Ok so for saturdays race my 3/32 RA1s tread looked pretty good, worn down to smooth across with one groove left on the rears and two still on the fronts. I had already rotated once front to rear. 12 heat cycles and (for RA1s) plenty of tread. The rears had no grip. Oversteer on corner exit almost put me in the wall off the oval at pir, where I could usually go flat out. I had to back out each lap. Flipping the rears L/R put more remaining tread on the right rear and it seemed to help, but these looked like where my old RA1s would just start to get good...anyone have issue with a new set going off too soon or am I looking in the wrong place? Next day it was racing in the rain on 888s but the car handled like it used to...

I am at 10 heat cycles on a new set and so far the tires seem really good.

I will use them this weekend at Cal Speed and report.

What I did not notice about my 10 heat cycle new RA-1 before this weekend was that I had worn one of the tires smooth (no tread) at a test day at Buttonwillow. The tires on the left side of the car were alot more worn that the right side. I was busy changing other things on the car and did not notice the un-even wear.

Since I would be racing at Cal Speed last weekend I decided to try a 3 year old set of 10 heat cycle RA-1 that came with the car. These had near perfect wear pattern and looked pretty good. They had been stored indoors so I gave them a try on the first session on Sat AM. Car felt a little loose for 2-3 laps and then worked pretty good. I ran my fastest laps of the weekend in that session. Still about 2 seconds off the lap record. But faster than last year.

I then put on the new 10 cycle RA-1 tires and the car felt better but was .5 seconds slower. This could be due to track conditions or air density. I used these tires the rest of the weekend (5 sessions). I did swap the left side from front to back since the car had developed a slight push (this was the no-tread tire). Overall they seemed pretty similar. I am now at 15 heat cycles and ran consisten lap times in all sessions.

Cal Speed is not a track that developes alot of heat in the tires so take some of this info lightly.
As these tires get above the 20 heat cycle mark we will find out how similar they are. So far I think they are pretty good. Certainly on par with the old tire.

Anybody else have a report?

I have noticed on my new set that the tread has gone off pretty fast. I took a replacement tire (due to flat spotting when I hit the tires) from 3/32 down to bald in 1 day (4 heat cycles). However that just matched the other 3.

I have one set with 16 heat cycles and so far so good. The have worn down fast, but the best times with the RA-1 have been with no tread in the past. So I will wait and see.

Ok,
I just completed this weekend racing and I have 22 heat cycles on a couple RA-1s and they seem good still.

So Far this year for me I have run 8 races mostly on 1 set of tires.

I bought two sets in January had them both shaved to 4/32. (Sets 21 & 22)

Jan - PIR - Set 21 Only
7 Heat cycles total - 2 races approx 30 min each.

Feb - Firebird Main - Set 21 Only
5 Heat cycles total - 2 races approx 30 min each. - Flat spotted one tire to cords(Driver error)

March - PIR - Saturday Set 21
4 Heat cycles total (One new tire 3/32 shaved to replace damaged tire) - 1 30 min race
March PIR - Sunday Set 22
3 Heat cycles used in Rain one 30 min race.

April Firebird Main
6 heat cycles (1 more new tire 3/32 to replace one with puncture (first ever RA-1 puncture)
2 races 1 30 min and 1 60 mintues.

So Set 21 has two tires that have 22 Heat cycles on them.
These two tires are bald, but still good. I ran these on the rear of the car and had no strange balance issues with twwo newer ones on the front. I plan to run these set In may at PIR again. If I run the tires right I can put the more abuse torward the newer tires and allow the older two to last even longer. So far however it appears that I am gegetting the normal long life of the RA-1 I was. Due to the two odd ball replacements however it nearly impossible ot know for sure.

For this weekend I swapped out the two most worn tires 16 HC (shaved 3/32nds) that where worn bald but also a bit thin on one side, (joe the ones I showed you and dave, these are the ones that I was having issue with at PIR), I substituted a two year old set 18 HC (originally full tread)and the handling of the car went back to normal, no other changes. I think the bottom line is the 3/32nds is too much shaving, I think you throw away too much good rubber. for economy I'm going back to full tread tires or 4/32nd max, and I think they'll be just as good as the old days...I'm going to flip the worn tires and see how they run next time out.