Hey Ron, I hear ya! I have only had one set and had a split after one heat cycle, I did have them mounted incorrectly then after correcting, the cracks went away. I find comfort in that I have not heard of any of them going flat. This past weekend Formula 1 had 5 Pirelli tires go flat, if that happened to us, I personally would get off track and insist that we all stop driving instantly even if it meant not racing for the rest of the weekend.

Toyo has replaced every tire that has been sent back which is admirable, but your correct in that that won't matter if we have a wadded up car or maybe worse.

I think the big point on safety at this time is we haven't had any flats as a result of the cracking.

I love the tires, I only did 3 laps on my new set yesterday and went 2 seconds faster than on the RA1's, but one of the negatives is the extra maintenance, being in a rush to change tires to get out for one session on them, I forgot to mount them correctly and the other negative is even if we only get 5-10 more heat cycles out of the RA1's, that does add up over time. Then there is the other factor of finding a new set up and having to keep an extra set of RA1's for rain which eats up a set of wheels that are sitting and waiting for a rainy day, which will have a not so optimum set up for the RA1's.

The negatives are more of a financial and hassle issue, but safety takes this to another level but so far it hasn't been an issue and I would think if they were going to blow, they would have by now.

Glad to see your safety conscience with this crazy hobby that we all share.

See you Friday,

Lets have a pow wow over the weekend and see whe we are all at.

Ron,

Norm's got the gist of what I want to say. The tire with the 1/2" separation I would bring back, and get replaced. Toyo will also replace one of the ones with just a seam on a pro-rated basis, so that you end up with at least a pair of new tires. The week 50+ tires seem to be better, so far. I have 21 heat cycles on a set that developed a split on the first heat cycle. With rotation, they've been OK. This has all been a pain, no doubt, but so far not a safety issue, and there have now been a lot of tires running with splits. There is some light at the end of the tunnel with the newer tires, as well (though it's still early with those).

Another update. I finally corded two set of tires, one with 24 heat cycles, another with 22. Both showed very light cording along the outside edge. I upped the camber from -3.5 to -4 partway through, which seemed to help, as does a little toe out. Flipping them also would have helped (or running more camber from the beginning). Neal had similar results. This is actually slightly better results than we saw with the RA-1's in the last couple of years - typically 18-20HC from 4/32nds. Also, we both ran our fastest laps of the weekend on the older tires, and went slightly slower on newer tires. A SM reset a TR on high HC RR's this weekend, as well. e then bolted on sticker RR's in the hope of demolishing the LR. He went slower. Neal and I's tires were still week 31 tires, most of them with splits, but never opened up. We are now on week 50+ tires.

So our experience here has been pretty encouraging lately. Managing camber seems key (more static camber, and limiting roll as possible with stiffer antiswaybar settings).

Maybe I'm getting different tires here on the left coast than you guys back east are but I have a newer set, don't know what week but I got a split in one after 4 heat cycles. Again mounted correctly and rotated after every session. The others somebody else needed a set so I loaned them out for a day and the splits didn't heal at all.

I hope this is just me having a bad season or bad luck with tires but I will end the season probably using 4 sets of tires not running every race whereas on RA1's I can easily stretch 2 sets. Again I love Toyo and run them on my personal cars and I'm sure this will work itself out but I hope it's sooner rather than later. I will add though about the splits, if that showed up on my street car I'd tow it to the tire shop not drive it but somehow it seems ok to race on them?

In all fairness, I could be having trouble because my cars not set up right. I'm not as diligent as I should be and am running the same settings I did with RA1's. I'm going to try more camber and also work on braking technique. I tend to hammer the brakes until I lock up and then back off.