Toyo RA1 Wear Rate?

[TT Oversteer]

I'm trying to decide whether or not I should get a dedicated set of track wheels. My 77 911s 3.2 will see 3 to 4 track days and about 3k mi. of street use per year.

I realize that driving style, horsepower, pressure, alignment, etc. all determine tire wear. I'm just looking for an informal poll on how many track sessions and/or street miles you are getting out of your RA1's.

Overall I'm weighing yet another compromise inherent to a street/track car. Burning up a set of sticky fast-wearing R comps on the street vs. carrying a second set of wheels to the track.

And if you carry your track wheels with you, how do you do it? Roof rack, trailer, inside the car?? I'm not planning on trailering the car to the track just yet.........

What's your experience all you Track Rats??

[KTL]

Funny thing about the RA-1 is that its deep tread depth begs you to commute to/from the track with them, which is fine. However in terms of wear rate, if you're somebody who really gets up on the wheel and drives the snot out of the car? You'll find they'll wear pretty quick at first and then lslows down as the tread gets shallower.

Reason being is because the full tread depth generates more heat and tread squirm/instability. That's why it's a good idea to shave them for fully dry track use- they'll actually last longer. Plus they're a bit unnerving the first few sessions with them at full tread. Can be downright scary if you're not prepared for it.

Hard to give you a number because like you said it depends on the driver, the track, the car, etc. As a point of reference, we'd get around one season out of them in DE enviro = 6-8 track days of 4 sessions. So call that 24 to 32 sessions. Mind you that we ran them on a car with 16x7 on all four corners, so we could juggle the tires front-to-rear and side-to-side as well as flip them inside out for shoulder wear reduction. If you're running the typical stagger with wider rears, you'll find the rears wear 2x faster than the fronts as usual.

I was able to fit all four track tires inside the car- 16 inchers 225 front, 245 rear. Key is of course to remove the passenger seat. At times when I had track tires with good tread, i'd ride on one pair of streets, one pair of good tread tracks (usually the fronts), and then have to carry only one track pair inside the car.

I did buy a roof rack but never got around to using it before I bought the race car and trailer. However I helped some friends use their roof racks and they work good. We did 4 tires standing upright on the rack with a broomstick thru the middle to keep them all together with ratchet straps. Pretty good load on the roof and the wind resistance is a bit high. I'd prefer two laying down and two in the car. Four laying down can work too, but you need to add some cross-braces to the rack to support the tires laying two deep front-to-back on the rack. Do a search for Jack Olsen and you'll see some good pics of him toting big track tires on the roof of his RSR hotrod and some descriptions of how he set up his roof rack

[aigel]

I commute to track events on them and the wear in daily driving is minimal. I would buy them as sole tires and give it a try. Buying wheels and lugging them around, storing them etc. is time and $.

George

[trak ratt]

I've had many sets and they wear just fine on the street. Prolly 8K - 10K under normal circumstances. I used to get a 15 to 20 track days (3-4 sessions/day) out of a set with mild track alignment w/'82 SC. That's if I flipped them after every 4 or 5 days. Not quite that much now since I upped to dedicated track use. But now I use them for wets and they last all season Then wife uses them the next year on her 964.

[naparsei]

Originally Posted by aigel

I commute to track events on them and the wear in daily driving is minimal. I would buy them as sole tires and give it a try. Buying wheels and lugging them around, storing them etc. is time and $.

George

We race Spec Miata on these. They are awesome tires. I would not hesitate to use them on a 911 dual purpose car. If you are commuting to the track via the highway, I can't imagine the wear would be bad. A light shaving (maybe 6-8/32") would probably help, as mentioned above.

[Kemo]

so they actually last LONGER if you shave them? Interesting indeed. Im on my first set of RA1s and I cant say enough about the value and wear. Ive had mine for almost a year with about 6 DE events at Texas World Speedway and quite a few trips to Driveway Austin. I think I have one more DE in them and Ill have to replace. I just wore down the last of the treads at the last DE. I guess you just run them till they cord out right?

[PatrickB]

That's the nice thing about them. the grip keeps getting better until they cord. and even then, they STILL have grip! Many R Comp tires really fall off in grip well before they cord, like BFG R1's.