RA1 question

[Dave Nordhoff]

My RA1's have 1800 track miles and about the same on the road. This is a front that is the most worn. My questions are is this one ready to cord and is running new fronts with worn rears a bad idea? The rears are in pretty good shape. BTW this is my first set and they are great tires.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[VFR750]

I would remount the fronts so that the outside edge becomes the inside edge. If your not corded, you may get another 200-500 miles of track time.

Not sure about mixing new and used. At best the new tire will be a little squirmy until it get scuffed in. The worn tires may already be used up, but RA1s are supposed to get better with time. IMHO, if you pay attention to your traction situation, you should be OK with mixed.

[GrantG]

I think Mike is right that you could nurse those along if you wanted, but my experience is that with 1,800 track miles the RA-1 tires are performing far from their best with that many heat cycles. If your budget is not too tight, I'd get another set of 4 and get them shaved to 4/32". They handle great out of the box shaved and will work on the road too, but not in the wet.

[Dixie]

3,600 mile on a set of RA-1s? I'd get new tires.

[Quicksilver]

Remember that you will hit carcass rubber before you hit the cord and the carcass rubber doesn't have as much grip as the tread rubber...

[Dave Nordhoff]

After my first post I found a few small holes (3/16") down to the cord in one of the fronts and replaced them. I got 2 more track days out of the rears for a total of 2300 track miles. Man I love these tires, they kept getting faster and faster until my last day and they finally started to let go. I replaced the fronts with R888's last month and ran 2 days with a mix now it's time for the rears. The R888's felt pretty good out of the box with out shaving. I've read mixed reviews of the R888's and I hope they are as good or better than the RA1's they are replacing.

Dave

The rears.