I have an AP1 chassis with AP2 drive train, Ohlins, sways, BBK front and RX8 rear and I started tracking this year with six track days under my belt with AutoInterests at Mid Ohio, I have been running on RS4's 255/40/17 square, Considering moving up to some Hoosiers next season, I have never driven on slicks before, what can I expect or can anyone offer up some advise?

 

less audible feedback, less tolerance for abuse or operating out of the temp zone, longer for them to come back if you over heat them, magic grip for a couple laps when all is right.

be sure your spring rates are correct. I ran Hoosiers on a stock suspension once and it made the car look real bad.

 

They cost more, last shorter, need prepping (scrubbing, heat cycling, prior to heavy use) the level of grip falls off much more, offer less audible feedback and less grip under wet conditions. They take longer to get up to temps and are more sensitive to tire pressures. I'm lucky to get 5 heat cycles out of one set. If you go this route set up an account with SASCO tire, they attend all the major events (midwest to eastcoast) they bring tires and mount and balance.

 

If your not ready your driver mod will slow/stop. Slicks/rcomps are more difficult to feel and maintain the limit of grip. You will go a little faster in the slow easy corners but the difficult fast corners will intimidate you. Slicks have a lot of fall off when you cross the limit and start to slide. Your counter reactions have to be fast and accurate or you spin. You should feel comfortable over driving / drifting every corner on the track with 200TW street tires before going to rcomps, especially the fast scary one.

 

I've always been in the camp of, if I'm not competing for places, I don't need slicks. Hoosiers will certainly lower your lap time and having a faster time to brag about is fun but it isn't all pro without the cons. Higher grip envelope means higher speeds which comes with inherently more risk. Of course, racing/lapping is risky already so that might be tolerable. As others have stated, you get less audible feedback which can get you a in a little trouble if you're not really in-tune with your car and, when switching to slicks, you won't be...not at first. The laps/dollar ratio suffers greatly. I was always about making my money keep me on the track as long as possible. Having to constantly worry about tires more than I already was...I hated it. Those with plenty of cheese may not worry as much about this. Required the vehicle to be trailered, having a tire trailer or someone follow you with your wheels/tires. I enjoyed being able to arrive and drive...less crap to fool with. Lastly and most importantly, I've always believed that learning to drive a slower car fast was the best way to become faster overall. Every car I've owned and every type of racing I've done, I never once thought that I rang every ounce of time from it. Not to mention, it was ALWAYS fun to arrive on street tires, chase down cars that should have been faster than me, and then just...go home. I got way more satisfaction from this than I did from having heavily modified cars. This philosophy of wanting myself to be faster before I made the car faster led to a lot of driver improvement and money saved chasing mods.

So Basically...." Seat time > * "

 

Unless you're sub 1:40 with that setup at Mid-Ohio, you're not ready for Hoosiers.

Also, why waste the money for local track days?

 

Presumably you mean Hoosier R7 or A7s, right? They're DOT tires, not what we call "slicks"...
Much faster for sure! And in my experience they're not any trickier to drive on than normal extreme perf tires. I just tracked on a set of A7s a couple of weekends ago, first time on Hoosier DOT radials in about 8 years... I didn't find the Hoosiers to be any harder to read at all. I was able to pound around on them for quite a number of laps running similar times, didn't find them "peaky" at all.

Biggest thing to me is changing wheels/tires at the track, which I'll have to do to keep heat cycles off of them. A7s are reportedly good for ~12 heat cycles before falling off, so I'm having to manage them. Also of course if it rains I would have to swap the street tires back on.

There is something to be said for running a good Extreme Perf tire and never having to swap them at the track. You might think about going from RS4 to RE71R instead of straight to Hoosiers. Like Nil-S2k says, it's pretty fun to just arrive-and-drive Swapping tires on and off isn't *hard*, but it was enough at Palmer that after swapping streets back on end of day Sunday I was kinda pooped and skipped open-track, which I never do...

Next year I'll likely go back to running one set of Extreme Perfs and skip the hauling and dismounting/mounting wheels/tires while at the track.

 

Don't bother, keep learning on 100/200tw tires. They are more than capable of podiuming local events if you're not in a war-zone region, last longer, are more forgiving, and generally have more available contingency.

 

True slicks are a whole different animal. I’m talking c52 hankook, continental dr’s or Hoosier s100

1) they are not peaky and they don’t take Longer to come up to temperature. If it takes longer than an outlay and one lap to get temp in them something is wrong in your setup in a 45 minute race you can turn fast laps at the 40 min mark.
2) ultimate Grip is definitely more. At least 1 sec faster per lap than an a7 at mid Ohio.
3) pressures are critical and you need to use them to keep balance of the car correct. Use these pressures to balance and not shock adjustments
4) when you lock brakes. You flat spot them and they are almost unrecoverable
5) 3 race weekends max before they are garbage, 1 if you want to win, 2 if you want to be competitive.
6) $$$2200/set for my car
7) at or near the limit you need to be able to drive your car and understand what it’s going to do. They will typically give a little then come back before the ultimate lose.

For 95% of the people on here I wouldn’t recommend them. If you’re only doing track days it’s not worth it. If you take a penalty in your race/time attack group for them it’s not worth it.

if you’re like me and you need them to get the last bit of time to take a $15 trophy home get them on the car and work it.

 

Agree with the others here. A big learning curve on those tires for sure. I took an Elise on an autox course (a course I already had about 30 runs on at the same practice event) for about 10 runs on RE-71Rs a few years ago, then we swapped to his Hoosiers. I was faster than the car owner up front on the street tires and put down faster times than in my S2k. After the hoosiers, I spun on the first run. Then after 4 more never matched my fast time on street tires The car was faster on hoosiers but YOU have to be much more precise and there is a big learning curve to them. And on a track I would have been a lot less willing to push it and learn them faster than on an autox course which is a lot safer. With a few more runs I would have of course been faster on them but it is not like throwing them on the car and magically being faster.

Besides that part, for track days I really cannot see the reason to run them. Stupid expensive and extremely short life for a non race/non comp event. I even stopped running RE-71R's for track days and moved to Falken 615k+. They are of course slower, but also are way less to purchase and last MUCH longer. I managed about 3 track night events on a set of RE-71R's that had only had 3 autox events on them prior to that. It simply is not worth it to me to spend that much more to be a bit faster at an HPDE. Will buy RS4's next time but will not go crazy on more than that unless I am going to compete in TT or something where it really matters.

Also, you are learning a lot still with only 6 track days down. You will keep learning a ton on the tires you have. Keep tightening the nut behind the wheel and save some cash on tires