Whats better, crazy wide hard tires or skinny stickies?

i'm trying to pick my tire strategy for the Chumpcar. 15" steel racing rims in crazy wide widths are regularly available locally, and I've got half a mind to put these on them

Hard, yes, enormous, again yes. TWSS.

Alternative would be to put a more reasonable width Star spec or Nitto NT05. I can switch to 17" rims for wider tire selection, but wide 17" rims are not super cheap like 15's are. Making Mustang 8" wide rims is usually the widest thing available in a crapcan budget.

I was thinking that with a 295 wide 400 treadwear tire, I might be able to make it a full 24 hours without so much as a rotation. That's something. And the car would look cool with 295s stuffed under it at all 4 corners. But the conventional wisdom is stick the fattest star spec you can get on a Mustang rim and call it done. I can see that making sense too. Thoughts?

Check out the BFG Sport Comp-2 tires. They are affordable, sticky, and wear well.

Only up to 195 in a 15 on the Sport Comp's, though. Wide 15 rims=Cheap, Wide 17 rims = expensive. But wide 15" tires = either hard, or impossibly expensive. (unless you find an option I've not considered)

I think generally a stickier tire wins out over width. But I don't know the point at which that would no longer be true.

Stickier tire everytime. Running a 200 treadwear 195 wide tire will slaughter any width of tire with a greater treadwear than that.

I dont think those BFGs really wear all that well. I think you would have better luck with some of the more modern tires on a reasonable size.

Travis_K wrote: I dont think those BFGs really wear all that well. I think you would have better luck with some of the more modern tires on a reasonable size.

The BFG Sport Comp-2 is the latest tire by BFG designed for excellent grip AND good tread wear. I have them on my Porsche and they have great grip and no noticable wear after 7K of street driving. The Comp-2 just came out a few months ago and is an update of the older Sport Comp.

What about bigger circle track steelies? Diamond Racing Trucker

I have a soft spot for 295/50/15s but i highly doubt they are going to perform to the level of even a 225-245 'sticky' tire.

Also, all the 295/50/15s ive seen with miles on them seem to wear unevenly. Im guessing with a tire that wide and flexible you really have to stay on top of your pressures to get the right wear.

Also, if those 295s are $180 i think you're completely forfeiting the point about wide 15s being cheaper than 17s. Its not much of a margin at that point. The wheel thing is still true, but if you go to similar construction 17s, like a 17x9 cragar soft 8 or something like that, they are still 'cheap' wheels overall. It's only when you want 8+" in aluminum that it gets expensive. Of course, there are good reasons why almost anyone would rather have aluminum in a wheel that big.

The problem with "expecting" the hard tire to last the event is that you might not bring enough spares for when that wide tire rubs against the torn up quarter panel of the rusty Neon you are dicing it up with.

Bring lots of cheap little sticky tires.

Go for grip with tires designed for track work.

A 400 treadwear street tire isn't guaranteed to take 24hrs of pounding - it might overheat and delaminate 2hrs in.

Sort of making a choice. A tire that may last longer but will be slower to a tire that will be quicker but wear faster.

I have some friends that run the star specs and love them. They usually finish up front.

Thin and sticky. Seems counterintuitive but I've seen it in action.

As soon as those BFG TA's get hot you will be sliding all over in the turns, if you don't wreck first, they will start chunking rubber in 2 hours.

Star Specs or Falkens are the way to go.

We are going from 17X8 Mustang rims on our Lemons car down to 15x6.5 rims. The Mustang Rims weigh about 22lbs each whereas the 15X6.5 weigh about 12lbs.

We last ran 245/40/17 Sumitomo HTR Z II which weigh in at 25lbs per tire with a 8.8" tread width and are pretty cheap ($100 per tire). They did well at Daytona but weren't great in the rain and half the race was in the rain. Wore well and still have another race or two in them. Star Specs in this size were about $185 per tire in this size.

We plan on running Star Specs in 195 or 205 / 50 or 55 / 15 which weigh in between 18-21lbs and have between 7.1" and 7.7" tread width and run about $120 per tire.

We also won't need to cut the fenders or run adapters with the smaller wheels but will still need to run a spacer. Overall we should be removing about 50lbs from the car.

Argo1 wrote:

Travis_K wrote: I dont think those BFGs really wear all that well. I think you would have better luck with some of the more modern tires on a reasonable size.

The BFG Sport Comp-2 is the latest tire by BFG designed for excellent grip AND good tread wear. I have them on my Porsche and they have great grip and no noticable wear after 7K of street driving. The Comp-2 just came out a few months ago and is an update of the older Sport Comp.

Sorry, i meant the tires in the OP. I have had other BFGs and they are great, the radial T/a is a bit outdated now though.

Thats an understatement. I think 'semi-ancient' is fair.

I also agree about the chunking concerns with that tread and the fact that, as i mentioned, it will probably not heat or wear evenly across the tire unless much care is taken.

True story from back in the mists of time. Back in '88, I think it was, we were doing a new car track test at GRM on a private track down in Palm Bay. We had about a dozen or so cars and drivers, so each driver would do four flying laps (autocross-type course), then write his notes in a notebook in the car. To make things consistent, we were running all cars on BFG Comp TA tires, which were really good R-comps in the day.

All except the Probe Turbo. The manufacturer insisted that we run the stock Goodyear Gatorbacks - a contractural issue. Tim warned them that they wouldn't stand up, and sure enough, while every other car on the R-comps had no tire problems, the Gatorbacks, which were top quality street tires in the day, chuncked so bad that we eventually had to stop driving the car - and we made sure they were properly inflated.

Now, today's tires have improved a lot, but a real performance tire should still stand up a lot better than a wide, high tread life tire, IMHO.

Radial T/A's are a nice cruiser tire, and they look like a million bucks on a muscle car, but just aren't the ticket for a road course.