Track tire Recommendation - R888R vs RE71R
 

Hey everyone - I'm looking for opinions on which tire I should go with for this coming year. I compete in autocross locally in A-Street Prepared, but have no plans to trailer tires and a set of Hoosiers (bro). I'm also planning on doing 2 or 3 HPDE/track days this year. I have a set of four rear OEM Rays (19x10") I'll be throwing them on. I'm between a set of the new Toyo R888R tires in 295/30r19 size, or Bridgestone RE71R 285/35r19. What are your thoughts on which I should go with? Very similar in price - maybe 70 or 80 bucks cheaper for the R888R. I know that tire hasn't been tested much either yet, while the RE71R is the tire of choice in autocross street classes. Thanks for your input!

I use the Bridgestone now and ran the nt01 nitto which was similar to the toyo. I can honestly say both are fantastic tires, the only worry would be the extra bit of driving to and from the track. If you're running prepared and want to be in competition I would run the toyo or nittos nt01, these tires love heat and are quick

I absolutely loved my NT01's I used to run on my 18" Enkeis - 275 front 305 rear. The R888 I ran last year (295 square) weren't quite as good but not bad. I'm kind of curious to see what this new R888R is all about, but spending $1100 for experimenting a whole season is a pretty penny. I guess in all fairness I'm not gonna be truly competitive unless I run Hoosiers anyways, so regardless of how they are I'm sure it'll grip more than enough for my purposes.

In terms of DOT legal tires, most rank them as follows:

1. Bridgestone RE-71R
2. Maxxis RC-1
3. Nitto NT01

They're all very close, but you might see a good second difference in lap time between the RE-71R and the NT01.

Interesting... I was leaning towards the RE71R, ban. Unless one of those two tires goes on sale for a much cheaper price that's probably the direction I'll go.

I do like the bridge stones a lot but me personally I wouldn't compare them to the nitto or toyo, I haven't check but another good semi slick is the hankook. I know I'm not helping giving you more options but the hankook ventus slick and TD where very fast similar to the Hoosier but cheaper

For what it's worth, the RE-71Rs were banned from the Corner3 Nissan Challenge 2017 season and Andrie Hartanto gave a detailed review of them against the NT01s here:

Bridgestone

Tire technology moves fast and the NT01s are very old. Likely in a few years (or less), something new will come out, but for right now, I would only buy NT01s if they were cheaper than RE-71R/RC-1.

why not?

Given how slow/bad the R888 was (and apparently the compound has not changed, just the construction) I would be pretty stunned if it was faster over a given lap than the 71R.

Re-71r

i have been running on Advan AD08r this year and they have been pretty impressive. are these in the same league as the tyres mentioned above?

I'm running 71R on the fronts and find I get a bit more understeer than I'd like.

A maybe I just need to get on the throttle a bit more to push it around :icon17:

I'd say yes in terms of ability to handle temperature and track conditions, but I haven't read anything about how it compares to the current batch of 200tw tires lap time wise.

Sub'd

Thanks for the article Brendan! So here are the options as of now... leaning heavily towards the RE71R's...

285/35/19 RE71R: $1191

295/30/19 R888R: $1133

or

285/35/19 NT01: $1287

I had a set of NT01 staggered, 275 front 305 rear and I LOVED those tires. The older R888... not so much, but I still keep reading so many good things about the RE71's, plus the SCCA class winners say it all. Would you guys still go with the RE71R's in this case? Gonna make my final decision this week and order them before the season creeps up again.

Just wondering why you have ruled out using RE-11?

I guess it's not completely out of the question. Re11 is drill a good tire, just a bit slower than those listed now. I'm not winning any SCCA national titles though so it's not the end of the world either hah

Completely off topic. What class are you running?

A Street prepared... because FML. Hoosiers are just out of the question. Not gonna be able to get tires to the events consistently so I need something streetable.

Now that I've looked at pricing as well... RE71's are about 10-20 bucks cheaper and seem like a much faster tire. If I would save 100-200 bucks I'd maybe consider the RE-11, but for that difference in price I rather pick up the newest/best street tire out right now.

Have you thought about a tire hauler with hossier?