The good and bad of R comps at the track

cossie1600

After taking a few months off from the track, I made a trek back to it this past weekend. Unlike my previous trips, I decided to drag my autox tires along, the 295/40/18 Hoosier A6 to compare to my 285/35/18 Hankook R-S3. I was able to carry the tires by using my utility trailer.

The first two sessions of the day, I was driving on the R-S3 and I was about .5 sec off my personal best. Even though I found the Fortune Auto to not be stiff enough, I do have to say the adjustments knob on it do make a huge difference. One click can have a dramatic difference in how the car handles.

While I was still on the fence about the A6s before the second session, I decided to put them on after experiencing some brake fade near the end of my second session. I figured it was safer to bleed the brakes and change the tires at the same time. As my luck would have it, a 911 spun into the kitty litter and shorten my third session by 70%. Despite only getting two laps, my first lap I shattered my personal best by 2+ sec. This was with no experience in how to setup the tires or the suspension. As I ended the third session, I had high hopes for the fourth one as I really wanted to squeeze another .5 seconds out the tires. Unfortunately, an EVO caught fire and I was only able to do my fourth session two hours after. In my fourth session, I was only able to make small gains on my times as the A6s are so big that it dug through my fender liner. As the tires were getting compressed in hard turns, the sidewall on the tire was cut by the inside of the fender. With the tires in danger, I had no choice but to back off. Even before the tire going down, I was stuck in traffic when the tires were at the prime. I had used up so much of the brakes and car to clear some of the morons. I ended up only gaining a tenth or two from my third session.

Despite the issues, the A6s felt awesome at the track. They cover up all the problems with handling on the car. It also gave me so much confidence to drive too as the tires were so grippy. Instead of being slower than other cars in the corner, I was able to pass people at will with the A6 on the car. Based on my memory, I was reading average peak G was around 1.2 with the R-S3 while the A6s were doing 1.5 with more room to go.

Now here is the bad part. Before I could go home, I had to unmount everything in the hot sun to get everything loaded and back home. The entire process took about an hour and it killed my back and gave me sunburn for nearly 2 days. So before you decide on purchasing slicks next time, you might want to think about how much work you want to put into swapping tires.