[The HACK]

Problem with R-comps is they're like crack cocaine. They're addictive. Hard to go back on the entry level drugs like max performance summer tires or weed once you try it. And they're a gateway drug to running Hoosier slicks, which is like the heroine of the tire world. Once you go true slicks you're addicted for life.

All joking aside, r-comps are fun if you know what you're doing. They're bad if you don't. I had a student once, he was sharing with a friend with a built-out caged track car with R-comps, and that was his 2nd event ever. After his first full session, in the pits I told him he doesn't need me in his car, not because he was good, but because I can't teach him with the amount of grip and prepared level of the chassis. He was turning in at all the wrong places, getting on the throttle at the wrong time, braking at the wrong time in the wrong places, but because the car and the tire are so damn good, it feels like he's going FAST. So I told him to either find a car with street tires to drive, or he can listen to me and do what I tell him to when I tell him to and hopefully he won't be exceeding the car's capabilities in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if he can't do neither, he can drive solo for the rest of the day 'cause he wasn't going fast enough to get seriously hurt anyway.

But from my perspective in the passenger seat, that was the most challenging day of instructing I had to do because it was frustrating for him to hear me critique his driving when he's passing even some of the faster cars out there, to understand that the chassis is capable of SO MUCH MORE. Had he been in a car with street tires, I think it would have been significantly easier for him to grasp some of the concepts quicker, despite him going significantly slower.

About a month ago I went to Thermal Motorsports Club with my Veloster Turbo shod with all season Kumho Souless tires, and while my times were nothing to write home about, I had a ton of fun pushing the tires to their absolute edge of adhesion and back.

But at the end of the day? I still wish I had bolted on the Hoosiers to see if I could have kept up with that MacLaren 12C. The highs you get from going slow on street tires vs balls out on R-comps isn't comparable.