Jump to content

Rain tire.


Bram

Recommended Posts

I was surprised at the level of control the StarSpec II's gave me in the rain @ Daytona last year, if there is something "better", it'd have to be a big difference to make me want to perform 2 pit stops to swap tires back n forth (full disclosure: I do not have a lot of wet weather seat time nor a comparison of tires on the Camaro...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We used Conti DWs at the Ridge and Portland, they worked quite well on a very wet track but lost time as the track dried. I have video of a couple of test laps after I fixed our intake issue ( lots of water = unhappy MAF sensor and very lean mixtures) and I drove away from the car that claimed the fastest laps in the wet while having fun purposely sliding around.

 

The top tires in the dry now have very good traction in the wet so there's not much sense in having dedicated rain tires. RE-71R gets my vote for best all around tire if you don't mind the wear. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We run R1Rs in the rain, and they're crazy good. The MR2 is normally pretty quick, but not 1st overall FTD quick. Our car has only been in constant rain twice, but both times (Sonoma and Laguna) our good driver basically ran away from the field. I have some video from the Chumpionship I should post that shows him passing all but a few cars on the track in 10-15 laps. That's also a product of the car setup being conducive to running in the wet, but the tires have to allow you to do so.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

To provide an opinion which may be against what others prior have said, I thought our ZII Star Specs were terrible in the rain. We were running at Mosport in cool weather last fall and were having trouble finding any grip. It's possible some of it was down to car setup, but we were ~10 seconds off the pace in the wet and only 2-3 seconds off FTD in the dry (same driver). It seemed like people who were on the Bridgestones or Hankooks had light years more grip.

 

Entirely possible that we just couldn't get the tires up to temp and that they would have been better when it was wet but warmer out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dimondjack said:

To provide an opinion which may be against what others prior have said, I thought our ZII Star Specs were terrible in the rain. We were running at Mosport in cool weather last fall and were having trouble finding any grip. It's possible some of it was down to car setup, but we were ~10 seconds off the pace in the wet and only 2-3 seconds off FTD in the dry (same driver). It seemed like people who were on the Bridgestones or Hankooks had light years more grip.

 

Entirely possible that we just couldn't get the tires up to temp and that they would have been better when it was wet but warmer out.

 

With cold and wet it is difficult to get grip out of any tire especially in the 180-200TW category.  We've had pretty good luck with the Star Spec2 as well pretty much only falling behind a few cars that were running aero for increased downforce. 

 

This is what we ran in, in December for 2 days.  We should have had 2nd on Satuday but had some fogging issues, we got 3rd Sunday. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dimondjack said:

It seemed like people who were on the Bridgestones or Hankooks had light years more grip.

 

We were at the same race and as a counter-point the Hankook RS3's offered no grip on Saturday's first stint in the downpour, until it dried out completely.  Now it's entirely possible the tires were fine but that I just suck.  I had the distinction of sliding off sideways in turn 1 on the first green lap before most cars had even crossed the start line.  :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, miatainium said:

We were at the same race and as a counter-point the Hankook RS3's offered no grip on Saturday's first stint in the downpour, until it dried out completely.  Now it's entirely possible the tires were fine but that I just suck.  I had the distinction of sliding off sideways in turn 1 on the first green lap before most cars had even crossed the start line.  :unsure:

Were you the green MR2? The one on the flatbed on the 1st lap? There were several cars off in the beginning laps.

 

I managed to spin the car at 100MPH on the andretti straight and (mostly) keep it on the track. I came up over that little hill by the bridge and the rear got light enough and came around. We REALLY had no grip. 

 

It's possible that the teams I was looking at (some of the top ones) who had Hankooks had a different rain tire. I only really was snooping around during parc ferme.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, dimondjack said:

Were you the green MR2? The one on the flatbed on the 1st lap? There were several cars off in the beginning laps.

 

I managed to spin the car at 100MPH on the andretti straight and (mostly) keep it on the track. I came up over that little hill by the bridge and the rear got light enough and came around. We REALLY had no grip. 

 

It's possible that the teams I was looking at (some of the top ones) who had Hankooks had a different rain tire. I only really was snooping around during parc ferme.

 

My experience with the RS3 is that they do not like being cold.  Hot/wet may be ok, but cold and wet is a big no-go.  

 

For the thread topic, Star Spec and Maxxis are decent in the rain, but still no RE71R.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...