26 (edited by RobL 2019-04-17 12:43 PM)

Re: Rain tires?

Guildenstern wrote:
RobL wrote:

 

Let me ask a question back - At what point do you think it's appropriate to keep performance secrets?

Probably somewhere well north of winning $400 in nickels for a race that costs $1500 just in entry fees.;)

How about feeling like a god on track and passing 30-40 cars per lap?

More seriously - I'm of two minds on the subject.  One, hey, these things are a lot of fun and I want to help everyone have fun.  The second is that they create a huge speed disparity at a time (in the rain) when we as a group might not want there to be a 50+MPH speed difference between cars. 3 or 4 cars might not be bad, but imagine 20-30 cars turning not quite dry times in the rain in a field of 80 cars.

--Rob Leone Schumacher Taxi Service
We won the IOE at Southern Discomfort.
We got screwed at The Real Hoopties of New Jersey  and we took cars down with us.
We got the curse at Capitol Offense but they wouldn't let us destroy the car.

Re: Rain tires?

If there is a lot of standing water they Conti’s may help.   98% of wet lap time advantage is driver and the ability to get power down.   

I was on RS4’s at Autobahn in the rain with a rear wheel drive car that had the fastest lap in the dry on the day before.  Outside of Derek driving the TaTa’s car I wasn’t passed in the wet till ShitBox passed me with someone driving who was very confident in the wet line grip.   In fact, he made me better.  Then my times improved.   

If it is wet but not puddling badly, I’ll stick with the RS4’s so I can destroy the guy in the Conti’s when it dries out a tiny bit.

LemonAid - Changing kids lives one lap at a time.

Re: Rain tires?

NOPANTSDOUGIE wrote:

most winter tires i know of have no utqg treadwear rating on them

Now you hush!!!

(totally didn't have a contingency plan that involved remounting the snows from my DD Volvo for the Merkur before the last race I ran at NHMS when it was butt hella not sweet turible cold).

Re: Rain tires?

TeamLemon-aid wrote:

If there is a lot of standing water they Conti’s may help.   98% of wet lap time advantage is driver and the ability to get power down.   

I was on RS4’s at Autobahn in the rain with a rear wheel drive car that had the fastest lap in the dry on the day before.  Outside of Derek driving the TaTa’s car I wasn’t passed in the wet till ShitBox passed me with someone driving who was very confident in the wet line grip.   In fact, he made me better.  Then my times improved.   

If it is wet but not puddling badly, I’ll stick with the RS4’s so I can destroy the guy in the Conti’s when it dries out a tiny bit.

One thing that I've noticed is that 200TW tires fall off a lot with wear. We won B last year in the rain at Joliet with a set of new direzzas. They did us very well, and just like you described, they lost some time in heavy rain to the conti's, but gained a good bit of lap time back in the dry. That said, I put the same tires on this year at Joliet, and in less rain I had much less confidence in the tire. Also, to answer the obvious question, there was still a good bit of tread left on the tires, so age may have played a factor in their performance, but on the other hand, I did not experience any hydroplaning, which is another big issue with half worn tires with aggressive tread.

IMO, it's a tradeoff in wet vs. dry speed, but it seems to me that difference for most Lemons drivers in the wet, is closer to 10 seconds a lap vs 2-3 seconds a lap in the dry the other way. However, to your point, this gap reduces with driver skill. the most important thing really, is giving the driver a tire that they're comfortable on. Giving somebody who may have a little less confidence in general a set of RS4's in the wet in a RWD car may be a recipe for disaster.

Owner of the Knights Templar Neon
A&D of middling proportions

Re: Rain tires?

VanillaHaze wrote:
TeamLemon-aid wrote:

If there is a lot of standing water they Conti’s may help.   98% of wet lap time advantage is driver and the ability to get power down.   

I was on RS4’s at Autobahn in the rain with a rear wheel drive car that had the fastest lap in the dry on the day before.  Outside of Derek driving the TaTa’s car I wasn’t passed in the wet till ShitBox passed me with someone driving who was very confident in the wet line grip.   In fact, he made me better.  Then my times improved.   

If it is wet but not puddling badly, I’ll stick with the RS4’s so I can destroy the guy in the Conti’s when it dries out a tiny bit.

One thing that I've noticed is that 200TW tires fall off a lot with wear. We won B last year in the rain at Joliet with a set of new direzzas. They did us very well, and just like you described, they lost some time in heavy rain to the conti's, but gained a good bit of lap time back in the dry. That said, I put the same tires on this year at Joliet, and in less rain I had much less confidence in the tire. Also, to answer the obvious question, there was still a good bit of tread left on the tires, so age may have played a factor in their performance, but on the other hand, I did not experience any hydroplaning, which is another big issue with half worn tires with aggressive tread.

IMO, it's a tradeoff in wet vs. dry speed, but it seems to me that difference for most Lemons drivers in the wet, is closer to 10 seconds a lap vs 2-3 seconds a lap in the dry the other way. However, to your point, this gap reduces with driver skill. the most important thing really, is giving the driver a tire that they're comfortable on. Giving somebody who may have a little less confidence in general a set of RS4's in the wet in a RWD car may be a recipe for disaster.

I agree  a lot with what you're saying and I'm having this debate with my team currently; have a fresh set of normal tires for rain or dedicated rain tires. I hydroplaned off into a wall at Pittrace on some worn RS4s doing about 60mph and I'm arguing for dedicated rain tires.

I'm sure a brand new set of RE71Rs or any other 200TW tires is probably fine, but I'm worried if we have a second set our race tires we'd be more tempted to use them and then they won't actually be fresh and they really need to be. Our tires had about 1.25 races worth of wear and in my opinion they were totally unsuitable for being on a wet track.

Re: Rain tires?

tythetoyotaguy wrote:
VanillaHaze wrote:
TeamLemon-aid wrote:

If there is a lot of standing water they Conti’s may help.   98% of wet lap time advantage is driver and the ability to get power down.   

I was on RS4’s at Autobahn in the rain with a rear wheel drive car that had the fastest lap in the dry on the day before.  Outside of Derek driving the TaTa’s car I wasn’t passed in the wet till ShitBox passed me with someone driving who was very confident in the wet line grip.   In fact, he made me better.  Then my times improved.   

If it is wet but not puddling badly, I’ll stick with the RS4’s so I can destroy the guy in the Conti’s when it dries out a tiny bit.

One thing that I've noticed is that 200TW tires fall off a lot with wear. We won B last year in the rain at Joliet with a set of new direzzas. They did us very well, and just like you described, they lost some time in heavy rain to the conti's, but gained a good bit of lap time back in the dry. That said, I put the same tires on this year at Joliet, and in less rain I had much less confidence in the tire. Also, to answer the obvious question, there was still a good bit of tread left on the tires, so age may have played a factor in their performance, but on the other hand, I did not experience any hydroplaning, which is another big issue with half worn tires with aggressive tread.

IMO, it's a tradeoff in wet vs. dry speed, but it seems to me that difference for most Lemons drivers in the wet, is closer to 10 seconds a lap vs 2-3 seconds a lap in the dry the other way. However, to your point, this gap reduces with driver skill. the most important thing really, is giving the driver a tire that they're comfortable on. Giving somebody who may have a little less confidence in general a set of RS4's in the wet in a RWD car may be a recipe for disaster.

I agree  a lot with what you're saying and I'm having this debate with my team currently; have a fresh set of normal tires for rain or dedicated rain tires. I hydroplaned off into a wall at Pittrace on some worn RS4s doing about 60mph and I'm arguing for dedicated rain tires.

I'm sure a brand new set of RE71Rs or any other 200TW tires is probably fine, but I'm worried if we have a second set our race tires we'd be more tempted to use them and then they won't actually be fresh and they really need to be. Our tires had about 1.25 races worth of wear and in my opinion they were totally unsuitable for being on a wet track.

They did ok when that stint started but the hydroplaning increased dramatically over about half an hour as the rain picked up. Assuming that I didn't burn too much of them of over an hour in the rain, I have to assume that they were about the same tread depth as when I started and the big difference was just the amount of water they were being asked to evacuate.

Owner of the Knights Templar Neon
A&D of middling proportions

Re: Rain tires?

tythetoyotaguy wrote:
VanillaHaze wrote:
TeamLemon-aid wrote:

If there is a lot of standing water they Conti’s may help.   98% of wet lap time advantage is driver and the ability to get power down.   

I was on RS4’s at Autobahn in the rain with a rear wheel drive car that had the fastest lap in the dry on the day before.  Outside of Derek driving the TaTa’s car I wasn’t passed in the wet till ShitBox passed me with someone driving who was very confident in the wet line grip.   In fact, he made me better.  Then my times improved.   

If it is wet but not puddling badly, I’ll stick with the RS4’s so I can destroy the guy in the Conti’s when it dries out a tiny bit.

One thing that I've noticed is that 200TW tires fall off a lot with wear. We won B last year in the rain at Joliet with a set of new direzzas. They did us very well, and just like you described, they lost some time in heavy rain to the conti's, but gained a good bit of lap time back in the dry. That said, I put the same tires on this year at Joliet, and in less rain I had much less confidence in the tire. Also, to answer the obvious question, there was still a good bit of tread left on the tires, so age may have played a factor in their performance, but on the other hand, I did not experience any hydroplaning, which is another big issue with half worn tires with aggressive tread.

IMO, it's a tradeoff in wet vs. dry speed, but it seems to me that difference for most Lemons drivers in the wet, is closer to 10 seconds a lap vs 2-3 seconds a lap in the dry the other way. However, to your point, this gap reduces with driver skill. the most important thing really, is giving the driver a tire that they're comfortable on. Giving somebody who may have a little less confidence in general a set of RS4's in the wet in a RWD car may be a recipe for disaster.

I agree  a lot with what you're saying and I'm having this debate with my team currently; have a fresh set of normal tires for rain or dedicated rain tires. I hydroplaned off into a wall at Pittrace on some worn RS4s doing about 60mph and I'm arguing for dedicated rain tires.

I'm sure a brand new set of RE71Rs or any other 200TW tires is probably fine, but I'm worried if we have a second set our race tires we'd be more tempted to use them and then they won't actually be fresh and they really need to be. Our tires had about 1.25 races worth of wear and in my opinion they were totally unsuitable for being on a wet track.

Yea we intentionally ran our old backup tires on Saturday so that we would have fresh tires for Sunday. It helped a lot. Even cheap rain tires will probably help more than worn race tires.

Mistake By The Lake Racing (MBTL)
88 Thunderbird "THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!", Ex Astris, Rubigo / Semper Fracti
A&D: 2014 Sebrings at Sebring (NSF), 2014 NJMP2 Jurassic Park (SpeedyCop), 2012 Summit Point J30 (PiNuts)
2018 Route Sucky-Suck Rally Miata, 2019 World Tour Of Texas 64 Newport

Re: Rain tires?

We did the same.  20 hour old RS4’s for the dry day. More narrow brand new RS4’s for Sunday rain.

LemonAid - Changing kids lives one lap at a time.

Re: Rain tires?

We keep a set of fresh RS4's on stock wheels for just the occasion. Front wheel drive and in deluges at the 2017 fall Gingerman race, we had plenty of grip. Then, the next spring, we burn them off during testing and such, and start over.

Team BAD Company Endurance
Acura RSX #0
4 times losers, and counting...
"I got screwed" winners? 2018 Cure for Gingervitis, 5th on laps overall 2018 Elite meet to Cheat

Re: Rain tires?

Anybody ever tried vederstein Sportrac 5? I might give them a run for NJ, given how we get rain about half the time.

K Car Stalker

Re: Rain tires?

firegremlin wrote:

Anybody ever tried vederstein Sportrac 5? I might give them a run for NJ, given how we get rain about half the time.


We ran a set of Verdestein Quatrac 5 at Sonoma last March. They were very good in the rain all day Saturday. And it rained a lot. Standing water on track and no hydroplaning, excellent braking and acceleration grip and OK cornering.  We changed to Yokohama Advan for the partly dry Sunday session.
This was in the M45 AWD Subaru.

M45 Racing,
#45 '08 Subaru WRX,
#4  '63 Studebaker Avanti, IOE, The Ridge 2016
#19 '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe(retired) Organizers Choice Award, Sears 2015

37 (edited by OnkelUdo 2019-05-03 04:33 PM)

Re: Rain tires?

chdonley2 wrote:

We ran a set of Verdestein Quatrac 5 at Sonoma last March.

Where did you find Quatrac 5's?  Running 4's on my DD and have not seen a US release of the 5.

Edit...I lied...got the 5's.

Re: Rain tires?

Vredestein makes fantastic snow tires - I am forever a fan. Good rain tires doesn't surprise me.

Re: Rain tires?

OnkelUdo wrote:

Where did you find Quatrac 5's? .

Tire Rack

M45 Racing,
#45 '08 Subaru WRX,
#4  '63 Studebaker Avanti, IOE, The Ridge 2016
#19 '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe(retired) Organizers Choice Award, Sears 2015

Re: Rain tires?

How about the g-Force Rival S? Does anyone have personal experience with these bf goodrich tires in the rain? I'm planning to buy a used set that still has a lot of tread left.

Re: Rain tires?

wilmon wrote:

How about the g-Force Rival S? Does anyone have personal experience with these bf goodrich tires in the rain? I'm planning to buy a used set that still has a lot of tread left.

Nope.jpg

They are very competitive autox tires, but they get very noncompetitive when they get wet. Or cold. Or looked at incorrectly.

Liha zakonnykh ukrayinskykh biznesmeniv.
Ford Pinto Wagon 1972 roku – heroyichne vypravlennya, Memorial Toni Svona 2019 roku
Subaru Outback Sport 2007 - rehionalna premiya, NHMS 2020 - OnlyLamms.com
"My vzyaly zelenyy i kartatyy, ale vse mizh tsym bulo dosyt skhematychno."

Re: Rain tires?

The Fatman wrote:
wilmon wrote:

How about the g-Force Rival S? Does anyone have personal experience with these bf goodrich tires in the rain? I'm planning to buy a used set that still has a lot of tread left.

Nope.jpg

They are very competitive autox tires, but they get very noncompetitive when they get wet. Or cold. Or looked at incorrectly.

Yep...and we loved and bought the G-force Rival non-S a lot.  Adding "Sprint" to good endurance tire makes your market different BFG.

Re: Rain tires?

Thanks for the info guys!

44 (edited by Stan in Bham 2019-07-03 07:41 PM)

Re: Rain tires?

We can't get the Rivals in our size, and they are way out of our budget range.

We run BFG G-Force Sportcomp 2s in the spring, summer and fall.  At NOLA we ran midpack on Saturday, then were only a couple of seconds off the fastest lap times on Sunday in the rain - and both the ABS and turbo quit working on Saturday (in a 1.8L Beetle). 

The Sportcomps work well wet or dry and we like them a lot, but I don't recommend them in cold weather.  They're also reasonably priced, although a tad more expensive than the Westlakes and Nankangs mentioned previously.