I went to my first HPDE this weekend at sebring with 225/45/15 Rivals on 15x8 6UL's and a completely stock MSM suspension. I did the entire first day (4 Sessions) with 32 psi hot. The tires were gripping but it felt like the sidewall was flexing a bit in hard cornering. Under the suggestion of my instructor on the second day I upped the pressure to 36 psi hot. The tires felt much better on turn in and the grip was noticeably better.

I am no expert and do not have lap times to prove any of this but both me and my very experienced instructor noticed the difference in how much faster I was able to push the car after the change.

 

Matt? I hope to see you at the next one! I'll be at tire rack for sure, and I think I'll go to maywood also. Are you going?

Sounds about right, 32 hot on a 8 with no camber is way too low. On the e30 with 225s on 8s we were running around 38 hot rear and 37 front at the track. This is with around 2 degrees of camber in the front and very minimal camber in the rear. The e30 doesn't have the best suspension so it doesn't camber out much at all under suspension compression like the Miatas.

 

Yeah, I'm registered for the rest of the season, hoping things will be less hectic in the near future. I'm disappointed I missed this weekend. Ended up cleaning gutters and going on a 5 hour shopping spree instead. :(

I think the Rivals are definitely going to be the tire to beat in the dry, N/A or FI in our club.

 

Yeah, I think the RS3 is in there too as the weather gets warmer. Frank would've had FTD if it wasn't for hitting a cone at the end of his 3 fast runs and he's running RS3s.

 

I'm quite happy with mine. They talk well, though I still have to get used to pushing the car more to really see the limits.

 

Ok, I like them better than the RS3s. Higher slip angles and easier to control. As much if not more maximum grip. I can dig it.

 

dad and I tried out 225 on 15x9 over the weekend on concrete. I dunno if there faster than rs3s but there forfuckinsure louder. I plan on running the rivals at our local auto x sunday then switching to rs3s for fun runs to compare times

 

Rival vs RE-11A vs AD08 vs Z2 http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=172

Not really useful for us because it's 245s on a 18x8 on a heavy car, but interesting none the less

 

Great tire that lasts FOREVER on a track.

Heard they lasted a solid 12 Hours of straight running on a Mazda 2. I think they would do even better on a miata, if you dont thrash the rears the entire time. Only about 3-5 seconds a lap slower than the R-1.

 

One team ran a B-spec Mazda 2 last year at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill on one set of Rivals.

That is, they ran the entire 25 hour race on one set of tires. I remember them not having any spare wheels...

 

 

I was actually apart of the team that did that, they didn't quite make it the whole 25 hours, we had switch to a set of R1's we had. The goal was to run the entire race on the rivals for a publicity stunt but we only made about it 14 hours. Which is still amazing considering the R1 would only last half as long.

We were driving only 8 tenths to keep from burning the fronts off since it was FWD car and had the tendency to have under steer already. We had to rotate the tires every 5 hours to keep the wear rate even and we did get minor MINOR blistering. BTW this car was built at PRI in about 72 hours and only had 76 miles on it when it got the track. Hahaha

Phenomenal tire, don't know if any other tire could do what that one did with how hard we were driving it. Mind you we had all Pros in the car including Charles Espenlaub(Grand Am GS champion), Tom Long (Grand Am ST Champion), Tristan Vautier (Indy Lights Champion and currently in Indy car), Scott Shelton (National club champion and MX-5 Cup Shootout winner), me (Skip Barber Mazdaspeed champion with 18 wins out of 20 races) , and Ed Bergenholtz (A drag racer, but a respectable driver).

 

I see, I didn't know that. I knew the plan was to run the Rivals the whole 25 hours. When you guys finished, I didn't look at the tires just assumed they were still the Rivals. Well officially, you guys weren't running the Rivals anyway...

I was driving one of the Acura ISX's in E1. We run the regular R1 during enduros, and we've had very good luck with them.

We just got a couple sets of Rivals for our guys starting out in HPDEs to use. Sending them out on R1s while they are still learning is kind of stupid. I think the Rivals will do an excellent job of providing plenty of dry grip, while lasting a very long time for our HPDE guys.

 

Double POST!!!

Also, the team and line-up you guys had was a bit silly. Some of the most talented and fastest guys in the entire field were driving one of the slowest cars...

Seems like a bit of a waste, I understand the PR objective but still.

Lastly, how do you drive a B-spec car at 8 tenths? Full throttle only 93% of the lap instead of 96%???

 

Hahaha you drive it at like 9 really, it was set up fairly conservative so it had some understeer throttle off, no matter what you did, so it was just a matter of limiting it.

Yeah, sending guys out on R1s first go wouldn't be the best idea. Haha Those tires on an MX-5 is not easy to drive, I am sure it's a little better on a heavier car, but still. Btw where did you guys end up, that car looked quick.

 

And by throttle off I mean, power to exit. Lol

 

 

It was decently quick, we qualified on pole in E1 and also set the fastest race lap in E1, by a decent amount.

And, as Emilio has so deftly alluded to, we finished behind the 949 Racing E1 car, and a couple other MX5s. We were very close to finishing on the podium despite changing a transmission, among a myriad of other extra pit stops for various exhaust breakage issues...

This year hopefully things will go better

 

 

I ran Rivals on the chump car and they reminded me of some time I spent with a young man and wanting more than he was willing to give.