Originally Posted by Bryan Watts

World Challenge has only been running RA1's since the 2003 season, but the point still remains that there is likely still some speed to be gotten from adjusting to the new tires.

Originally Posted by Veloce Raptor

Ah, you're right. I forgot the previous Toyos they used were the T1's.

Originally Posted by Bryan Watts

Yeah, I think the Toyo street tires came in 2001. If you're going back 10 years, you can throw BFG's into the mix as well.

Originally Posted by jrgordonsenior

Mark nobody was more shocked than me. I had gone into that weeked expecting a huge advantage being the only Boxster with shaved R888's. I wish I could show you the pics of those tires but I threw them away. Several of us made a thorough examination of them including Mike Essa and Blake Rosser and we were all shocked how worn out they were after 5 HC's. It wasn't just the outside edge, it was the complete tire though WS will wear the driver's side tires more. I have 16 cycles on a full depth set and the outside tires look so much better than the shaved set. We took temp reading across those tires in Friday's practice and got acceptable readings on all 4 tires. Spreads of no more than 30 degrees inside to out. There was a veteran 944 spec driver also using shaved R888's for the first time and he suffered the same type of results.

Two things cross my mind. One is perhaps the company that shaved them overheated them or damaged them in some way. Second perhaps it's something to do with the Boxster's weight balance though that seems like a stretch. I look foward to talking to a few of the World Challenge racers after Long Beach....

Originally Posted by jrgordonsenior

I bought a set of shaved R888's as the test dummy for our Spec Boxster class. They were remarkably slower then the unshaved R888's and dangerous.

I had been consistantly turning low 1:35's on a used set of unshaved Toyos starting out the day with 11 HC's. On a set of brand new shaved R888's, I couldn't get below 1:38. They became so slippery in their first race (2nd. HC) that I retired halfway through out of safety concerns. I then put on a brand new set of unshaved R888's and promptly turned a 1:34:2 effectively trimming 5 seconds off the shaved tires best lap. I ran the shaved set twice more under different bar setups trying to get them to grip to no avail. After 6 HC's the tires were basically worn out, almost corded on the outside edges of the outside tires.....

Originally Posted by TR6

Interesting discussion. I expect to have my current set of RA1s worn out by this fall and have been wondering if I should go ahead and buy another set of RA1's now while they are still available and hold on to them or just wait and buy the R888's later this year. RA1s seem a little cheaper than R888's so its tempting to get one more set. But I worry a little bit about the shelf life of the rubber compound if I buy RA1's that have been sitting around.

Originally Posted by kgorman

I ran shaved r888's for my first race at TH. www.aimtire.com recommended that I run them shaved. I found no real problems, but I must admit at about 37 degrees hot I would start to get squirrly at 40 they were casters, so I tried to target 35/36 hot and they felt awesome. I normally run RA-1's on my 964 so I am familiar with the tires, and they felt very close in performance to me. In terms of longevity, it's hard to compare because I am running so much harder in the spec boxster. I normally ran the RA-1's at about 36 hot too, so it seems to make sense.

4/5 seconds between shaved/unshaved seems crazy to me, but I am no expert. What pressures where you targeting? Sounds like they might have been overheating like I described above.