other suggestions for some r compounds?

TIA

 

have you ever been on track before? ALL tire comparisons are hearsay unless they were conducted by the same driver and on the same vehicle under similar conditions. in other words, the driver of the RT615's that hated them could have not known how to drive and overheated the tires or run a bad alignment or bad tire pressures (or it could have been too cold or too hot that day for the tires to work properly). the accord on RE-01r's that said the tires were good could have been driven very conservatively and with proper setup, creating good results. driving style has to do a lot with the way tires hold up.

if it's your first time i would not recommend R tires especially if you have no track experience before like karting. RA1s are good, I've run through maybe 5 sets of them, but they are by no means as sticky as some dedicated race tires that dont need to be shaved to be fast (Hoosiers Hankooks etc).

 

also if you are running a camber challenged car such as a stock subaru without any special considerations for camber (camber bolts or plates) you should get something with a stiff sidewall to minimize tire rollover under hard cornering. you could stick with your HTRZ's, but if they have soft sidewalls consider bumping up inflation pressure to reduce edge wear.

any garden variety performance tire (even an all season) will hold up to being on a track. when you start pushing it then you want something with good heat resistance characteristics. in this case the RE01r's will be better than the RT615's since RT615's tend to heat up faster for autox and are not as good under sustained load. the softer the compound the faster it will heat cycle out. but then again, softer is generally faster. i run autox compound tires that last only a couple heat cycles in a race to shave some time.

 

Ya, the Azenis RT615 seem to heat up ALOT.

I bought some (and some Rotas from Subydude) back in April for the SubyDude track event. The stock pressure of 32-34 was way way way too high and I ended up going to 26 or so. Also, because the tires weren't heat treated, I lost alot of tread due to it peeling. In the later session, with the lower pressure, it proved much better.

I went back to Thunderhill in June and had to drop the pressure even more due to the even hotter temperatures. The tires didn't have the noticeable peeling from April, and they were holding pretty well. I had other issues that were not related to the tires (Oversteer from a stock FSB)

I'm going again in August with a Whiteline FSB and KW Variants 3s. We'll see how they work then.