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Let's talk tires...

14K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  BrianTim8 
#1 ·
I'd like to get some opinions based on experience or logic as to whether snow tires or gravel rally tires would be better in scca rallycross.

I participated in a few events on 245/45 17s and did pretty well, unless it was raining, and it was slick as shit. Everyone kept praising gravel tires for their amazing grip, so eventually I got a set of 15s and some used soft compound hankook's.

First event in them was a grassy field in the rain, and it was like ice skating; even once the grass came up. I've used them a few times afterward and drill was pretty disappointed with the grip. It got me thinking about using some small truck snow tires instead (Dunlop sj6's in mind as they look like a flat track motorcycle tire) in a larger diameter 205/70-15.

Soo logic tells me that a softer sidewall should help grip on loose or slick surfaces, and the blocky tread on snow tires would clear mud as well or better than the gravel tires I've seen. The compound seems like it would be softer, which would increase grip but I don't know how fast they would wear.


Has anyone tried both 15" snow tires and gravel tires? Which did you like better and what downsides were there?

Here's my setup:


evo 8. Mr bilsteins, no sway bars 15" wheels

Location: Washington state,

approx 1/2 events are wet/muddy and include loose soil w/grass and rocky loose soil. There is some hardpack if it's dry and we get through the topsoil.

Anyway..... First round is coming up in a few weeks and I'm itching to get my setup finalized.
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#2 ·
If it's hardpack, can't beat gravel tires. Although you'll be hard pressed to get them up to temperature, but you can run them at a lower pressure without worrying about debeading.

But if its snotty or slick, yea you are hosed.

If you really want to go nuts. Check out some tires from across the pond. As they actually have tires meant for racing on grass ("grasstrack") http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/competition-tyres

Would need at minimum 15" tires though.
 
#7 ·
update on the grass tires. THEY ARE AWESOME. they are pretty soft, however and chunked out pretty heavily during the season. Our first event this year was in deep rocky mud left them cut to shit. My wife and I dual drive, and we've got the equivalent of 10 events on our rb1 grass tires. They're pretty much done now (more due to chunking than being worn down) . I flipped them around on the bead and rotated them around to get the best square edge for the rallycross nationals in iowa, and I ended up getting 2nd. they worked good in the dry, and were the right type of tire for sunday morning wet grass/gradually drying out. I did horribly in the hard packed slick mud sat. morning, but am not sure if it was because tire pressure, how I was driving, or because they are pretty worn.

I think having multiple tire setups for each condition is the way to go if you are really trying to be competitive. I reordered them, but got the rb1 rally with hard compound. I haven't decided whether to save them for next season or try them out this weekend.

My next decision is whether I should get a wide super soft mud tire (205/60 indy sport muds) or a very narrow ice/type tread design for hard pack slick surfaces. I would think the narrow one would be better (thinking ice rally) but the guy who won had the fastest runs in the mud, and had new wide mud tires.

anyone have experience with both>?
 
#9 · (Edited)
My next decision is whether I should get a wide super soft mud tire (205/60 indy sport muds) or a very narrow ice/type tread design for hard pack slick surfaces. I would think the narrow one would be better (thinking ice rally) but the guy who won had the fastest runs in the mud, and had new wide mud tires.

anyone have experience with both>?
One of my competitors in MF was running super narrow rally snow tires in the muddy conditions at Nationals, specifically the Dmack DMG-ICE2 without the studs, and put down some very impressive times. I'm of the opinion that narrow are the way to go, even when there is hard pack under the slick. Having spent time in truck mud bogging, narrow and tall always won out over wide.

Do you mind sharing where you are ordering the Maxsport tires from? How bad is shipping if these are coming from Europe?
 
#10 ·
i saw that guy in the civic with the dmack's. There was a guy who ended up 3rd in MA, he also had the "ice" dmack's, and was closest to Warren's time in the wet. He didn't run gravels on sunday, and when the track dried out a bit, I ended up beating him with the grass tires I had. Warren ran the same wide ones sunday, beat me each run.

I got mine from demon tweeks. first set of 4 was 570ish shipped. when we reordered the hard compound rally rb1, we got 12 and they came out to $130/each shipped.
 
#11 ·
Hey Driftnburn - wondering how the Rally RB1's compared? Did they hold up better than the Grass ones?

I'm running Black Rockets because of cost and people ask me - 'how do you like them?'. No clue, never used anything else...but I want to change that, just not sure where to go.

Thx!
 
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