alright, after much soul searching (and bank account searching) I have decided to instead of going to ESP next year, stay in FStock and destroy the competition with a set of victoracers and a driving school. My question is, would it be better to go to the school on the street tires I have on now so I can wear them out, then switch to the victoracers for the season (track use only not street) or should I go to the school on the victoracers and possibly have to replace them half way through the season? My daily drivers after I get the kumhos will be some 17x9's so I don't mind wearing out the current 16x8's I have on there now - they will be getting trashed as soon as I get the victoracers. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. BTW after next year I will be rolling in more money than I know what to do with so my dreams of competing in ESP will one day be realized.

 

Why not drive in the morning on your streets and during the lunch break (assuming you're talking about the Evo school), changeover. This way you'll get some seat time in your stickies, but not completely destroy them.

IIRC, it was about 30 runs on the day. Assuming that morning/afternoon are evenly split, this is 15 runs on the stickies. If these were Hoosiers, I'd say this would be alot of wear. With the Kuhmos, it won't be that bad.

Finally, you are doing EXACTLY what I did for 2003. I said to heck with it, bought a bunch of used Kuhmos, stayed in FS and won class in two SCCA regions and in an independent autocross club. Good luck!

PS Used Kuhmos can be found fairly cheaply if you start your search now for next season. If you find a set of used ones, use those for the whole school.

 

By the way, what's the widest tire I can fit on an 8" rim? Can I run 265's or do I need to run 245's to stay in stock?

 

Both 245's and 265's will fit the stock 16x8's. In fact, early in the year, I ran 245's on the front and 265's on the rear because that was the first set of used tires that I had.

The 245's will give you a slightly deeper effective rear gear (smaller diameter) than the stock size and the 265's will give you a slightly higher effective rear gear (larger diameter). I thought that the 245's were the right choice for me (primarily because this seems to be the most common size used by nationally-competitive drivers). However, a guy showed up at one of our events with the 265's and a basically identical car to mine. Because it was a slow course that day, he stayed in first and I kept bumping off the rev limiter and was forced to go to 2nd. Being caught between gears hurt me on that particular course (I know Sam, 2nd is generally the way to go).

You need to think about the types of courses that you are going to be running (fast or slow) when choosing the size.