I'm starting to shop around for next season's autocross tires. My requirements:

1. Must be street legal.

2. Must work acceptably in wet and dry conditions. I can't afford 2 sets of tires and wheels.

3. Must last at least 100 runs (1 full season + some room to spare) when driven "sensibly". I drive smoothly and am easy on tires, so this shouldn't be a problem, but might be for something extremely soft. I'm too poor to be paying for more than one set a year, not to mention another mount and balance job.

4. Must cost under $150/tire. Again...the poorness.

Other than that I have no restrictions, except I don't really want tires made in West Nowheristan and sold at K-Mart or whatever, I want something reputable. For the last 2 seasons I ran Falken Azenis RT-215s and was happy with everything about them except they are too small in diameter, because Falken only sells one 15" size. On a number of occasions this made it painful to select a gear to run in, since all the courses I run in are on the border of requiring 3rd gear. A smaller tire necessitates it more frequently, which costs me time either shifting or backing off early to avoid bouncing off the rev limiter. On the other hand, it makes the car accelerate quicker. So I am keeping the newer RT-615s as a fallback but I'd prefer something bigger.

The RA-1s seem to meet all my above criteria, but I fear I may be falling victim to marketing since the SPEED World Challenge series uses them and that may be suckering me into thinking they're good even though that's probably just a money deal.

Also, if anybody has used these tires, what is your opinion on shaving them?

Please opine.

 

I started using these on my A4 for the track this year. My previous tires where pilot sport cups. So far I like the way these tires have behaved. Becaused they where not shaved, they where squirrly for the first few laps, but now are really performing.

 

...I sure wouldn't want to run them as a full time tire. When I ran them on the S, I didn't even drive to the track with them on the car. Also, they may not be a good autocross tire since they do not warm quickly. I'd look at Kumho Ecsta MX, Hankook RS2's or more Azenis.

 

Full time is not an issue since I have a separate set of summer wheels/tires.

 

...I read "I can't afford 2 sets of tires and wheels" as you can't afford two sets overall. You meant that you can't afford two sets for the track. Got it now.

Tough call on the rain. I think the RA-1's might disappoint.

 

Yeah, to clarify, I meant don't want 2 sets of *track* tires.