Which Track Day Tire is Best? 100 Treadwear Tire Shootout!
Semi-slick tires put grip and performance before everything else. Speed Academy weighs in on which track day tire does their job best.
Ready to take grip seriously? It’s time to consider a 100 TW tire. In the current market landscape of track day driving, we as enthusiasts have a multitude of options available to us when it comes to tire choices. There are dozens of compounds available to be sent to our doorstep with the click of a button. Some of us prefer all-season burners for drift events, others will be running a fast, but not 100% compromising 200 TW UHP tire like the best bang for buck Federal 595 RS-RR. However, if pure performance is your game and that comes before everything else, there is no better segment than 100 TW. These tires are considered semi-slick, which puts them at just before a proper slick tire, which nine times out of 10 is not road-legal.
Thanks to our friends up in Canada at Speed Academy, we’ll get a conclusive on-track test to see which one of these three 100 TW tires is worth your hard-earned dollars: the Nankang AR-1, the Maxxis RC-1, and the Toyo R888R.
The test car in this situation will be the trusty Speed Academy FR-S, which is supercharged and runs full aero. The tire size for this test will be one of the most popular track day tire sizes: 265/35/18. Mainly mid-to-high power cars run this tire size, so you can be assured that those tires will be pushed to the limit on this forced-induction Scion FR-S. The track of choice will be Toronto Motorsports Park, a track that has seen a couple thousand laps from Speed Academy cars over the years.
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The testing methodology for these tires consisted of one warm-up lap, three hot laps and and one cool down lap. Weather conditions were consistent throughout the day according to Speed Academy, with a high of 14C. All of these tires work in an optimal range of 60 to 80C surface temperature, with each of them having their cold and hot pressure being adjusted after the test laps.
Conclusively, the all out winner in regard to both pure consistency across laps and overall lap time was the Nankang AR-1, throwing down a best time of 1:19.123 and staying within a couple of milliseconds through several series of laps. Next was the Maxxis RC-1, only a couple of milliseconds off the pace of the AR-1, but losing quite a bit in consistency over multiple laps, with lap times spreading over a full second. The final tire, the Toyo R888R, was almost a full second slower than the AR-1, but held decent consistency.
While these results may still be subjective, a lot of work, testing, and data has gone into determining these results. For a more conclusive study of these tires, please check out Speed Academy’s juicy article on the subject. If you ask us, our money is on the AR-1 being the king of the track day tires.
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