Tire Budget

[Ritche Maxxis]

Hi Guys! This is Ritche with Maxxis tires. We are trying to understand what percentage of your annual racing budget goes to buying tires?  Can you please share how much you spend per event, or per year. 

 

Thanks, 

-R

[Ogren-Engineering]

Average 2 tires per event. 4-5 events per year.  When the car aint blowed up .

[turbogrill]

One set of Tires per event (race weekend). At least with RS-4, Rival, Direzza 2. Never had a chance to test VR-1 because car blew up.

 

If you rent a seat you typically pay $800 - $1600 for an event. That gives you 1/4 of racing time so you pay for 1 tire.

 

So maybe  5-15% depending on cost of tire and if the tires lasts 1 or 2 weekends.

 

Edited March 23, 2018 by turbogrill

[SiberianDVM]

Historically, our nose heavy Supra ate 1 pair of front tires every 16-18 hours, and rears lasted 2 to 3 times as long, but that was running a staggered set-up (225 front, and 245 rear) on RE-11.

 

Our first race on your VR-1 in 255 in a square set-up will be at Charlotte. I did a DE with them last weekend and they felt good, although a bit loose in the wet.

Do you have a recommendation for cold and hot tire pressures?

 

[Ritche Maxxis]

Is that like 20 -30% spend on tires? 

[zack_280]

We've been getting about 20 hours out of a set of tires. It would be pushing it to get two 14hr weekends out of a set, but not impossible.  We've run RS-4s and Maxxis and wear seems similar.  Although we haven't run Maxxis in a race yet.

[Ritche Maxxis]

SiberianDVM, I would recommend 33# hot and see how it likes it. 

[ross2004]

10 minutes ago, Ritche Maxxis said:

Is that like 20 -30% spend on tires? 

Yes, for us tires account for about 20% of the weekend's cost.

[Team Infiniti]

Using the standard "go to" tire the dunlop star spec direzza II $400-$500 per 14hrs

[Snake]

We get a ton of good life out of our RS4's (2 14 hours races) and then some.   After 2 races we keep them as spares in favor of stickers.    Not sure on VR-1's as they are not available in either of our cars sizes.   They would have to be pretty good for us to switch though.   Figure about $400-$500 in tires per race per car on the longer races. 

[rod rammage]

Tire costs were 4%  of our racing budget last year.

[Ron_e]

40 minutes ago, Ritche Maxxis said:

Is that like 20 -30% spend on tires? 

 

Off the top of my head I would say 20-25% goes to tires on our 2650 lb car.

[zack_280]

To answer the question, we use an average of 2 tires per race.  A 14hr race weekend costs us ~$3000 including food/beer/lodging.  So ~10-15% of our budget goes toward tires.

Edited March 23, 2018 by zack_280

[wvumtnbkr]

We are at about 17-20% tire budget per race.

 

That is about $650 - $900.00 for the car for the weekend (including mounting / balancing).  Our total spend for the weekends is usually around 4500 all in.

[Hillar K]

Dunlop star spec direzza II $540 per set. 14hrs

Sometimes we can run 2 races per set, maybe 1/3 of the time.

20% to 27% of race expenses

[thewheelerZ]

About 15-20% here as well.  FWD, 2350 lbs,  64/36 F/R%.  Fronts are typically nearly done after 14-16 hours.  rears you can still sometimes see the "hankook" (or similar) markings on the treads. 

 

I am starting to suspect that changing front to rear after the fronts have had a race weekend worth of heat cycles makes the front tires (even with enough tread on them) pretty much done for grip.  So may start just junking those and not using them on the rear.  So increase the costs from 6 tires in two weekend to 8 tires in two weekends.

[Justin9]

one set usually goes 28 hours in my experience...   normally, there is still some tire left so they become spares and a new sets gets bolted on....

[JDChristianson]

Don't know the percent of the total budget.  We are getting nearly 30 hours of racing on the RS4 with the miata.    We spend more for lodging for the team at some races than tires.    

[Jab31169]

Same here, since moving to the rs-4 it looks like we are going to get 2+ events out of each set. We were lucky to get one 8 hour race out of the re71. Has really helped us keep our tire budget low, maybe 10-15% each race.

[Wink]

Our budget looks to be going up this year after a tire switch.  30% of our weekend budget

[Ian]

Dunlops and Falcons, we typically let go after a 16 hour race weekend, unless we run track days with them.  We ran the maxxis once last year, but they were chunked so bad after 12 hours of BIR in the summer that we had to put spares on.  We've since gone to a wider size, but its tough to want to try them again.

 

Edit:  Just checked the website what happened to adding more sizes?  I see 2 15"s, a 16" and an 18"?  what happened there?

Edited March 23, 2018 by SonsOfIrony

[Gashouse Gorilla]

When I was racing the Sentra SE-R is what at least $500/weekend for double 7s. About 20% of our budget. 

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

Last year tires accounted for 17.9% of our race budget which includes tires, entry fee, brake pads, gas, direct car repairs, towing fuel, camping fees, and food.  We carried a set of tires into 2018 so that makes it a little high.  The costs don't include mounting/balancing or alignments because one member has a shop with all the good stuff (well sorta, he gets credit in the costs for some of that).  First year I have kept up with every expense, it was mind numbing how much we spent on this $500 racing.

 

I like fresh tires, so am willing to burn a set if needed.  Plus our car is heavy and goes through them faster than most.  So far I have been able to hand tires down to other track cars or daily drivers or give them away if any life is left on them.  

Edited March 25, 2018 by Burningham

[hotchkis23]

With our car tires were one of the least expensive budget items.  5 race weekends a year was ~2.5 sets of RS4's averaging around 30 hrs a set, but mixing and matching as we went depending on track.   Even ran one the opposite direction on the Sunday of Barber this year, still able to run withing .2's of the cars FTD that way.  Car weighs roughly 2200lbs fully loaded and we have a solid handle on our suspension set up.

 

This year, tires will probably be in the ~15-20% range now that we have a brake setup that will allow us to race hard for longer than 8 hours on a set of pads!  No more spending $250 a day on pads!

[trigun7469]

2 sets per weekend