- There's nothing more important
than investing in good old rubber, okay.
It'll save your life.
The good stuff ain't cheap,
but the cheap stuff ain't bad.
If you're smart
and know your way around the whole thing,
but it could be, you just gotta be careful.
Okay either way,
it's something important to look at
if you want to start experimenting out there
and you don't have a health class to teach you.
You may be in trouble. Okay?
There's nothing more uncomfortable.
(snorts)
There's nothing more uncomfortable
that when Mr. Kid tried to teach that, poor fruit.
I'll never forget you trying
to not make it uncomfortable.
But I'm still 25
and I'm still scarred for life
and public school systems
still can't do it right.
I'm talking about tires!
Calm down.
We're the health class
of the automotive industry.
I'm Alex.
Alex.fi on Instagram.
And today we're going to be talking
about the top five tires for the track.
They can also be used as street tires,
but we're not going to put that part
in the title because
YouTube doesn't like that
long of a title apparently.
I don't know.
And if you're just jumping into this video,
don't forget to subscribe
so I can keep making banging videos like this
or not
and I'll just sit over here
listening to edgy teen music
because I've been stuck at home
for like nine weeks now.
And if you're looking for after market wheels,
tires, or suspension,
be sure to hit us up over
at fitmentindustries.com
where we have literally everything
including a bad ass gallery
that has tons of cars
on after market stuff
and you can see what you run next,
on your next setup.
Like wheels, tires,
suspension, spacers,
all that sort of good stuff.
And to make sure that you don't have bunk Fitment,
that's the key.
When talking about tires,
it's super easy to spend
just about every penny in your wallet.
So we're gonna try
and keep the options
we talk about relatively budget friendly
and something you can run at the track
while also surviving
if we had to take that track toy home
during a cool day.
Another note here to make
is that while we are predominantly
looking at tires that are great performance road tires
that will behave well on the track,
not solely behave good on the track
and not on the road.
There's massive differences between the two
and is often the reason you see so many people
arguing about what tires to buy.
Unlike Miata forums
and things like that
because there's too many people
that end up buying track-only tires.
Then having to deal with the cons of them
because they drive their car,
well, not on the tracks.
So with that out of the way,
we're talking about something that can do both.
Let's start with the obvious.
Now I know that I just said budget
and value and all of that,
but if you don't think I'm going to be talking
about the Michelin Pilot Sport Four S,
you're out of your damn mind.
When the Michelin Pilot Super Sport gray star
livelihood,
nearly every single person loved them,
reviews love them,
critics love them.
People that didn't even like Michelin loved them.
They were touted
as one of the best tires out there.
Not a single person could complain
about the way that Super Sport
handled road driving capabilities
with track performance.
And even though they were a nickel
and dime more than the rest, to a lot of people,
it was almost always worth it.
So when the Michelin Pilot Sport Four S came out,
people were worried
about how they were going to make it better.
Matt Farah pretty much said it best.
They took everything about its predecessor
and made it nearly better in all marks.
But without really being noticeable enough,
if you jump from the super sports,
it was just a good quality tire made even better.
What makes this tire special,
still number one in most people eyes
is just simply the fact
that it can combine the tech of the sport cup
to the predecessor of the Super Sport,
its formula Ian Lamont history
and smacks it all into a single tire.
It has variable rubber,
depending on what part of the tire
you're looking at for contact control.
It has steering response,
performance improvements,
and ultimately it's just one of the few tires
you can truly, truly take the track,
run as hard as you possibly can,
and then drive that same tire home
without fearing you're going to DB.
But as always,
some people enjoy an ass-load of aggressive styling
and tires that look like they take your lunch money.
Enter the Nitto NTO five.
Now, the NTO five is Nitto's max performance tire,
right before getting into the competitor R rated tires,
which would be their NTO five R
focusing heavily on the center rib design
and massive shoulder tread blocks.
NTO five R wants to get all the traction
in the world as long as the sun is out and the track is dry.
The NTO five doesn't tout to
be the greatest in the rain, but with summer tires,
the likelihood of you running into a major issue
with tires and rain is pretty slim.
Plus, NTO fives look like they take your
Schumacher's cookie and pint the chocolate milk
off your lunch tray without asking.
So that's sweet and they look great on muscle cars.
Another cult classic would be the good old
Yokohama Advent ADO eight R.
Now, they're a little bit of a classic tire for people
and they do well for the capability of handling both wet
and dry driving scenarios.
Small con is that they are loud,
and you can thank the design for that and the rubber,
but nobody really cares because we strap three
and straight pipes on our cars
and we say it's not that bad.
Yokohama tires are more geared for the track
than they are for the road,
but if you only drive your car every once in a while,
they aren't a bad pick.
Yokohama's also eat through rubber though
relatively quick once they're at temperature,
but that's something that you have to put up with.
They can go home on the street too.
Next step would be the Toyo R one R,
the fancy design and you love it. I love it.
We all love it. Don't lie.
There's jointless wide beads to help with flexing.
There's rim protection and there's
layered cords that keep the strength
but flex in those turns when you're taking it at 45
when you probably should be taking it at 90.
But it's okay. It's our first track day.
We all do it.
The R one R can be a bit of an oddball
because not many people understand it.
Because it's so aggressive
Sometimes people feel it's meant for all HPD stuff
but its focus is much more around control like autocross
and small track style driving.
Now they won't say that
but that's where we've seen it perform best.
The mobile was built specifically
for autocross style designing and maximizing
connectiveness to the ground.
It's a tougher tire than the others
in the video, but hey she looks good
and I enjoyed them when they were on my Miata.
And lastly would be the hand cook RS three.
Again, not in our compound tire,
but does fairly well at balancing out your budget,
your daily drivability and occasional track tape.
They aren't noisy, which is good and they can
behave pretty well under hot conditions
without much issue and they aren't terrible
on the joint account.
It has the carbon black silicon compound
that was using their super GT and ALMS
and they have a bunch of marketing stuff about it.
And has a ton of shoulder block stiffness
and a four channel main groove down the center
so you don't crash when it's sprinkling out.
That bit is important.
The RS three has a design that looks good
to boot, you can't really be upset with it.
They won't last forever,
but you get what you get and not many people will complain,
especially if they know that their
tires are being used at the track.
One of the biggest with track tires is sometimes
coming down to how you drive.
There are people up here that must run something
that can behave in good old rain and dry temperatures,
so we need something like a Michelin
or the Pilot Sport four S that can do both.
When you're down South
and rain is a lot less common,
there's a lot of times where people will run a more aggro
setup like an NTO five R or an NT0 five plane
because they don't have to deal with the rain as much.
There's not one size fits all and on top of that,
all the tires that we listed
come in different size variations.
So, you may find it good for an M three,
but you may not find the size you want
in a Miata or an S 2000.
Depending on what you run
is what's ultimately going to decide which
one's your favorite pick.
The good news is is that if you're chasing lap times
and things like that,
the odds of you picking through multiple tires
are going to happen pretty much every three to six months.
But, if you're just jumping into track events
and just jumping into that sort of stuff,
a lot of times we'd recommend
just running your OEM tires to start.
And then from there,
slowly upgrade down the line.
And make sure that when you are getting your tires,
don't get anything too aggressive
because the odds of you actually needing
that much aggressiveness is not, is not, is not there.
A lot of times you're gonna break your car
before you break your tires.
I mean, that's just a thing.
You get a lot of traction. You have an old car.
I did it all the time on the Dotson.
I thought it was really cool.
And then I realized I should have just not gotten slicks.
Anyway, let us know what you guys think.
And of course if you have a question,
drop a comment below and let us know
what you want to talk about next.
If you're looking for aftermarket wheels,
tires, suspension, be sure to check us out
over at fitmentindustries.com.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries
and we will see you later. Peace.