Rallycross Tire Choice - 2022 Season Discussion.

So here is my update after the 2022 Rally season. We got ZERO rallys in on the Kuhmos. We didn't run any stage layouts that seemed to fit the tire. We ran the 50/50 Nitro Rally Cross circuit all season. We ended up getting a set of 14x8 wheels that had 12-year-old Toyo R888's that worked amazing on those surfaces. While they lacked some traction pulling out of the hole in the deep dirt sections they really gripped well on the limerock, clay and obviously tarmac surfaces. Next year we will have 3 tire options for our series that we will just bring with us based on the setup. The kuhmos, a set of aggressive snow tires (cant recall the brand) and fallen azenis. 

I finished 3rd in class behind two Fiesta ST's that were super fast. The last event I was able to snag first place ahead of the guy who always wins. So it was nice to feel like the car is more sorted and Im more at home behind the wheel. 

How did your season go? What tires did you love? What did you hate? Hope everyone had a great year. 

We didn't get any rally x in this year, due to focusing on LeMons efforts. Fwiw, I got a set of Firestone winter tires, big blocky things, for $50 each, 185 and 195 width, big sidewalls, 14" wheel size. They dug in marvelously in the rallies I've run with them in loose dirt and mud. 

BLUF: I just run whatever gravel tires for rallycross that I bought for stage rally. I just buy the "lower budget" tires for stage rally, typically (e.g. no Hoosiers or Yokos). I do have some Maxsport RB3s (the grass ones), but didn't even bother using them this year. 

Did all of NEFR on a set of new older-stock Maxxis Victra 19 (soft compounds), which I got from their clearance sale, with no issues, and they felt grippier than the Federal (hard compounds) we've used for a few years, with no appreciable wear after 150 stage miles and twice as many transit miles. Also used them for the final rallycross of the season, and they felt great.

Otherwise, just used some half-worn Federals for rallycross on our dirt/gravel (no grass) courses. Out of 7 events, most with 10+ cars in class, took two class wins, three 2nd place, and two 4th (and the points championship) - what I consider a "very successful season" in this ultra-competitive class/region. 

In my class, all kinds of different tires (mostly on e30s)...maybe 50% rally gravels, several guys running Maxsports, a few running snow tires, and one even breaking out some tarmac rally tires (on our hardpack course).  Oddly, most of us have multiple sets but just "run what's on the car" regardless of conditions, because most of us are lazy. 4 e30s on 4 diffferent tires, still finishing within a few seconds of each other pretty much every time. At one event, the car with the baldest tires WON in the mud (bluej)

Once again goes to show that driver > tires - at least in our type of courses that are high-speed and tend to be hardpack/gravel. I'm always thankful we don't run on the grassy courses where the people with the $$ speciality tires from Europe have a true advantage. Gravel/hardpack is a better equalizer IMO. 

10 seasons of rallycross, still have never debeaded any kind of tire (even running gravels down close to 18psi on occasion). 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said: 

In my class, all kinds of different tires (mostly on e30s)...maybe 50% rally gravels, several guys running Maxsports, a few running snow tires, and one even breaking out some tarmac rally tires (on our hardpack course).  Oddly, most of us have multiple sets but just "run what's on the car" regardless of conditions, because most of us are lazy. 4 e30s on 4 diffferent tires, still finishing within a few seconds of each other pretty much every time. At one event, the car with the baldest tires WON in the mud (ralleah) *cough*

Once again goes to show that driver > tires - at least in our type of courses that are high-speed and tend to be hardpack/gravel. I'm always thankful we don't run on the grassy courses where the people with the $$ speciality tires from Europe have a true advantage. Gravel/hardpack is a better equalizer IMO. 

10 seasons of rallycross, still have never debeaded any kind of tire (even running gravels down close to 18psi on occasion). 

I think the lighter weight of my car probably had the most to do with that spring mudder. I'm still a little salty that I didn't get points for that one, though I do get it. I wish we could vote in the class to count the day or not for season points when something like that happens.

I was very happy with the performance of my new maxxis as well. The wear is negligable over two rallyx (minus some very light outer tread slicing from that wheel going rollabout, incident.  Thanks Dan .) 

*knocks on wood* same for me re: debeads. It's odd how it seems so very driver dependent in rallyx. Same tires, same abuse, similar pressures, similar times... and some people just seem to debead more.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lol, I was not aware of the username change until now, but when I wrote that I was wondering if such a change was forthcoming :)

I'm also salty I didn't get 2nd place points for that, as it would have given me a bit more margin in points over nick....

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Once again goes to show that driver > tires - at least in our type of courses that are high-speed and tend to be hardpack/gravel.

Driver is always a huge factor. 

And the course design for the day makes a huge difference in what's competitive and what's not.  When I was doing rallycross regularly with the Jeep, I could always tell the stuff the FWD guys designed into the course vs what the Subaru guys did.  If a Subaru guy designed it, I was usually bordering on scary fast through at least some sections and would generally finish mid pack (the Jeep wouldn't handle tight stuff as well as the Subarus and it's heavy, but in the more open sections of course it could put down more power than pretty much any of the local AWD stuff).  Stuff designed by the FWD guys, I might as well have been running a school bus, it wouldn't have been any slower.  Those were always the spots that were so tight it was a challenge to get the damn Jeep to turn enough to keep off the cones.  So it would turn into "fly, brake, crawl through a bit, then hammer it to the next slow section".  On course with a lot of that, I was lucky to place mid-pack. 

In reply to rslifkin :

Interesting you mention course design and car drivetrains.  I always kind of figured it was just my bad driving.  In my old Subaru I always did best on larger faster courses and worse overall on tighter slower ones.  It will be interesting to see how the new to me Subaru does next year.

I'm going to try 200tw tires for the first time this year in a rx event.

These modified Rivals were very competitive on hardpack. I think I'll try the same thing for rallyx fest, if I can find a 200tw in the size I need.