Cal Club Autocross Forums

This subject has probably been done before but I'd like the current thinking about A6 Hoosier vs V710 Kumho. How much (if any) difference is there performance wise? I know that bang for the buck, Kumho is the choice for most. But what about actual lap time difference, especially for those of us that are not on the top of the chart.

Steve T.

Steve Towers wrote:This subject has probably been done before but I'd like the current thinking about A6 Hoosier vs V710 Kumho. How much (if any) difference is there performance wise? I know that bang for the buck, Kumho is the choice for most. But what about actual lap time difference, especially for those of us that are not on the top of the chart.

Steve T.

I just tried a set of 710's. Yes they were less expensive, and initially they performed well. But they lasted no long than Hoosiers, and for us, that's not very long. I sticking with Hoosier for now.

Then it also depends on the ambient temp at race time. 710's need more ambient heat IMHO.

I was unable to get enough heat in my 40 run 710's to compete against a 2 driver(George and Joey) car this Sun. on Hoosiers.
I was off by a whole second to George, and 1.5 to Joey, who were on a pretty new set of Hoosiers.
Correct me if I am wrong George about which tires you ran.

Although, after 4 fun runs, I was able to get some heat in them and get a similar time. Practice makes perfect was a factor too I bet.

I am actually debating which brand to run in Lincoln this year.
With the amount of grip there and the heat, I may run Kumho's and count on less pick up issues.

Pete Loney wrote:Then it also depends on the ambient temp at race time. 710's need more ambient heat IMHO.

I was unable to get enough heat in my 40 run 710's to compete against a 2 driver(George and Joey) car this Sun. on Hoosiers.
I was off by a whole second to George, and 1.5 to Joey, who were on a pretty new set of Hoosiers.
Correct me if I am wrong George about which tires you ran.

Although, after 4 fun runs, I was able to get some heat in them and get a similar time. Practice makes perfect was a factor too I bet.

I am actually debating which brand to run in Lincoln this year.
With the amount of grip there and the heat, I may run Kumho's and count on less pick up issues.

Pretty hard to compare under the circumstances. We were on sweet spot Hoosiers and yours had 40 runs I think you said. Then there's the heat in the tires as you said. In order to really compare, conditions have to be equal, with two identical cars, same driver, then a new set of tires on opposite cars, etc, etc. Even then, the mere driving style could be the difference.

All I know is Scott McWho kicked all our butts on Kuhmo in Lincoln. Wasn't even close.

For what it's worth, I was also on V710s (new profile), also about 1 second behind Joey. But I'll freely admit that my driving was off, possibly due to having gotten used to driving Hoosiers, being rusty, not being used to this site, etc. Like George said, we would have to swap drivers, preferably in similar cars (AP1 vs AP2 vs CR is not that close a comparison), to really know what the tires are contributing.

I was a little closer to Joey (0.4s) this time than last time, when I was on worn Hoosiers. 1 data point each -- let's fit a line!

George Schilling wrote:

All I know is Scott McWho kicked all our butts on Kuhmo in Lincoln. Wasn't even close.

Well...we all know it couldn't have possibly been McWho's driving...


Seriously, outside of Scott's unquestioned talent behind the wheel, I'd also suggest that the Kumhos do much better on concrete than on asphalt. I did some back to back on the RX8 at Atwater and the difference between the 245 K tire and the 285 H tire was noise.

I believe the results at HPT really biased a lot of folks towards the HoHo's, as they seem to be better than Team K on lower grip surfaces and asphalt.

But, that's just an opinion, obviously!

Inch-for-inch I've found the two very similar in performance. The differentiator is Hoosier often offers more inches for the same car/wheel combination. Kumhos seem to last longer though, for cars that chew tires.

K's take longer to heat up ... first lap is often useless unless it's really warm out.

Mako Koiwai wrote:K's take longer to heat up ... first lap is often useless unless it's really warm out.

Yup. being a one driver car this last event hurt my tire temps for sure.

At the start of my third and fastest run, I had heat only in the front outside tire.

Pete Loney wrote:

Mako Koiwai wrote:K's take longer to heat up ... first lap is often useless unless it's really warm out.

Yup. being a one driver car this last event hurt my tire temps for sure.

At the start of my third and fastest run, I had heat only in the front outside tire.

You need to have me do an "instructor run" with you. That'll get the tires warmed up in a big hurry

Why do you think Karen was running X Runs in Run Group 5! After all Tom had Steve warming up his tires ...