Autox tire life - street vs. r-comp

While the Vette won't be fully prepped & sorted for quite a while, the current mods make it eligible for either CAM or SM, depending on tire choice. Spending $$$ for the top tire in either class is pointless for me now, but running junk/cheap tires is a futile exercise in frustration.

I can either get used Hoosier R7's, or new 200tw street tires. The Hoosiers are about 1/2 as much as the street tires, but even being R(vs A)7's I'm guessing they'll still wear far quicker than any 200tw "street" tire - correct?

I'm not familiar with either the difference between Hoosier's road-race & autox compounds, or just how durable the current 200tw tires are.

The R7's are a track tire, takes at least one lap to warm up. For autocross, forget them.

iceracer wrote: The R7's are a track tire, takes at least one lap to warm up. For autocross, forget them.

This. Honestly, in the Miata, it takes a while to warm up the A7s I'm running. I would get the new 200TW hotness, even at the extra cost. Pick the cheapest not-quite-top challenger (unless of course we're lucky and the best tire is the cheapest).

In reply to iceracer:

I'm familiar with that, but considering it's usually around 90-degrees here it's not been as bad as I would have expected, plus there's usually 6 or more runs, so throwing away the first one isn't a great concern.

I'm more concerned with the longevity of the current 200tw tires. I know the top competitors will always swap tires at an event, but do the 200tw tires actually hold up to street driving? Do they heat-cycle out before they wear out?

Not all tw200 tires are oequal. There is anecdotal talk that some brands are much closer to 100tw in reality.

That being said I do know personally of an autocrossed in CAM S who has over 10k miles on a set of Nitto NT05 200 tw used for competition and cruising and look like they're 3/4s worn. But his car is a Shelby cobra replica.

Literally YMMV

The challenge car you drove last had fresh NT05s but they are not the fastest 200tw out there.probably the slowest but they are the least expensive

Street wear will be negligible compared to autocross wear unless you never actually go autocross. I plan on a set lasting me one season or less (150-200 autocross runs) and whether I do 0 street miles or 7,000 street miles....either way there're gonna be dead after one season.

Last set of RE71R's I killed, I put about 7,000 street miles on. If you just rolled along the interstate with good alignment and NO autocross runs I bet they would go 10,000 or more.

With the size and power of the vette, plus temperatures in which you run, you probably want RivalS. Used R7's may be cheap but they won't do anything well IMO. Used A7's on the other hand, SHOULD be faster than RivalS. If you can drive them. Lots of times AS(rivals) is faster than SSR(same cars, hoosiers) at a local level because of the driver mod.

Ovid_and_Flem wrote: Not all tw200 tires are oequal. There is anecdotal talk that some brands are much closer to 100tw in reality.

Yep, there's a lot of variability among "200TW" tires. For example the RE71R wears very fast and the Hankook RS3 variants last pretty long.

My experience is in line with RedGT's.

On my Q45 #2, The Aristocrat Infiniti, I baddly needed new rubber when I got it. What was there was old and dry. For personal budget reasons, I only wanted to spend on one pair so I went with 200tw Bridestone RE71r's.

Before The Challenge I put about 2500 miles on them. This included 2 autox events and one drag night. Add to that the rest was all street and hyw driving the bulk of it being 1,000 miles hyw to get to The Challenge.
Of the 8 Aristocrats, I took top in autox (some of this may have been that I was the only with factory LSD)

These RE71r's now have about 5,000 miles on them as well as a couple more autox and drag nights. I figure they are at a halfway point in their life and expect to get more autoxs out of them this summer.

In summary: Get the RE71r's or other 200tw and drive the Corvette on the street as much as you want. If the Corvette is a trailer queen then get the used Hoosiers. Half price for Hoosiers that will wear much quicker and be crap on the street are not a direct half price purchase. Your cost per mile of wear will be much higher on the Hoosiers.
I found the RE71r's to be very pleasant on the street. I had bought a full set the year before as the only tire on my summer only '90 Miata.

As for RE71rs at autox, you are not leaving that much on the table by not running slicks. These new "street" tires are amazingly grippy.

In reply to John Welsh :

Thanks John, those are the kind of details I'm looking for!

I kind of comes down to how competitive you want to be. With 200tw + Corvette, you really only have one choice which is BFG Rival S because nothing else comes in wide enough sizes. If you wanted to give up some width, you could run a 305/19 Bridgestone or Kumho.

But even though these are "street" tires, actual street use will reduce their ultimate adhesion since they'll be exposed to more UV/Ozone, etc.

Wear-wise, the "effective" life of a competitive 200tw street tire and a Hoosier is closer than you'd think. The 200tws will physically last longer, but the number of competitive runs you'll get on each (on a well-set-up car) will be more alike than different.

In reply to JG Pasterjak:

Thanks for that insight JG! So does this mean there should be a flood of ex-CAM tires available for cheap?

My wheels are 18x10 so either a 295 or 305 would be my best option for that rim. The car won't see many street miles & will be garaged, and probably trailered to some events vs. driven...at least until I trust it enough to take out of town.

I get a full season on Hoosiers with one driver before they're trashed.

I get a full season on 200tw with TWO drivers, plus driving a few thousand miles a year, and then they're retired to permanent street use for another year or so.

In reply to Ricky Spanish:

Awesome, thanks!

I'm using the BFG Rival S on my Z06. It's really the only size that fits, but at the same time the Bridgestone RE71R doesn't take heat as well as the Rival S, so for a ProSolo or dual driver car you will definitely be spraying the RE71R down a lot more than a Rival S.

A lot of people prefer the RE71R for the feel and predictability over the Rival S, but I think though that those are small details that a driver can work out. Given the choice people seem to go for the Bridgestones over the BFGs.

I'd get the new Rivals over used R7 tires. I'd probably get new Rivals over used A7 tires too. The Hoosiers are fantastic new, but when they start to go, they go quick. I also loathe changing tires at this point. If your car is a part time driver then driving on the tires isn't going to impact them that much. If you do a lot of national events then you will probably need two (possibly three) sets of Rivals for the year, but that's if you're doing tours, prosolo, nationals and locals. If you are limited in your event schedule, say you only do locals and maybe a couple of big events then you will get away with one set probably for multiple years. Store the tires somewhere warm when it gets cold though.