I had a set of shaved R888's on the car for twelve heat cycles over two weekends. One tire is toast, another is almost the same. The other two are still usable, but for how long? I must add that I did not rotate the tires, partly to see how long they would last. I ran them at 36 to 38 lbs hot. What are your experiences with these. The RA1's lasted much longer.

A key ingredient to running 944 Spec when I stared was tire cost. This savings appears to be much smaller with the R888's costing $158 plus $15-$20 for shaving. Hancooks are $187 and Hoosiers are $210. Comments?

Yeah, I'm seeing significantly more wear on the R888's than I did on the RA-1's. This season's R888's *might* make it to the end of this season, where my RA-1's from last season still have several events left on them.

Seems somewhat track dependant. At Gratten with it's cambered turns and wheelspin -inducing nature (need tha LSD), we went through several R-888's. At Other tracks, we've run 3 hour Enduro's pluse 2 sprint races in a weekend with a lot of tread life remaining. I would agree that they do not hold up to abuse/wear as well as the RA -1's. What's more there seems to be little rubber under the treaded part, so they never fully get into that "near slick" phase before they cord, often in the center (and Toyo rec. more pressure ).

Finally, I can't seem to go quite as fast. I used to run the same laptimes as the front -running SM's, but this year I'm consitantly about 2 seconds slower than my old times, and the SM's current times (they're still on the RA-1). We're starting to work on camber & pressure, but little so far (need a specific T&T day).

We will need to talk to NASA and TOYO about this . The R888 is nice in that it keeps the field more even on wear (never having a fastest period of life) but we in the RM region corded numerous R888's last event. I have RA1's that are over 18 moths old, but I need 4 new R888's after 3 1/2 events ???

TOYO does want to hear what we are saying .

Eric I also had the wear in the middle even though the pyrometer had a temperature dip in the middle. We increased pressure in half pound increments to even the temps. The speed is difficult to assess from basically one weekend, but it was pretty good in the early laps, then faded quite a bit. This was repeated in every session. We used RA1's in the hour and a half enduro and saw no speed loss during the race.

I have talked to Bryan Shackleford and he said it is recommended that these tires be heat cycled and then stored off the car for 24 hours before you race them. This could prolong the life of the tires dramatically.

As to shaving, that could help because you will be getting rid of weight from the tire as well as a little new tire squirm.

I haven't tried the R888's yet but do have a set that I will get mounted this season so I can heat cycle them and use them next year.