jcsperson

I recently purchased a set of C5 Z06 Speedline wheels for my C5 coupe and I'm getting rid of the CCW SP500s that were on the car when I bought it.

I want a tire that I can drive on the street but will still perform well on track days. I'm also on a bit of a budget. I avoid driving in wet weather. After much research on CF, I came up with the following choices:

Nitto NT05

f 275/40ZR17
r 295/35ZR18

BF Goodrich g-Force KDW2

f 275/40ZR17
r 295/35ZR18

Kumho Ecsta XS

f 275/40ZR17
r 315/30ZR18
-or-
f 285/40ZR17
r 315/30ZR18

Yeah? Nay? Am I on the right track? Other recommendations? NT01s?

As I acquire more skills, I'll add another set and get some scrubs, but I'm definitely not there yet.

spdislife

NT 05s....best bang for a dual purpose tire.

blkbrd69

Take a look at RE-11's also for dual use.

NT-01 or R888 for more track biased.

Might want to considder Conti. scrubs for track and a real street tire for normal use.

FASTFATBOY

Nt-05 best bang double duty tire.

MarkDFW

You are fortunate to already have two sets of wheels. Use one set for the street with your street tires and see if the other set is sized so you can buy used race tires. Much cheaper than chewing up your street tires and you will be faster on the track. Best of both worlds!

If one set of wheels is 18 inches all the way around, that is the set to use for the track as 18 inch wheels are the way to go now.

GT Racing Tires is a forum vendor. Give them your wheels sizes and see if they get plenty of scrubs in those sizes.

My 2 cents.

CHJ In Virginia

I am not a fan of trying to use tires for dual purposes. They do neither street or track well. You now have two sets of wheels - one for street tires and one for track tires. Get some Hoosier R6 of Kumho V710 for track and keep your current street tires.

GT Racing Tires

You are fortunate to already have two sets of wheels. Use one set for the street with your street tires and see if the other set is sized so you can buy used race tires. Much cheaper than chewing up your street tires and you will be faster on the track. Best of both worlds!

If one set of wheels is 18 inches all the way around, that is the set to use for the track as 18 inch wheels are the way to go now.

GT Racing Tires is a forum vendor. Give them your wheels sizes and see if they get plenty of scrubs in those sizes.

My 2 cents.[/QUOTE]

sebdavid

I will second that this is the ideal solution, HOWEVER to do that he would need to install a hitch and buy a tire trailer, which he could understandably not be willing to do for various reasons.

MarkDFW

I cheat and drive to and from the track on them. Right now I have kuhmo v710 which are dot legal r comps. I will have to be more careful that Johnny Law doesn't notice me when I drive to the track and back on slicks. Both tracks I go to are just under an hour away. Length of drive also has to factor in to how realistic my solution would be.

If he can drive to the track and back, dedicated wheels with scrubs are cheaper AND faster over the long run.

FASTFATBOY

If you are just starting out I would advise staying off any tire with a tread wear lower than 200 for at least the first 10 events.

Anymore tire masks alot of your shortcomings, A tire with 200 or more tread wear will "tell" you the mistakes you are making and give you warning before it cuts loose. An R comp or slick tire will not, you will wake up seeing spots stuck to the guardrail when it cuts loose with no warning.

You will learn much more on a street tire, I would buy the cheapest set of everyday street tires to start out on for 10 or so events, then graduate to 200 treadwear tire for another 10 events, then to a r comp or slick.

The guys that do it this way are consistently faster and have better car control than someone who went straight out on a slick tire.

You HPDE to LEARN how to drive a car fast.


I started out on Maxxis tires on my Z28 and they were amazingly good and at $99 a piece I could afford to learn on them and street drive them, which I did.

Just my .02 cents.

sebdavid

Good point by Fatfastboy too!

jcsperson

I didn't see any in C5 Z06 sizes.

This might be the plan down the road.

I live 40 minutes from VIR, all country roads. When I graduate up to them, my plan is to drive to the track on R-compounds and swap them back to streets when I get home.

That's pretty much my plan. My next event will be my fourth. I've made good progress so far, but still have much to learn.

rithsleeper

I was told the same by everyone. Stay on street tires and learn, slicks don't give warning, but my experience has been the exact opposite. I did about 8 de days on proxy4/bfgood sport and I was hardly ever able to catch a spin in autox the same thing. When I moved to a slick it was heaven. I could catch and correct, feel the backend and steer with it easier while breaking it loose then easing back into it. With street tires it was just "hang on for the ride".

I still agree with the street tire at first but for different reasons. I fell it forces you to go slower sothere is less chance for a huge mishap. Dont know why my ecperience is so different. Possibly due to me driving a c4 and not a c6.

MarkDFW

I moved to R Comps on my 6th HPDE and will never look back. I don't need to hear the tires squeal. I can feel the limit of traction. My lap times have absolutely plummeted and having more fun than ever.

Timz06

See if you can find 2 more 18 inch and it will be better as you can run the same size tires all around. When you want to run track tires, it will be easier to build up your collection of scrubs.

Any good street tire will work for what you want, but they will squeal like pigs. Remember that after you run street tires on track for a couple of days they get hard as a rock and really suck.

Tim

jcsperson

That's on my "someday" list which gets longer every day.

Weston

NT-01's are pretty good, minus the tread splicing problem that Toyo has been having lately (seems to affect Nitto NT-01 and Toyo RR). Good grip, relatively good life, reasonable price, and if you want to be a little improper, you can even drive to the track with them on. Not Hoosier's by any means, but they'll last longer and will still easily destroy any summer street tire.

I couldn't recommend R888's though. The only people I've seen who voluntarily use R888's are casual trackday guys, and of course the occasional misguided person who drives around on the street with track tires. I guess they're maybe sort of alright if you just want to run a few hot laps and then cool off, but they'll have an overheating problem if you keep pushing them hard, and their maximum available grip falls off sharply somewhere around 15 heat cycles. Those of use who were required to use them (ie Toyo-dictatorship race classes, circa 2008-2009) almost universally hate R888's with a passion, hence them being forced out of race use and then sold at firesale prices (although they've since gone back up a bit). They were arguably a little better in the cold, and that was it; all other areas were inferior to the RA-1 that they attempted to replace. The only reason the RA-1 went back into production was because the R888 was so widely hated and people were voting with their wallets and not racing in classes that required them. There was lots and lots of drama with Toyo vs racers over this tire and their subsequent antics.


Absolutely! The less performance you learn with, the better of a driver you'll become. Besides, you can run some pretty quick laps on street tires once you get comfortable really pushing the car's limits. Master that, then you'll be absolutely amazing when you switch to race rubber.

RX-Ben

Correct - I am not sure if street tires technically heat cycle out, but they go down the tubes pretty quickly. The only reason to start on street tires is that they start with low grip, grip slightly rises with some slip angle, and then return to low grip at higher slip angles --- so you don't find yourself falling off the edge in grip, at high slips, like you will with DOT Rs and more so with real slicks.

wtb-z

255/285 Hankook RS3 is a good tire but vague and needs a fair amount of camber.

You could also consider the Falken 615K.

The Kumho XS 315 rear is going to be hard to obtain (being phased out), I don't really like the NT05 and the KDW is crap.

Modern extreme performance street tires are, for the most part, pretty well adapted to track days, and the Corvette is really easy on them so expect them to last awhile.

Timz06

I am also not sure of the heat cycle/or chemistry behind it, but I have run NT01s on my C6 Z on the street done a track day, ran them for a few months, done a second track day and the car was practically undrivable on the street with plenty of tread left I was spinning the tires in 3rd gear, it was so bad I thought the alignment had come loose, ordered new tires and it was fine. I have experienced this with a couple of sets of tires now.