How low (tread) can you go on Toyo RA/1?
07-05-2007, 11:53 AM
#31
Race Director
I would keep running on those. I would not drive on street with them.
I race and trailer my car so I can carry 3 sets of tires with ease. I can almost predict when my Toyo's will give up (too slick for racing), but I am never 100% sure until it happens. I don't have the money to throw away tires so I keep them as long as I can still make decient lap times with them.
So my routine is to have at least two active sets of tires. One set is fresh and the other is worn down. This way I always have a back up set. I shave them to 4/32nd for dry track use. I have found that they don't last any different shaved or not, but at 8/32nd they take 12 heat cycles (sessions) to get to speed vs 5 or 6 for shaved tires. This gives me 4-5 more "fast" heat cycles shaved vs not.
Now if I were doing DE I would use my tires differently. If I trailered I would still run 2 sets. New and old. I would not shave and run down to the cord since lap times are not important.
If I drove to the track I would try to take two sets of tires as well. I would either do 1 set of pure street tires or two RA-1 with one full tread and the other worn down. I would do my street driving on newer deep tread set and track drive on the worn set till they gave up. Once the worn set gives up, track the newer set and then go buy another set for street use. If I street drove the car alot then I would just use street tires as a back up. If my RA-1's cordedd at the event the I would just run streets for the remainder of the event and get new tires next time out.
Of course one nice think is Az NASA event have on site Toyo RA-1 support so new tires are only a credit card away.
I race and trailer my car so I can carry 3 sets of tires with ease. I can almost predict when my Toyo's will give up (too slick for racing), but I am never 100% sure until it happens. I don't have the money to throw away tires so I keep them as long as I can still make decient lap times with them.
So my routine is to have at least two active sets of tires. One set is fresh and the other is worn down. This way I always have a back up set. I shave them to 4/32nd for dry track use. I have found that they don't last any different shaved or not, but at 8/32nd they take 12 heat cycles (sessions) to get to speed vs 5 or 6 for shaved tires. This gives me 4-5 more "fast" heat cycles shaved vs not.
Now if I were doing DE I would use my tires differently. If I trailered I would still run 2 sets. New and old. I would not shave and run down to the cord since lap times are not important.
If I drove to the track I would try to take two sets of tires as well. I would either do 1 set of pure street tires or two RA-1 with one full tread and the other worn down. I would do my street driving on newer deep tread set and track drive on the worn set till they gave up. Once the worn set gives up, track the newer set and then go buy another set for street use. If I street drove the car alot then I would just use street tires as a back up. If my RA-1's cordedd at the event the I would just run streets for the remainder of the event and get new tires next time out.
Of course one nice think is Az NASA event have on site Toyo RA-1 support so new tires are only a credit card away.
