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Once again, my girlfriend Ashley was also getting some testing done in her race Miata. Testing involved verifying the car's current cooling system configuration was up to snuff during summer heat conditions. Her well built race car passed with flying colors. Now we just have to get her Miata on a set of Maxxis RC-1s too so that we can get a better perspective of how they behave on a lightweight race car.
The overall diameter of the 275/35/18 RC-1s are a bit small for the large 370z wheelwells that were designed for 19 inch wheels as you can see in this picture. But with such a diameter, the effective final drive is shorter making for great acceleration.
Trail braking into corner apexes was not only effective, but down right enjoyable because of how easy the car was to place thanks to the progressive and communicative the RC-1s were in longitudinal grip.
Under suspension compression during cornering, the tire size had no issues whatsoever clearing the body work even when hitting infield apex curbing and going over dips at high speed. The new Buttonwillow Raceway track surface was much smoother than before, but there are still some undulations reminiscent of the track's old character.
5 full track days later on a 3200lb street car, the tread depth looks to only be 45-50% used. If the heat cycle durability stays up, I'm sure I can get at least 3 more full track days based on this current treadwear rate.
The stiff sidewall and adequate amount of static negative camber kept the outside edge wear proper. No signs of rolling over onto the sidewall or the infamous blue ring of discoloration from excessive outside tread usage.
With all the time and laps I have spent on the Maxxis RC-1, I can say I'm impressed and would recommend them highly to others. As well as continue to buy them myself for track usage. Despite being the first attempt by Maxxis in the road race R compound market, they have themselves a clear competitor with the RC-1. I look forward to more sizes being released so more platforms and drivers can enjoy the performance Maxxis has delivered.
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