dmw16

I may be treading on dangerous ground asking this question of you hard-core track people, but I'll take a chance

My S2000 is my daily driver and I live in an area that gets a little bit of snow - just enough to have me thinking about high-performance all-seasons (Pilot A/S's, Pirelli P-Zero Nero's, etc). Have any of you taken your car on the track w/ a set of all-seasons?

I'd like to go out on a few club track days but i dont have the room for a dedicated set of track tires so I am forced to compromise.

Any comments are appreciated.

thanks.

mikegarrison

You can destroy your tires in a single track event, if you drive as hard as possible. I've seen it done to rental car tires.

But for your first few track events, your tires will be OK. Probably.

RACER

Hopefully.

dmw16

Thanks for the replies. I am sure that if I drive the car at the edge I will shread the tires. But my intent is a track day with the S2ki locals or a few friends of mine maybe I'll be ok

loudes13

Do you drive in snow? What's on the car now?

What about buying used, and tossing them when winter comes?

124Spider

If you're going to do one gentle track day, it may be ok. But if you're going to drive hard, or if you're going to do more than one track day, you likely will have tires which won't be of much use when the rain and snow come.

jasonjm

I've seen AS tires shredded up and *****destroyed***** in **less than one** track event.

msm_s2k

I corded my race tires last month after promising to take a friend out on track. I swapped the corded race tires out for the all season streets. Driving on track was an adventure. The all seasons handled a couple of agressive 30 min sessions just fine; though keeping the car headed in the direction I wanted with hard, slippery ass all-seasons was an adventure.

AlanL

I took a set of Dunlop M3's out last fall to an Audi Club event that was cold and very wet in the hopes that the extra siping of the M3's would be a useful concept in the downpours. I didn't trash them for the simple reason that you aren't going to be going anywhere fast in an S2k in those conditions:



A good friend of mine was there with an identical car ('05) running the OEM RE050's and what we found was that as the speed increased, there was no advantage whatever to the winter tires over the OEM rubber. While the M3's are an excellent choice for cold and wet conditions (and freezing of course), they offered no benefits at all when pushed to the edge on the track. The above shot was taken with outside temps in the low 40's.

The soft rubber is going to be destroyed quickly on a dry track and even more so if you take it out when the temps are above 60 degrees. All season tires are a compromise for anything other than Spring and Fall.

YMMV but I would save my tires for the conditions they were engineered for under the circumstances...

mikegarrison

I agree, but for somebody who does one track day a year...?

A high-end street performance rain tire (like the recently discontinued Bridgestone S-03) is probably the best option as a year-round street tire that sees very occasional track duty. Unless you live where it doesn't rain.

And "all-seasons" are not snow tires anyway. IMO, snow tires are snow tires, and should never be on the track (except for ice racing). Most "all-seasons" are really rain tires, and they should be evaluated as such.