|
Most of the R1R's secret sauce comes from when it's shaved for autocross use. It's a squirmy tire that doesn't like to be ham-fisted at full tread. It falls off noticably on track when pushed past its temperature happy place. We ran them at a crapcan race on a Miata, and that was a mistake from a longevity standpoint. Not even a light, balanced car can make them last, especially in warmer climates. There is no cheating or malice on Toyo's part. Like the V1 Hankook, it's just an old tire design from a marketing era when 140TW is what sold. I bet if you ran them on the street and weren't side-scrubbing them all the time, they would last about the same as a lot of other high-end summer tires.
A bunch of organizing bodies moved the UTQG goalposts to 200TW, and what happened? Tires got even better. Tire technology isn't static. It's a competitive category, and manufacturers are advancing the grip/longevity/predictability point. UTQC means something. These are still tires that have to be safe for street use until they hit the wear bars, and they are doing a remarkable job of being everything to everyone.
It's excellent that so many solid choices now exist for so many applications. If you autocross, the RE71R tolerates a lot of heat cycles and grips fairly well down to nil tread without shaving half the tire off. That's a better value to autocrossers than 200TW's that turn to stone with a ton of tread left. Or if you track, you have legitimately streetable options that offer decent performance and longevity that best the old RA-1's/NT-01's for like money. Everyone can find the droid they are looking for.
|