When you spend thousands to get better handling, why stop at the tires?

Everybody poo-poos R-compound tires for the street. In every single case I’ve heard the complaint, it was from somebody who invariably hasn’t run a set. Liz Miles got me thinking about this a few blogs back, and I want to expand upon it here. Let me put it this way: If you spend several thousand dollars on suspension parts, brakes, steering, chassis, wheels, and tires, why would you stop at the very place where it makes the most difference: where the rubber meets the road?

You can buy a set of Nitto R-compound NT01 or NT555 RII tires for about $700, which is about the same price as a regular hard-compound set of tires. I’ll mention that these grooved tires are ostensibly for competition in the rain (unshaved), and I’ve used them like that plenty of times. In fact, when I lived in New Jersey, I had R-compound Nittos on my daily driver, and when I say “daily,” I mean, rain and snow. Don’t even try to make the argument with me that these are for summer weather only. I’ve used them in all conditions, and I’ve discovered otherwise, despite the disclaimers.

The first set of R-compounds I had lasted 17,000 miles. Among those miles were several drag outings and four open-track weekends. I sold that car before I got to change them again, so I don’t know how long they would’ve lasted, but it was an awesome car to drive while I had it, mostly because of those tires.

Fast forward two years ago. I had another brand of tires on my ’76 Camaro—which weren’t R-compounds—and was driving to work one day on the highway. The car in front slammed on brakes. Of course, I had a killer suspension, huge brakes, quick-ratio steering, ad nauseum. But my tires didn’t grip. I locked the fronts up, and slid right into the back bumper of that Toyota. A set of R-compound tires would have produced a far different result. I was in luck that day, because the Camaro was scheduled to be put on a truck and shipped out for paint work the following week, but what if this scenario had played out after the car was finished?

You can do what you want, but I will never put anything but R-compound tires on my high-performance street car, ever. I can’t afford not to.