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Old 09-19-2013, 11:59 AM   #25
Fair
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 333
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Wait... I mean well? hehehe...

Trust me, I understand the difference in a track-only car and a dual-purpose car. Most of the many hundreds of customers a year we work with have the latter, not the former. Even a majority of our own shop's "race cars" for the past decade have been dual-purpose street/track or street/autocross cars. Why? Because that's what a majority of our customers have, and we race what they race. Even our TT3 Mustang is still a 100% emissions legal street car with A/C, NAV, and full interior. We slap street tires on it for daily driver use often. We also raced competitively in the Street Touring set of classes from 2004-2012 and have 2 Championships and many trophies to show for it. That is a street tire/emissions legal set of classes.



These (above and below) are just a few of the cars we have built and that I have raced in the past few years, which were all dual-purpose cars (street/track and/or street/autox) run with 140-200 treadwear street tires.



We also hold our own private test events once or twice a year, where we often test multiple sets of tires on the same car against the clock and datalogger, make set-up changes, and try differing driving techniques. And this always pays off with a faster competition car, better tire buying knowledge, and gains in set-up experience. We do these tests often, like this one in 2006, or this one in 2007, or this one in 2011, and that one in 2011 again, and this one in 2012.



And we do these tests to learn, test, and explore new opportunities to go faster. In our many private tests we have used hundreds of sets of tires - name a popular tire brand and we've probably used them in multiple generations. We have had contracts and/or free tires sent to us from Bridgestone, Yokohama, Kumho, and Hoosier, but for the most part we have bought the bulk of the tires we test and race with. Earlier this year I was invited to the BFG Rival launch and test event, where we got to race on BFG, Toyo, Hankook and Falken tires back to back with each other, on 4 different test venues and 4 different car chassis. Learned a lot there and we have put Rivals on several customer and our own cars since then.



Even our TT3 Mustang, which uses Kumho and Hoosier R-compounds at NASA Time Trial events (yet which is still street legal and often street driven), is still up for some use on street tires. The upcoming Goodguys event held at TWS on October 6th will be an Optima Qualifier event, so the treadwear minimum is 200. We'll be competing in that once again, and I want to win the autocross event there, just like we did last year.



While we do run through a lot of R-compound/race tires, we've never NOT also had a second or third car we were concurrently competing/street driving on street tires. This year I've raced in an STX prepped BRZ, STU prepped Mustang, and this upcoming Optima qualifier - all on street tires, in dual purpose street cars. My black 2013 GT (below) is on 200 treadwear tires and has a bone stock engine, yet runs 2:03s at Eagles Canyon, and is a 100% street car. That's faster than many of the cars on race tires we often see running out there.



So, when I talk about street tires and dual purpose cars, I'm not just regurgitating crap I read off the internet - it is from direct experience, with empirical test data and competition results to back it up. And yes, all flavors of Toyo tires suck donkey balls.

Anyway.... back to the heavy cheap wheel discussion, heh.
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Terry Fair - Owner at Vorshlag Motorsports - www.vorshlag.com - Plano, TX
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