Best snow tires for Rallycross

So earlier this year I did a fly & drive to pickup an Escort wagon in CO that has an Escort GT engine swap.  It’s been a great backup daily driver that I’m autocrossing occasionally, fixing up a bit, and hoping to setup for rallycross in the near future.

That leads me to tires.  Now that fall is just around the corner I started thinking about snow tires, and I want to get something that’ll work well for rallycross too.  I haven't ever been to a rallycross so I'm currently winging it with internet wisdom.

A popular rallycross choice seems to be the original Firestone Winterforce, which I’ve found for sale pretty cheap both used and new.

I also just came across this Nexen light truck snow tire… that oddly comes in a small enough size to fit the Escort. I’m wondering if the heavier  load rating would make for a stiffer/better rallycross tire, that's less likely to debead?

Feel free to suggest other tires as well!

Edit:  I would be rallycrossing with NER, so the events range from mud to grass to gravel to snow to ice.....

Those nexens look like they could be okay judging just by the tread pattern. It sounds like you want these to be dual duty rallycross and actual winter tires? The OG winterforces are probably the best snow tires for rallycross but in our experience weren't great in super cold conditions and kinda sucked for normal road use. For all around use I'd probably try to dig up a set of original altimax arctics. Or, realistically, either of the new versions of those tires would be fine too. Everyone seems to hate the new winterforces but, while they certainly aren't as good in most rallycross conditions, they still work fine and are much better as actual winter tires. For a novice reallypretty much any snow tire will be fine for at least the first set of tires. I'd also say that tire pressure matters as much or maybe even more than the actual tire, though which tire (and which size) influences how low you can run the pressures.

I was told by a friend that the snow/ice tires similar to Blizzaks tend to plug up if the course is muddy.

Why not an All Terrain tire

Correct, I’d run the tires on the street in the winter in addition to using for rallycross. That being said, I don’t plan on putting tons of winter street miles on this car, so the tire’s street performance is not particularly important.  I’m sure any snow tire will be better in cold weather than my BFG Comp II summers!

(I have studded nokians for my "actual daily driver" mazda 3, which also has fancy things like heated seats, heated mirrors, etc... a much comfier and safer choice in a blizzard)

In reply to iceracer :

Do you know of any AT style tires in the ~24” diameter range?  I’m not going too crazy with ride height on this car (yet…)

AT tires generally aren't designed with cornering in mind. I've never seen them do well at rallycross. I've seen some do better than I would have expected, but that's different than doing well.

Engine swap?  Just buy a set of rally tires.  Team Illuminata has MRFs in Escort-friendly sizes on fire sale right now.  (I think like $129/ea for 185/60-14)  They freakin' hook, too.

There isn't really "best snow tires" as much as "tires that suck the least", and if you use them for rallycrossing, they won't be much good in the winter anymore, IMO, so you will end up with tires that are no good for the two things you expect them to do.

I ran the Firestones on the P71 and they hooked up surprisingly well. The only thing I can compare to are a set of summer tires. The difference was night and day. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

On dried out old hard compound Black Rockets, now that I have the Garmin VIRB telling me what my cornering forces are, I'm seeing .8 in steady corners and 1g when braking.  It's amusing to see the spikes in bumps, too.  On one run I saw 2.6g momentarily.

I rode in an STI on new MRFs, and it reminded me of the time I rode in an RX-8 on Hoosiers at an autocross.  Grip and grip and grip some more.

Knurled. said:

There isn't really "best snow tires" as much as "tires that suck the least", and if you use them for rallycrossing, they won't be much good in the winter anymore, IMO, so you will end up with tires that are no good for the two things you expect them to do.

I mean..."best" and "suck the least" do actually mean the same thing in this case. If the question was "which snow tire is really, really good for rallycross?" then you'd be right that there isn't an answer to that question. This is very surface dependant but we've seen no real deterioration of snow tires from rallycrossing other than on super hard packed dirt surfaces like most of detroit's venues (and a lot of mod class guys run snow tires on those surfaces so that they don't chew up a $800 set of rally tires in one event). Otherwise, both of my sets of snow tires have 2-3 rallycrosses with two drivers and a handful of street miles on them and look basically brand new.

In reply to dps214 :

In that case, compound and carcass seem to matter more than tread pattern.  The problem is all the "good" tires have been discontinued.

As far as winter tires go, I liked the Mastercrafts, and the Cooper Weathermasters.  For Detroit events I prefer a UHP summer tire and I am going to try some autocross tires next.  Back when Paul used to run the SuperRallyX series, which was mixed surface, A6s worked amazing well on loose dirt and of course they were dominatory on the asphalt.

The key thing is, unless you have tires that look like dirtbike knobbies, any tire will pack up with mud and become a slick, so worry about when it is dry, and build car control and course reading skills for when it is not dry so you can exploit the patches of grip. That will serve well no matter what you are driving.

Summit is still showing some Glacier-Grip IIs in some certain sizes.  Note these are fast but you have to drive them extremely aggressively to get the most from them.  That often leads to hitting cones.

In reply to Knurled. :

Driving agressively and hitting cones, eh?  That's kind of my thing...

In reply to therieldeal :

Rallycross is going to be very fun for you!

looking to bump this up,  Curious what the best tire you can run in the stock class is regardless of being snows or not.  My understanding is no legit rally tires?  They have to be DOT certified?

Nokians or vestriadens (sp)

You want a stiffer sidewall and higher speed rating then you'll find on most snow tires in a 15" or lower in diameter. Most snows in that side will be T rated, you'll want at least an H rated due to the sidewall rigidity. 

In reply to 79rex :

They have to have a DOT 12 digit TIN number in the sidewall (well, 12 with date code, 8 without - date code is usually on only one side) AND they must not have wording to the effect of "For competition use only".

Basically, anything sold as a road tire in the US will be okay.  Anything sold as a competition tire will not.  Modified tires also also not okay as they are not sold that way for road use.  A rare instance where the letter of the rule will also meet the intent

Tires must be U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) approved and display the applicable DOT symbol and Tire Identification Number (TIN) label.  Tires with the equivalent Canadian DOT and TIN labels are allowed on Canada‐registered vehicles at regional events.  Tires marked “For competition only”, “Not for street use” or similar, are not allowed.  No part of the tire may be modified or altered from its original form, either through addition or subtraction, other than normal wear.  No studded tires are permitted at National events unless ice or snow is present; Regional and Divisional events may allow studded tires any time.  Studded tires may not be homemade using bolts or screws. Only street‐legal studs are allowed.  Alternate tire sizes are allowed but tires may not interfere with any parts of the car (fenders, fender liners, suspension, etc.).  Inner tubes are considered an integral part of the tire.

 

captdownshift said:

You want a stiffer sidewall and higher speed rating then you'll find on most snow tires in a 15" or lower in diameter. Most snows in that side will be T rated, you'll want at least an H rated due to the sidewall rigidity. 

If you insist

Soft sidewalls allow you to run higher pressure while still being able to conform to the road surface.  If someone made a tire with rally compound rubber on a soft sidewalled carcass, that'd own face.

Debeading sucks

Being able to run pressures in the 20s without debeading and allowing the tread face to be just that is optimal. Relying on cold 38lb of pressure to keep debeading on snows on a 92 degree day of water trucked hardpack and Clay is not optimal. 

Though not rally tire sticky wrg3/wrg4 and the vrestdrians are silica based tread compound that is much happier across a range of temperatures then winterforces and arcticmaxs. I've run all the above and I'd be more likely to run the firehawks over a T rated snow tire again. 

In reply to captdownshift :

Debeading seems to be more driver-related than tire-related.  Some people can run 18psi in snow tires and be okay, and some people can run 35psi in rally tires and debead.  (And I have seen the same person do both of those things - a stock class STi doesn't enter corners as abusively as a mod class Golf)

Running low pressure in a rally tire, IMO, is just a crutch for its inability to conform to the ground.  Snow tires' problem is that the rubber compounds are all wrong and the tread block design is too pliable to get good bite, although I have heard good things about Blizzak WS80s.

I'd love for someone to make a tire like a street carcass tire, with A7 compound, and tread blocks instead of slicks or sipes.  Basically, like Indy Sports but softer.

Knurled. said:

I'd love for someone to make a tire like a street carcass tire, with A7 compound, and tread blocks instead of slicks or sipes.  Basically, like Indy Sports but softer.

Maybe somebody can convince Bridgestone to squirt the RE71R compound into the Blizzak mold? :)

In reply to Knurled. :

I think de-beading is also tire proportion related.  In theory, a larger overall wheel / tire package should be harder to de-bead.  Taller sidewalls will absorb more of the side impacts and spread the load to a larger portion of the tire bead.  And larger wheels will mean more bead surface area.  Both of which should require a harder hit to get the bead to break free.  Wheel width vs tire width may have some effect too.