Yep, I was there too, and the car worked extremely well on the skid pad, cones, strip, and did pretty darned good in braking too. And yes, it is hard for some folks to believe, in fact I think Al didn't even believe it for a few days himself! Some of the other virtues that make it such a terrific car in these tests, other than the tires and the very light weight, is the overall aspect ratio of the car. It has a short/modest wheelbase, and is relatively wide, so inherently it has a relatively small weight transfer in cornering. The car rotated perfectly through the cones, it was set up exactly right for that test in particular. I won't ever forget the test driver's responses after he laid down some fast cone sessions, he was blown away by how fast and easy to drive the car was.

And yes, r-compound tires really "do" make a very big difference.

Mark

I've been a member for sometime. Only reading though. I like that it's more go than show here, just felt I never had anything good enough to contribute.

On with some info. I don't know about the Nittos, but Im sure they are similar. This is my first pair of R compunds. A buddy had the RA1s on his car and after a ride I needed no convincing on what tire I wanted. I have about 8,000 miles on them with 3 open track days, dozen or so autoX and drag racing events. The backs look really good. I think they have at least another 8,000 or more in them. The fronts seem to get the brunt of the abuse. With close to 2 degrees of static camber the inside is showing wear from the mileage and after a track day the outside shoulder really gets hammered. I will be happy if I get 3,000 more miles out of them. Since I run 15 inch wheels the prices are realatively cheap at $130 a tire.

I don't know how much the tires were worth in the skid pad, but the testers did say that if people want good numbers they need good tires. If you see the current issue of PHR (May 2006) Tate Walthall's 65 mustang, which was there that day, only got a .88g with a very nice suspension setup on street tires. Maybe someone could lend me street tires and PHR could do a retest. I'm sure Toyo would love the press.

Or better yet, I'll run mine with the street tires and then Toyo can give me a set of R1's and I'll re-run the course for before and aft comparison...only because I'm such a generous guy that I'd give my time and abuse my ride like that.