Miata tires for WRL 225/45/15

I plan on running my miata in WRL in the spring and I am looking for tires to mount on my 15x8 wheels. I was hoping for 225/45/15's but the options limited to Rival S, Proxes R1R and Kumho V720. I have heard that the Rivals are not the best in the rain which would be inportant. I have been running tack off 205/50/15 Hoosiers and the size works well, but I am not sure how the grip will be with street tires. This on a 90 miata with about 120hp.

Anyone with experience running chump or WRL with a miata? I am open to all ideas

I'd be tempted to try the 205/50-15 RE71R. You'll have less rolling resistance and your 15x8 wheel is perfect.

Hankook RS3 is another 225 option, but stock won't come in until spring.

4shadesofblue wrote: I plan on running my miata in WRL in the spring ...

Just curious ... What's WRL?

-- Pete

World racing league. Run by one of ex regional directors of ChumpCar.

Keith Tanner wrote: I'd be tempted to try the 205/50-15 RE71R. You'll have less rolling resistance and your 15x8 wheel is perfect. Hankook RS3 is another 225 option, but stock won't come in until spring.

Keith, So you think the loss of a little grip would be worth it to save on rolling resistance? This will be BIR which is 2.5 mile track with a pretty long straight. I have been leaning towards the 205's because of options in tire selection but others have recommend the 225's or even 245's which I think would too wide for 120 hp car.

On a side note, where do you prefer the dash bar in your roll cages, above or below the steering column?

4shadesofblue wrote: I have heard that the Rivals are not the best in the rain which would be inportant.

A fellow autocrosser ran Rivals on his H/Street Mazda3 and during the rain events he thought he was going to break something from how badly it would wheelhop in the rain. And none of the other 3s were on Rivals and none of them were having that kind of issue.

I LOVE rivals in the rain.

They feel sketchy as hell but are stupid fast!

I think because they feel sketchy, people say they are bad in the rain. I really like them!

How long is this race? The rival S and Re71 probably wont last much more than 6 or 8 hours.

4shadesofblue wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I'd be tempted to try the 205/50-15 RE71R. You'll have less rolling resistance and your 15x8 wheel is perfect. Hankook RS3 is another 225 option, but stock won't come in until spring.

Keith, So you think the loss of a little grip would be worth it to save on rolling resistance? This will be BIR which is 2.5 mile track with a pretty long straight. I have been leaning towards the 205's because of options in tire selection but others have recommend the 225's or even 245's which I think would too wide for 120 hp car. On a side note, where do you prefer the dash bar in your roll cages, above or below the steering column?

I'm not sure how much grip you'd lose - you'd have the 205 on the ideal wheel width, and the 225 would on a too-narrow wheel. Plus it's a hell of a tire

I can't see the advantage of having the dash bar below the steering column.

Based on the results of a GRM article from a little while ago you won't gain anything going from a 205 to a 225 on a 8" wide wheel. You need a 9" wide wheel to make use of a 225.

I personally found Rivals a bit difficult to drive in medium+ rain during a race, but I'm also not a very good rain driver.

How are the RE-71R's holding up to endurance racing? This would be a 16 hour race.

In reply to 4shadesofblue:

if you have a car that is really good with tires and a non-abrasive track, you might get away with 16 hours. This is pretty doubtful...

There is a thread on Chumpcars forum talking about the 2016 tires. Maybe check that out?

http://forum.chumpcar.com/index.php?/topic/13883-2016-tire-choice/

4shadesofblue wrote: How are the RE-71R's holding up to endurance racing? This would be a 16 hour race.

I have no experience with running the RE-71R's in enduros, but we've run Star Specs and Rivals in WRL & ChumpCar on NA Miata & Miata-powered FC RX-7. When we start with 4 fresh tires, we always have to replace at least the outside front and outside rear mid-race. I'd expect the RE-71R to wear as fast, or a little faster than those tires.

How quickly you'll kill the tires will depend on how well dialed in your camber is for the track you're on. And of course how much your car weighs and how much you and your team mates over-drive the car in the heat of battle.