Sterling Doc

I tried one of the first sets in a 4.5 hour enduro at Autobahn this last weekend - really loved it. In the open tire enduro class we run in, I've run Hoosiers, BFG R1's, Hankook Z214's, and RA-1's. The RR was as fast as any of them, and very easy to drive.

I was within 1 sec of the track record on the 3.5 mile long course on my 3rd lap in warm up - very easy to get up to speed on this tire. It has great feedback at the limit, and very friendly grip/release characteristics. To me it feels most like the Z214, only with more feedback yet. Neal got in and went under the track record in a 2 hour long battle with a Hoosier- shod PTE Miata. When I got back in for my stint, the tires were still good, and I turned my fastest time 4 hours and 15 minutes in. After nearly 5 hours of run time, the tires still felt and looked pretty good. This was just bolting on to my RA-1 set-up - worth over 2 seconds per lap over those tires, and as fast as any we've run. If they heat cycle well, like Toyo claims, they have a winner!

I was pretty stressed about moving to another Spec tire after the R-888 debacle, but this could be fun!

genikz

Thank you for the input! For the price of shaved RA1s, these seem awesome! Let's hope the grip holds up to as many HCs as RA1s.

J richard

Doc, my recent experience with the latest RA1 has not been positive as far as longevity goes, they were fine up to about 16 HC and then they fell off badly. A Chang is probably needed. How many HC did you get? these seem like longer races than our typical sprints. How do they compare against the R1?

Veloce Raptor

+1.

New build RA1's are not quite what the old build RA1's were...

multi21

Erik

Any idea if the new RR will they be available by December? I'm got Toyo Bucks burning a hole in my pocket that I need to use by the end of the year.

Sterling Doc

I have been getting 16-18 HC out of my RA-1's as well, but I often cord them starting from 4/32nds (of course what that looks like depends a bit on who shaves them).

I don't have HC data, but we drove the 1st set I had hard for a total of nearly 5hours (20 min warmup, then 4.5 hour enduro). We were in a battle the whole time (won by 1 minute!), so this was 5 hours of sprinting, though in cool, ideal conditions. We ran over some debris, which damaged the tires, so they looked like this after 5 hours, and we can't run them again to get more HC data.



At least in these good conditions, they never went away, and I turned the fastest lap at 4 hours and 15" in.

RR's are available now. I know Phils Tire, and Frisby Race Tire has them, and I think Track Fast Motorsports has them too. I've found the 225/50/15 as cheap as $180, which is very comparable to a shaved RA-1.

f1rocks

So January 1 we can start using them in Spec?

Sterling Doc

Brent, yes. You can use Toyo bucks on them now, but we need to revise the rules this fall to make them legal (which is obviously the plan)

If we get a bunch of guys to make a midwinter trip to Road Atlanta in December, are you interested?

StoogeMoe

So this is a Hoosier R6 clone? But maybe lasts longer? It looks to be cheaper too.

Gofishracing

Is that a seam problem like the Kumho's had ?

f1rocks

I think it was a "don't drive over car parts on the race track at night" problem.


Eric,
Yes I'd definitely be interested. But not if y'all are running the RR's! I won't have the budget till 2013 for them. Have plenty of RA1's to burn up though!!

Sterling Doc

All 4 tires had a slice across them from running over some car part in the dark part of the enduro (splitter?). There was no bang, and I wasn't particularly concerned. Later, I felt a little thump, like a minimal flat spot, but it was very subtle, and I ran them that way for an hour until the race ended. After the race, I was a little alarmed when I found the half-dollar sized chunk missing, and the slice across all of the tires Glad I didn't know that when I was running!

The RR's are not likely to be legal in December for Road Atlanta. After Nationals, I'll be lucky to get through the last event at Road America on the RA-1's I have, so I may have the opposite problem.

It looks like I may be running another set for the Road America Enduro next month. I'll be running that as a test and tune, to try and dial in a setup for these tires on our cars. So far it looks like the RA-1 setup is close, but I'll be checking tire pressure and carcass temps to get the best data I can to help the transition. Certainly much more bolt on than the R-888.

J richard

That slice is kinda weird. If it were something you ran over it's odd that it's perfectly perpendicular on all four tires? I'm thinking more like a delamination going on there. The one shows the slit on both edges of the tire. I would send pics to toyo I think they would be real interested as this is a new product. Are all the cuts the same depth? Even if it was a cut the chunk missing clearly peeled off the carcass...

Sterling Doc

Interesting. I i'll take a closer look, and send on some pics.

Gofishracing

As I said before it looks like the seam when they assemble the tire. Kumho had that problem on their Victoracers. I got some replacement tires years ago and stopped running them. They said it was fine but my mind told me something else. There was an internal memo I got years ago that I'll look for about this tread seperation. I'll look for it,