Rallycross Tire Choice - 2022 Season Discussion.

What is everyone running this year 2022 for their rally X tires?

Last year I started a Rally Tire Choice Thread that was actually super helpful for us in regards to tire choice last year for RallyX. What did you run last year that you liked and worked well? What are you running this year? The track we do all our Rallycross at has every surface imaginable so tires have been an interesting thing to figure out. 

Our plan this year is to add to our wheel collection and have  2 or 3 different tire options for our FWD Sentra SER. 

So, what did you use last rally season that you like? What did you hate? 

Let the rally folks debate! 

Here is a picture of our car doing things so this thread is pretty... Ha!

Last year I ran Pirellis in 175/15. I liked that they were free, I hated that they are way behind the gummy eurocross whatever tires. 

I will be running them again this year, because they were free. 

Sub'd

Black Rockets and arctic claws, because I have them.

No idea what will run on the Mini, probably arctic claws because they are cheaper than rally tires

We're trying out the cooper evo winters this year since it seems like the supply of original winterforces has finally dried up. So far they seem to work pretty well but we've only made it to one event and it didn't have a ton of competition and was on a very weird surface. So more testing needed.

Is there an easy/reasonably priced source of 16" rally tires? We're still not convinced rally tires are really better for most normal conditions, but they do definitely have an advantage in mud. Since we're probably going to end up in prepared/mod class anyway, it'd be nice to have a set of real mud tires around. But I really don't feel like trying to figure out 15" wheel fitment when 16s definitely fit and wheels are readily available for cheap.

In reply to dps214 :

I have noted that winter tires give up little and in some ways are advantageous.  They follow the terrain better and have less rolling resistance.

So here is my current plan: 

Set of 4 Winterforce 2 - for the course when we spend most of the time in the Florida sugar sand and muddy trails. 

Set of 4 Falken RT615K+ - For when we are running courses like we did at our last event. (we ran the nitro rallyX course minus the huge jump... lots of hardpack stuff.. killed our last 2 winterforces) 

I have 3 old but lightly used Dmack Grippas gravels. I may try to work them in if needed but I need to figure out how to bring them back to life. Oh, and I have 2 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 that I may try my hand at doing some tire grooving on to make something more aggressive. 

Not sure what we are going to need other than that. But I have kicked around the idea of trying some Hoosier rains or something similar just to see how they compare. 

In reply to B13Birk :

I have some Kumho gumballs and Hoosier wets (255/45-13 toilet paper rolls) for hard packed clay events, but I do not think those are what people think of when they think of rallycross  

I have WRG4s, Hankook kinergy 4S2s in the 195 60 15 size, the size is relevant as it's the only 15 in size where the 4S2 is V speed rated versus H. The all weather kumho actually sounds like is will be king of the all weather and snow options, as it gets stupid levels of sticky when it's hot out, they'll likely be the fastest thing that isn't the imported european rallycross rubber, but the kumhos we're out of stock in 15" sizes when I ordered.

I'm curious as well, thanks for the thread!

I'm running some Hankook Winter i*cept IZ2  solely because they reminded me of the old iPikes I used to like running.  We'll see if they hold up or not as I try to re-learn to drive...

For the Nitro Rallycross course, autocross tires are definitely your best bet.  Bryn suggested we are running it backwards at the next event.  The only place I felt like I struggled was the S-curve below the gap jump.  I couldn't get enough front end grip to get back on the power.  There was a big tire shuffle in the autocross world and used 15" tires are not too expensive at the moment.  They may be cheap enough to make it worth it to pick up an extra set of wheels.

I am curious how the regraded skid pad at The FIRM is going to drive.  It felt pretty deep for the 20' or so we drove on it.  Definitely different that the hard pack that used to be at the top layer.  I bet gravel retreads will be fastest now instead of autocross tires.  There are 4 or 5 SCCA events on the skidpad this year

I am not sure how to replace my 3 year old Maxsports.  My big concern with the Alphas is the number of debead-into-rollover situations I have heard about since they were introduced.  Are more RWD cars debeading these or am I just better connected now and hear about issues more often?

In reply to ojannen :

As people learn that understeer is faster in a rear driver, more people will be debeading like the front and all wheel drive people do.

I've seen "real" rally tires debead at 35psi, it is half course and half driver.  Some people could debead a crowbar in a sandbox, or something...

I try to keep mine around 30psi minimum, to cut down on rolling resistance.  Had a good lesson there when I drove on the street in my Golf on rally tires at 27psi, felt like I needed full throttle to just go 50mph.

In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

Are you talking about the Kumho Solus Ha31? 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to ojannen :

As people learn that understeer is faster in a rear driver, more people will be debeading like the front and all wheel drive people do.

I've seen "real" rally tires debead at 35psi, it is half course and half driver.  Some people could debead a crowbar in a sandbox, or something...

 

I try to keep mine around 30psi minimum, to cut down on rolling resistance.  Had a good lesson there when I drove on the street in my Golf on rally tires at 27psi, felt like I needed full throttle to just go 50mph.

I'm also not convinced that understeer is faster, at least not if you've got weight in the right place and can still have forward grip while sliding. Of course, there's a limit - there's "oversteer" and then there's "being perpendicular to the direction of travel for the entire run" which is how the only recent rwd rollover I know of happened. I do agree that there seems to be some driver/car/wheel/tire dependency to it.

In reply to dps214 :

It is my understanding that the "most recent" (Nationals) RWD rollover, the only one I'm really aware of, happened because he debeaded the outside front tire.  When you debead, the rim digs in...

The nice thing about driving sideways is that it generally requires your tires to be spinning, which helps them not bite in to ruts but bounce out of them instead.  The not nice thing is that it is generally slower than using that force to propel you forwards.

I know of three rwd debeads followed by rollovers on alpha euroceoss tires in the last season or so (when they became widely available).  All were fast drivers that got unlucky with a rut of berm.  Is there something special that makes these tires more prone to debeading.  I feel like snow tires should cause this problem more often but I haven't heard of one in a while.

In reply to B13Birk :

Yes, That tire in the rain at high surface temperature is an absolute monster and it's hilarious because it wasn't designed or constructed to be as such. I would seriously run them in heavy rain in wheel to wheel motorsports unless I was running Hoosier wets

Thinking logically about debeads, there are a few factors that will affect force applied to the bead:

• Soft sidewalled tires will be more likely to burp the bead (pressure from an impact won't be distributed around as much of the bead area).  So they require more careful pressure monitoring between runs. 
• Taller sidewalls will be harder to debead.  There's more flex to distribute and soften the impact to the bead area, and also more surface area being pushed outwards by the air pressure in the tire (which means more seating force applied to the bead, although this will vary depending on tire construction and how much of that force is applied to the bead vs trying to spread the tread area outwards).  You'll also typically have more air volume in the tire, so a small burp will have less pressure change and a reduced risk of causing a subsequent debead. 
• Larger wheel diameter should be harder to debead from an impact (but not necessarily harder to debead after a significant pressure loss from burping, etc.).  The bead surface is bigger on the larger wheel, so you're more likely to just burp some air and less likely to pop the entire bead out of place.  Of course, depending on pressure after the burp, you may still end up with a debead
• Overall bigger wheel and tire package is harder to debead, provided you have enough power to turn it effectively. 

When I was rallycrossing the Jeep, I was always pretty careful to avoid understeer near ruts (and to avoid sliding the tail through any significant ruts).  I figured any time lost from avoiding that was far better than de-beading a front tire which would have almost guaranteed a roll in that thing.  I typically ran lower pressures than most of the other guys on street tires (often at or a little below street pressure depending on the course and which tires it was wearing, front pressure was always higher than rear).  And while debeads were fairly rare at the events I ran, they usually happened on the front end of a car with street tires.  I never burped a tire on the Jeep, even running 30 psi in the rears at one event.  But the wheel and tire package was big compared to a lot of rallycross cars, typically I was on 235/70R16s. 

Debeading seems to largely depend on the bead of the tire.  Rally tires with beads that require 120psi to seat are not likely to debead.  Worn out snow tires that have been mounted and dismounted several times are more likely.

I've noticed that once a tire has been debeaded, and therefore driven on flat, it becomes much more likely to debead again, whether rally or street tire.  Given that, I am almost tempted to mount my next set of tires with Right Stuff to really, really, REALLY keep the tires on.  The tire will tear before the bead slips off.  Downside is that you can't pop it back on in the field (literally) and keep truckin', the tire is destroyed.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

Debeading seems to largely depend on the bead of the tire.  Rally tires with beads that require 120psi to seat are not likely to debead.  Worn out snow tires that have been mounted and dismounted several times are more likely.

I've noticed that once a tire has been debeaded, and therefore driven on flat, it becomes much more likely to debead again, whether rally or street tire.

That's a good point as well.  Some beads are just tighter fitting than others and will take more force to de-bead (all other factors kept equal).  And once a tire has been dis-mounted and re-mounted, it almost never seats quite as well as it did the first time (things wear and stretch a little in the bead area in the process). 

In TX and OK our courses are hard packed so the fast cars run high performance street rubber.  The fastest guys are usually on RE71s (not sure what they will use next).  I ran a set of Bridgestone S007s that were cheap leftovers and they were faster than I am.

I'm worried when I move to MS, I will need new wheels and tires.  

Fwd 75hp sub 1600lb car racing Tennesse Valley/Huntsville. 175/70r13 going with super cheap Petlas W601's dont like the fact there is no center lug but should get the job done.

Thankfully almost everyone in DC region has unofficially decided to stay out of the BS "tire wars" that happen at nationals and some other regions - in particular our huge and competitive MR class. Basically everyone in MR either runs various rally gravels (usually not new ones) when its dry/hardpack and Maxsport RB1Fs when it's loose or wet. A lot of guys just run the RB1F's full-time. If it's sub-freezing a lot of the Mod guys just run whatever snow tire they have. 

We don't really run on any grass at all though - all clay, dirt, and rocky stuff. 

As to debeads.....that's a FWD/AWD problem for the most part so I can't really comment other than if you're debeading a true rally tire, you're driving wrong. RWD crew rarely has debeads, and when they do it's always on the front and the result of a big mistake.

In over 70 rallycrosses (and 10+ stage rallies) I've never debeaded a tire - and that includes maxsports and cheap snow tires. And I run my gravels at just a shade over 20psi (Maxsports in the mid-20s). 

re: the national RWD rollover.....that was Mike Golden from DC in an MR2. If you compete against Mike, his driving style is pretty all-over-the-place and when he gets out of sorts he overdrives it. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

IIRC he debeaded the outside front in the final corner, shortly after the corner had been shortened/opened in radius after someone else had a red flag incident in our heat. Rim digs in = floop. 

As I sit here building an AWD car that should be about 350-400hp, maybe 2400lb, and am considering snow tires for budget/weight reasons.  (That is a lie.  I am not working right now...)

I guess I assumed it was a rear that debeaded given the circumstance, but either way he was basically perpendicular to the direction of travel when it happened and bad things are going to happen in that situation regardless.

I mean with snow tires we've run pressures in the teens (in mud, to be fair) with 205s on a basically 300lb car and never had any issues. Normal pressures were low-mid 20s most of the time. We'll see how it goes with awd...if there's ever an event that doesn't conflict with other schedules. So far we're 1 of 3 on being available for events since we got the car.