[The HACK]

Car started out with Continental ContiSportContacts, and I must be the ONLY person in the universe that loved them. They're surprisingly grippy when you can get enough heat into them. I remember fondly chasing down a student who's now moved on to club racing and doing so VERY successfully on the national stage, and she had a Mister 2 with heavily modified engine and R-Comps (putting more power to the wheels than my car, mind you). I remember after that particular session, coming back into the pits and the Conti's were literally melting off of the tire carcass. It got so soft and gummy that you can press a finger onto the tread and it'll leave an impression. They were reasonable on the street, nothing to brag about, and it takes a lot of heat into the tires to get them grippy, but grip they do and do it well. What I really liked about them, is that they seem to take to heat on the track surprisingly well for a street tire.

Then the Contis were retired for a set of Toyo R1-Rs which were the exclusive tires on the car for more than 1.5 years, during a time which I would go to as many as 20 days a year on the track. When I first got them, I thought they were phenomenal. I mean, they're just barely comfortable enough for street use and they're more than competent on the track. The only problem I had with them is that the rears only come in 265/35/18, which isn't ideal...I'd like to run 245F/275R for this chassis. Then the more I drive on it, the more "issues" I'd find with it. Part of it is toward the end of their useful life, since they truly do double duty as street AND track tires, they got heat cycled out before the tread is gone. The last few events I did on the tire seems to have a lot of strange rear "squirmi-ness" and the tires just does not seem as fast as it used to be, and the drop off is quite big. It went from very close to lower end R-Comp grip to marginally better than a very good summer tire. Then again, 1.5 years of street driving and 20+ track days can do that to just about any tire, I suppose.

So I permanently "retired" the R1-R to street use only and bought a set of Nitto NT-01. Well, just the fronts. The rears were scrubs purchased from a friend who runs a E46 M3 in club racing, and he runs 275/35/18s all around. Since he's got a Nitto sponsorship he'd often run two sets at most races, one for qualifying and one for race, and the qualifying tires he'd throw away once they're starting to show some drop off in performance. While they'd still be good for DE use for up to about 5-10 more events, they're no good for qualifying. So I pick up a new set of front 245/40/18 NT-01s and bought 3 sets of rears from him and mount them to my factory rims and use them exclusively for track.

Meanwhile, the rear of the R1-Rs wore completely down past the wear bars, and while it rarely ever rains here in Southern California, I decided to call in a favor and ask my buddy over at Falken to send me a set of the new Azenis RT-615K to replace the R1-R. The RT-615K is civilized enough for street use, although the tread block is quite large that if it were to rain HARD here in So Cal I'd be up sh*t creek. I did manage to drive it at a local autocross and at Chuckwalla Raceway in March...And while it's performance on AX is pretty stunning, for track use the difference between the first 4-5 laps and the rest of the session is quite apparent. At Chuckwalla I was stuck behind another instructor trying to earn a point-by, and all of a sudden the grip sort of went away and I went from hounding him for a pass to can't keep up within 3 turns. I think had I kept the pressure low enough I can probably extend the usable range to last a full session, but unlike the Nitto NT-01 which is phenomenal for the entire 25-30 minute session and has a much higher capacity for heat, the RT-615K is really good for only a short stint, like autocross.