100 Treadwear Tire shoot out.
 

Watch the video.... R888r, Maxxis RC-1, Nankang AR-1

This made me interested in Nankang AR1 as they have 295/30/18, which will be great for the z.

AR1 isnt even listed on nankangusa. Can we get them in the states easily?

Being in Qatar, I get everything from US or UK, and AR1 available at UK ;)

I think you can as well, from demon tweeks website, but you will pay for the shipping.

Have I told you lately that I dislike you? :icon17: :rofl2: Just kidding.

I figured someone would be importing them, with a fee tacked on. Worth checking out though as the R888r are $$ too.

How do these compare to the NT01? It's been out for forever, but didn't really have competitors for the not-an-R-Compound-but-stickier-than-a-200-treadwear tire class.

That car got some understeer in it that needs dialed out. Need to throw in some other tires like Cup2 too.

Looks like he was too aggressive with it and overheated the tires. Definitely was not smooth at all.

Hes hamfisting all his inputs. Gas, brakes, turning; it shocks the tire and causes chassis imbalance

The tire game is all just that. There are a lot of really good tires out there that perform really well. Yokohama makes 200 tw tire that is as fast or faster than the three tested. It and couple other brands are considered cheater tires in the Time Attack community. These guys do some cool stuff and work with Sasha quite a bit. Anyway back to the tires. I have run NT01 and did a track day on the Maxxis RC-1. I have a friend that runs the Maxxis in the Nissan Challenge on his 350z. Well he is the fastest driver in his class with those tires. My experience with the tire that day was suspect but the track temperatures were cold and in the low 40s. It took a lot to get heat into them and I found them to be pretty similar as described by the guys on Speed Academy. They did not like hard braking or turn in. I got a lot of brake shutter and it took a minute to used to the slip with tire. I spun out twice that day mostly driver error as it had been nine months since I was at the track. I times were slower than I would have expected but probably due to my layoff more than anything. The braking could been caused by over cooling as it was cold and it was the first track event that I had 3" cooling. I ran my set of Nittos and I had similar issues. I had issues with grip due to cold temperatures. The Nittos did not slip as much and seem to communicate a little better. I only got one session with them that day before my engine blew. I would say if you are looking for tenths of a second you need to do some experimenting to find the tire that works best for your style of driving. All of the tires are within a few tenths of each other. If you are looking at cost, game over Maxxis for the win. The only issue with Maxxis is they don't make the RC-1 in a 19" tire and 18 75 40 is the largest tire they make.

I have not run the r888r but dive run r888's. They were only good for about the first session and once heated they would fall off quickly and get greasy. They were awesome on the road and highway. I ran them at ZDAYZ last year and they were handle exceptional well.

My final verdict is Nittos cost the most and produce good consistent lap times and they last a longer than most. They actually get faster the more they wear. Maxxis is the closest to Nittos and maybe faster as suggested for the best of drivers. They are cheap and last about the same as Nittos. R888Rs do not get much love in they track community other than some GTR fans love them. They are a strong street and canyon tire. Michelins are in that no man's land. They are no better than NT01's, they don't last as long and they cost more than the others.

I just bought a set of Maxxis for the Miata $600 for the set so I will let you all know how they perform on that platform. I think the other thing to remember is not all tires act same on different cars.

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What Yokohama 200 tw tires do you speak of?

ADVAN A052 they are actually fast than Nitto NT01's. They are the new rage in the 200 tw groups in Time Attack. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...del=ADVAN+A052

You guys do understand that treadwear ratings don't mean sh!t. In general, tire manufacturers can assign whatever treadwear rating they want as long as it's not higher than a tire tests at. As a result of this, in the performance tire realm they will assign lower treadwear ratings than the tire actually tests at just to make consumers think the tire is a better performer than it is.

Futhermore treadwear does not directly correlate to overall grip. While they may have some relation to one another, they are not directly related.

The only way to know the performance of a tire for sure is to test them yourself.

Agreed! This is why many of the 200 tw tires now are as fast as 100 tw. They cost the same too! My last track day I was able to out run a similar Miata and a driver with a similar skill and he was on brand new NT01 and I was on used set of Rival s.

The Toyo RRs are still the preferred tire for Miatas.

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Just to report back on my experience with the Maxxis Victoria RC-1 tires. I think they perform very well. Right up there with NT01 for sure. They like heat and low tire pressure. I ran 24 psi front and 22 psi rear. The communicate really well letting you know that you are on or nearing the limit. Although they are a medium compound tire I on got 5 track days out of them and they were talking to me from the first turn on the out lap to the last lap of the day.

Under hard braking they are not as good as NT01. That said what I found is they work very well if you brake early and gradually into the braking zone. They are very good and grip well during turn in. Mid corner grip is good until the tire start to wear. Corner exit grip is excellent as well. What I experienced is that as the tire wears mid corner grip goes first and then exit grip on the tightest corners and the car will understeer into corners. So basically on high speed or fast corners the car would oversteer and in slow corners where mid corner grip is not an issue exit grip is lost during hard acceleration. Would I buy these tires again? Yes because of the price and performance. It is just a little disappointing that they don't last long but I guess that is the price of getting faster, not many R compound tires will last more than 5 or 6 track days. :driving::tiphat: