January 14, 2009 - There was an announcement of a tire rule change for the Targa in 2009.
R compounds - such as my Toyo RA1s - are no longer allowed. In fact, the tires must have a wear rating of at least 200, which gets rid of a range of popular sticky street tires such as the Falken Azenis and the Bridgestone RE01R. There's an exception for cars built before 1950 and those with stock 10" tires. The number of tires available to be used for the event has also jumped from 6 to 8, although with the harder required rubber that's not a big deal.
This means I'd probably end up running on a Hankook Ventus R-S2, although I haven't done a big search for other options. It would also make it much harder to meet the target times, which is probably the goal. Is it an improvement? Well, it's certainly a change.
tags: tires, regulations, 2009 |
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