What slicks do you use?

[Hal Copple]

My biggest concern with my Hoosier road race Radials, which i bought used for about $40 apiece, and are mounted on an extra set of Trigos, was that they would be a very sudden "break-away" race tire. I am no race driver, for sure.

At the last VIR SPF event, my son and I drove or 70 miles on the infield track, .7 miles, with top speeeds about 95 mph or so. I found the tires to be very very forgiving, and not at all abrupt in break-away. Even a novice like me could decide how much to hang out the rear and let it stay there. No detectable wear (remember they are used).

Read in Grassroots Motorsports mag recently where they tested a number of DOT race tires, and they too found the Radial Hoosier's to be very forgiving and predictable, the most important trait for me. Also the fastest, if that is important to you.

Mac DeMere, senior tire test driver for Michelein, who drives instrumented cars all day long, at their SC test track (an incredible facility, by the way), told me that folks tend to think that race tires, like mine, are very slippery until they are properly warmed up, but that "cold" they actually give about as much grip as the Goodyear GT II's i run on the street. He told me that my car runs about 1.25-1.3 G's with the Hoosiers.

Mac did a lot of instruction in our SPF, and commented that with the Race Olthoff Bilsteins and their thicker upgraded rear antiroll bar, it was absolutely top notch, and very fast.

He called it "one very sticky car."

They are a very light tire, too, which helps in our light cars. Apparantly, they use a higher air pressure rather than more carcass to make it adequately stiff.

I have 245 series tires front, 275 in the rear, both 50 aspect.

I would not even think of running them on a wet surface.