I'm reading through this battle now...

This may open a can of worms, but this came up at the last autocross I was at. . . What are your thoughts on a 1.8 NA Miata running in STR? With these Toyos and the fact that the STS raw times don't seem to be too far off the STR raw times, could an NA 1.8 on the Toyos be a threat in STR and no one has really built one yet?

 

STS usually beats STR when talented drivers are in both classes and run same conditions/same heat.

 

Yea... i love having to beat the STS and STX drivers locally by over 1 sec raw to finish ahead of them in pax. . . despite the STS drivers having the ability to out raw me.

Oh well, I'm glad STR doesn't really have a dog in the Toyo fight right now.

 

Yea... i love having to beat the STS and STX drivers locally by over 1 sec raw to finish ahead of them in pax. . . despite the STS drivers having the ability to out raw me.

Oh well, I'm glad STR doesn't really have a dog in the Toyo fight right now.
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Actually, STR is concerned with the 195 R1R. Desimo/Marcus run them with success on a mild/medium setup and John Brown is building a MRS for STR unless the Toyos are banned. With these really talented drivers coming to the class with the "lightweight" cars, I can see the tire argument becoming an issue in STR quickly. Better to ban them now rather than in the future when you have more NAs, NBs, and MRSs running then in large numbers. As you pointed out, nobody has built an 1.8 NA with a proper diff and campaigned it out to a NT yet. It has the potential to be a great STR car given the courses over the last year. STR was supposed to be for larger roadsters from the original proposals, but as the history of ST classes go, the smaller/lightweight cars eventually take over.

Just for fun, if you look at potential participation, the NB, NC, and S2k are all popular enough to have their own spec ST classes. Then there wouldn't be a course or car dependency outside of the model differences.

-Marc

 

MR2 on 195 Toyos would be an interesting experiment.

To campaign against the 195 toyo because you think there might be a chance you'd get beat is weak. There are weak classes out there. Go join one.

 

If this is aimed at me, I will clarify. my arguments against the Toyo is due to the fact they are not available equally to all cars in the class. it's the same compound was available amongst all the tires in the R1R lineup, I would have no issues whatsoever. I think the Toyo is ok in some of the classes when most of the cars can run them.

-Marc

 

My comment wasn't aimed directly at you, Marc. It was aimed at your sentiment which is shared by the folks that are against this tire.

Here's the scoop. It's the same compound for all tires. It's just that the 195 is made with it through and through. The larger sizes are not. You can run any other size R1R down to about 4/32s and you'd be getting all the benefit of the 195 except for the benefit given from super short tread blocks.

The 255 and 245 R1R can be run on our cars with some success... just don't let them go past 4/32s.

 

Crap, I just got a cold chill getting that reminder of how bad I got beat at the pro with that configuration.

 

No worries, just so people know, if a tire came out that was in an size favorable only to the S2000 and not the other cars in STR, I would be against it just as I am against the 195/50/15 Toyo R1R. Also, the general consensus amoung the auto-x community is that the Toyo comes to life when shaven down past 4/32s. If true, this makes them useless in the other sizes. This is based on info from guy running them, not just the opponents. If they do stay, Im not going to loose sleep over it. We can always ask for larger tires if we start getting beat regularly by the lightweight cars.

-Marc

 

While I don't have any experience driving on them other than a few runs here and there in Jason/Craig's STC Civic and Canak's STS Miata I know that they both tend to run them very low on tread. I know for a fact that the tires they were on last Sunday all looked like Hoosiers more than they did Toyos. Canak also straight timed me. I agree that is seems a little unfair for other cars although I don't really care what happens either way. I don't think that the 195s being around are keeping other cars from winning in STC/STS. Might effect STR or STF though.

-Colin