Finally got the car sorted for the season after plenty of early mechanical gremlins and an unfortunate fender bender that was my fault that has cut my racing short so far this season.

We headed to Sonoma(formally Infineon, aka Sears Point)this last weekend and I was looking forward to really getting to see what the new RR's could do. I already had about 5 heat cycles on the set so they were just getting to the best of their life.

I went out in practice and without pushing ran a tenth off my best time ever. Qualifying I pushed a little more but not 10/10ths and grabbed pole and bettered my best by almost 2 seconds! The tire felt awsome! Tons of grip but slid very much like a RA1! Braking was also much better, combined with my newly rebuilt lsd.

The race was fast, i dropped to second behind Steve Lewis, not because he's a better , more experienced driver, or a great mechanic with a well set up car, but because he must be cheating somehow. It was a 40 minute race and towards the end I started to get a vibration which felt like the right front. I finished second and collected my trophy and margarita and didn't think about it until morning when I heard Ken Meyers had corded a fairly new set of RR's in the race. I checked mine and found they were all split!

They were mounted per Toyo's instructions since day one, have only about 8 heat cycles, were properly inflated, and not abused any more than a midpack driver like me does during any race. I did spin the car in qualifying but that was through the grass and I was off the brakes as soon as the car got away from me.

I changed to a brand new set I was saving for nationals and went out and got second place again on sunday but I have to say that if I will be changing tires every race weekend I will not be able to continue on. As it is, if I don't get these replaced by Toyo I will probably have to skip either Nationals or Laguna Seca as I can't justify the expense of a trip and several sets of tires. Also if this is going to be an ongoing theme with these tires I will either run RA1's and just do my best or sell the car.

I have to say, I am a brand loyal person and have put Toyo's on my other cars because of the contingency program and their support, but after this I'm not feeling too confident. I still have what I would consider a relatively fresh set of R888's in my side yard! Remember those?

Ron

Ron,
Yes, that is the dreaded tread separation.
What are the date codes? From one of the tires, I can only see that it is 2012. There are two date codes that this is common. I will have to look them up. I had similar, but nothing with any date coded in 2013 so far.

Best of Luck!
Chuck

I don't see anything in those pictures that's terribly alarming compared to some of the other pictures floating around. I would just rotate them and go back out. That will likely close the split. I think we still have a lot to learn about the proper application of this tire. From what I have been able to gather, you want as much negative camber as possible or you will cord them. It is also advisable to rotate early and often. My first set of RRs lasted 18 heat cycles before dropping off. I rotated the first time at 16 with only a slight separation on one of the rears that I could find.

What sort of pressures/temps were you running? I was around 4 degrees negative camber on the front and was getting fairly even temps across the face of the tire.

Those pics don't do them justice. One tire has almost a half inch gap. The rest aren't bad but were mounted right and still separated. What concerns me is how much farther could I have gone before it came apart completely? And at what speed?

We saw the same thing in the Rocky Mountain region with the early 2012 tires (week 32 for us... looks like you have week 31). Splits on the seam, and corded on the Outside only after a few sessions.

I'm waiting to see what happens with 2013 tires (week 03 and week 06). I share your same sentiments. I can not afford to buy tires every other weekend.

Be careful with the max camber theory. You can have too much camber in these tires based on the track configuration. I have worn off the inside and outside edges to the cord by not having the camber set correctly and not inspecting the tires every session.
RD get used to inspecting all the time. These tires do require more attention for the guys at the pointed end of the grid. and you are one of those guys.
I too have had some separations but swap corners and they seemed to heal them selves.
I have not had any vibration problems from separations.
So far I have not run a set beyond 14 heat cycles, that did include a 1.5 hr enduro.

We all know Steve is cheating so no real revelation there

I have my protest forms all filled out for anyone who finishes in front of me at Laguna, including all you cheating NorCal guys