BrianCunningham

Most of the other clubs I run with are on non-DOT rubber ie) true slicks

How do they compare to Hoosier A6's?

How's the grip?

Do they warm up the same?

Overheat?

Hi Volts Z06

Much depends on what compound you go with. Most slicks come in a range anywhere from super soft to hard. Most guys run a medium compound. (I run the Yokohama medium). They will take about 3 laps to come up to temperature and pressure. The grip is good (although I have never done back to back testing with A's) BUT unlike A's that go away at toward the end of a sprint race..... the slicks stay consistent. I'm used to having guys on A's run away from me at the beginning of a race....only to have them fighting like hell at the end when the A's give up. Here's a good example (this is edited but was a full 35 min sprint race)

yakisoba

Hoosier A series tires are not designed to run full race time (25-45 minutes). They are an autocross/qualifying tire and come up to temp fast, then drop off. You can extend this time a little by using nitrogen and careful management, but if you want to run 25-45 minutes at a time, pushing, you need to run a full slick or Hoosier R series. IMO of course.

Bill Dearborn

Great riding with you in the video. I sure missing running there. It seems like you were getting a lot of push at the apex of T2 and had to to back out of the throttle Vs having it on the floor. That might be due to a setup issue. Car was holding the perfect line through the carousel. Man I miss that track. VIR and Sebring don't even come close.

Bill

l98tpi

Olitho

If you look at the SCCA Runoffs tires of the winning cars in T1 for the past six or seven years since the A6 was released, if I am not mistaken, the A6 has been on all the podium cars every year. It has certainly been on all the winning cars. Additionally, I know Andrew Aquilante has won on those tires in GT2 for the past two years as well. Almost every other class winner on DOT-Rs has been on A6s with a few BFG R1s with the soft compound thrown in there. Andrew, in GT2, had the option to run slicks, but he ran A6s and he won. That is telling. When Andrew got his two wins this fall at Laguna Seca, it was a warm and sunny.

Going to NASA ST2, most all of the winners have been on A6s as well, although I think the Smith Corvette that won at Miller in 2013 was on slicks.

It is a myth that A6s are not for road racing.

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

Both have their places.


If you have something setup to do a one lap qualifying setup, like a time trail car...the A6 is probably the way to go. Typically they can be almost full grip by the first or second corner. For us....when we did the ZR1 hill climb that was on a A6 and we even used tire warmers for the early morning runs to make sure they had some temp in them.

Does it compare to say a true Pirelli/Dunlop/Michelin slick? No way. While you might spend a few laps getting a real slick up to temp, they can typically be 3-6 seconds a lap quicker than what a A6 would do on a road course. That being said....in some cases there is that much of a difference in manufacturers of the slicks and their respective compounds.

Like they stated above, there are different compounds and a real slick will slow down 2-4 seconds once they have reached their peak run time (can be 40-70 mins depending on tire and car).

When we were doing some tire testing near the end of the C6 W.C. cars the A6/R6 was about a full second quicker than the ToyoRA1 shaved tires, the Kumho slick was 2 seconds quicker than that, and the Dunlops were another 3.5 seconds quicker than the Kumho slicks on a 1.7 mile course. So right there, you can see a 6 second split with the same car, same driver just different tires


When comparing to class running race cars...you need to see what their respective tire rules are. The A6 is still a DOT legal tire, so by saying all the T1 car won on A6's....if they require a DOT tire, then you can't compare times to a slick.

Olitho

I was not necessarily comparing the A6 to a slick directly with the exception that I pointed out Andrew Aquilante ran A6s on his GT2 car when the rules would allow for a slick with no penalty on weight or power.

In NASA ST2 there is a penaly when running a true slick vs. a DOT-R tire so you have to decide if you want the power, weight and fast initial lap advantage of an A6 tire or do you want to wait a few laps for the tires to come in, have a horsepower/weight ratio disadvantage in order to run grippier slicks. If you expect a race with frequent yellows and cold weather I would pick the A6. If you expect to go green to checker in warm weather I would choose the slick to put the tire choice in a stark perspective.

Hi Volts Z06

We missed practice on Friday (replaced throw out bearing on Thursday night) and spent all of Saturday sorting out a bad ground. That left zero time to work on setup on a brand new set of Penske double adjustables hence the push. Looking forward to getting back there and spending a little time on setup.

NASCAR314

If you consider PRICE, and aren't afraid of barely used road racing slicks, I think slicks are great! I use both slicks and A6's, In my opinion the A6's are somewhat better. But for the "value conscience" hobby racer, the slicks at a lower cost have a distinct advantage to my wallet. Where the A6's really accel is in autocross on asphalt.

96CollectorSport

More info would help Brian, W2W, TT, Autocross?
Is there any penalty to run slicks?
Are there any size/width restrictions?
How long are the runs and what kind of temps?
How much does the car weigh and how much power is it making?

There are so many variables that help pick the right tire, with the way NASA does things it makes it tough for the average racer to make a slick worth the extra .7 in hp/wt that you have to take.

Just because Andrew was running A6's doesn't mean that they were the absolute fastest tires available, Phoenix may have a deal with Hoosier and those were the tires they wanted him to run. Just a thought.
They may have had a set of Hoosier slicks mounted up just in case the needed them.
Also besides Smiths Vette in 13, Martin ran slicks on his Stang in 11 and 12 with some good results.

Conventionally A6's are great because they grip right away and if not abused will last enough for a 35 min sprint race, higher temps and an ill handling car/over-driving the car will shorten that time.
Slicks take a few laps to come in but will last longer when the temps are higher and can take more abuse.

0Anthony @ LGMotorsports

Price is a big thing too....most true road race slicks are going to be 2-3x the price of a set of A6's.

Hi Volts Z06

I think the real discussion is whether you plan on running one set of A6's for a race and then selling them as scrubs (as the Aquilante's do) or are you expecting to get several weekends of club racing in with them. We really never did ascertain the OP's intent. I would think if you are running a national championship race and money isn't a concern your thought process is going to be different than if you are club racing an entire season. For me the move to the Yoko's was in part due to better contingency than Hoosier. While it's a hard decision whether or not to give up the horsepower in favor of slicks, the free tires from contingency sponsorship are hard to beat!

63Corvette

Anthony,

Thanks for your excellent and very detailed comparison

BrianCunningham

Great info, please keep it coming.

No W2W for now, primarily Autocross, Track Days & Time Trials.

No penalty for slicks, I can run whatever size I want
Currently running 335's on all 4
18x12 front, 17x12 rear.
3442lbs
600hp

and YES running last year with 200tw tires on the stock rims $ucked!

So, I'm going back to something with more GRIP!
I'm just trying to decide which way to go.

BTW In the Northeast, so getting things HOT is a problem.

heavychevy

I don't quite see slicks being 6 seconds a lap quicker than A6's. 2 or 3 maybe, 4 is all I can imagine on a long track like VIR grand or Miller full or something. Can't fathom 6 at all, even to a Michelin Blue. The more sustained cornering the higher the gap will be. But A6's are going to be faster than almost every slick on lap 1 and 2 but will fall off as the slick gets up to temp and runs faster.

Over the course of a race though, there is no doubt (some) slicks will be faster, especially when it gets hot out (near 80*) and A6's fall off even faster. I honestly don't think off the shelf yoko slicks are much faster at all.

I doubt Andrew ran the A6's because they were the fastest outright tire. I would think slicks carry a penalty of some sort even with SCCA, that or they just didn't like the Hoosier R slicks like a lot of people didn't. They were not very reliable.

Then after all that, you have to take into consideration sizes that work with your car, slicks will run taller and probably narrower on the same car in many cases. And also car setup and driver style.

heavychevy

Have you run slicks before? If not I would go with the DOT's first. If you haven't driven an R-comp, try R888 or something first as well. The communication gets less and less audible and more and more perilous the stickier the tire gets.

Slicks beat your car up much worse as there is more stress on everything. You will likely find some weak spots on the chassy once you upgrade to them, even from A's or the like.

Slicks are super expensive and heat cycle out and more inclined to blow out most times. Not good for DE. If you take care of your A's, you can run them to the cords and get a lot of laps, albeit more ginger laps at times.

A's will be faster for time trials unless you can get 3-4 clean laps or buy time and find a clean lap, crap shoot for sure. And I couldn't imagine slicks being at all useful for Autocross, A's will rule there, unless you run tire warmers.


I would consider starting with a set of R888, then R6 and then moving up to A6 at some point if I were you.

Olitho

I don't know what was behind Andrews decision to run the A6. I would presume the most applicable reason is that he felt the car was very fast with them. Andrew has thrown down some amazing lap times with his car and A6s. A6 perform very respectably against a slick in my opinion. It will be interesting to see how the A7 holds up as Hoosier has changed the build of the tire to make it more "durable" as they told me. It is supposed to be both faster and longer lasting. I did not ask them to define what exactly longer lasting means, but they told me it would be faster furhter into the race and heat cycle better. It seems that with the same compound though in the A6 and A7 that heat cycling would be similar.

As far as SCCA GT2 rules go, I remember now that prior to 2014 we could run slicks or A6s in GT2. But with the trouncing Andrew and the other Corvettes gave the rest of the field they restricted the Corvettes to DOT-R in 2014.

BrianCunningham

Been running A's since 2000

The only time I've been on true slicks is the DRAG STRIP
Kind of figured that's NOT a good comparison

heavychevy

Oh, well in that case, I think you will see worse times in Autocross, and only better times in TT if you can get the tires hot for a clean lap. DE, the slicks will be faster over a session, but probably cycled out by the end of the weekend.

For me personally, using Pirelli DH as a reference, the A6's are faster after 6-8 HC on each set of tires. The DH are faster HC 1-6 or 7 HC, but not by a lot though. 1-2sec pending track. But at $2400 delivered per set, and only NARRA contingency (vs all of the NASA events), it's a no brainer for me.

Also, if you run with NASA, for TT1 which it looks like you will be in, that's about a 60 whp difference on a 3100 lbs car. Or about 200 lbs on a 550 whp car. That really makes the decision easier for me. Plus finding that sweet spot of max usefulness of slicks without putting yourself in danger is hard. I had an off at Road Atlanta going 20 mph because OLD SLICKS. No throttle, nothing, just scrubbing tires on the TT out lap. Stopped short of wall by about 6 inches..... Screw that. More dudes bang up their cars trying to make slicks last than you can shake a stick at. A6's are tricky as they age, but predictable to the cords.