Welcome to running a faster tire, eh? No free lunch.... :D

No doubt. I just laugh and tell them to buy a set of my Hoosier R6's (245/50 and 275/50 R15's). That is the only tire I can buy for my wheel sizes.

I just got word that my Factory Five 818R was "Hotlisted". That means it will be finished Aug 17th instead of Dec 28th!!! I plan on running Hankooks with that race car in real 17" or 18" sizes. Do I want medium or soft compound? hmmmm. The car will weigh <1800 LBS with 300RWHP/300TQ:p.
No more Hoosier crack, for now....

1800 lbs = C71 Hankook compound. No reason to run the medium IMO and give up that lap time. I ran BFG R1-S (similar category as Hankook C71) with my 2500 lb car and they did not go off during extended HOT laps in a 40 min. sprint race. So i'd be willing to bet your lighter car should not kill the autocross/soft compound

Toyo RR update
 

I had a good conversation with the national Motorsports guy at Toyo and another with Evan at Bob Woodman ABOUT #3 above. Seems like the tread splice issue that caused the consumer advisory about mounting was fixed in later production runs. Advisory left in place in an abundance of caution. Most important to mount correctly for first heat cycle. BTW, a google search confirms that KumhoV710 had/has same issues as RR.

Kumho Victoracer used to have tread splice issues too. With early detection of that, you could just flip the tire and run in the opposite direction of rotation (opposite of direction that caused tread splice to open) and it would magically fix itself.

Amazing that this happens in F1 too, though I think Pirelli had specified the direction of rotation to be the one that closed the splice but didn't stop the teams from turning them around

Assuming decent wheel width, Chad, my experience with the Kooks would say definitely the softer of the two will work. Take temps of course, (I don't remember of the top of my head the temp range Hankook recommends) and track ambient and track temps too. In super hot conditions, you might be pushing it a little, but I think you'll be just fine unless you're in Arizona in the summer.....

interesting conversation here! thanks for the input for you more experieced guys. This prompted me to go to Tire rack and find out some of the prices. I run 16x8 in the back and I was pleasantly surprised to find this screamin deal in 245/45ZR16

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Hankook&tireModel=Ventus+Z214&s idewall=Blackwall&partnum=445ZR6Z214C71OLD&tab=Siz es

after further research, these tires are labled "2009 Prod,Auto Cross,C71 Soft"

might be a bad batch (or old batch) as they have another listing for the Hankooks in the same size but for $190

Yep that closeout sale on 2009 C71 Kooks is a screamin deal. Tried to urge a buddy to snag a set and he just couldn't afford it now. Too bad. Good deals llike that don't come up real often.

Just leftover New Old Stock of tires. Once tires sit around for awhile, they try to move them. Some people are very particular about tires being new production (or sometimes not, like in the case of older Toyo RA-1 being better than newer ones) and they want to be sure people don't complain they got ripped off, being sold tires that have been sitting in a warehouse for four years drying out.