Thread: 14" rally tires?

Stage rallyists and RallyCrossers: where are you getting your 14" gravel/dirt rally tires?

The following standbys are out of commission:

Silverstonetyresusa.com / Silverstone
Team Illuminada / Hankook
Rally-Tire.com / Lassa
Susquehanna / Hankook & Yokohama

Justin with DMack doesn't have any medium compound 14's in stock, only softs. Softs shred like Playdoh in the South, so they're useless to me.

Edit: Tread Zone only has the 14" Yokohama A035 in soft compound, too.

Lassa's from Burak @ Rally-tire :/

Can you go 15'' ? You probablly know that you'll have way more option

If anyone made a rally tire with a 60-series or lower profile, I'd switch to 15's. The smallest 15-inch DMack would be roughly an extra 1.5 inches in outer diameter over stock, which wouldn't help a low-displacement car like mine.

If the 14-inch rally tire market totally vaporizes (it's already 75% there), I may have to switch.

Plan B: go international.

I ordered ordered a pair of Maxsports in medium and a pair in hard compound via Demon Tweeks UK. I don't know much about them, but even with quoted shipping at $197 for the four tires, they'll come out cheaper per tire than DMack or anything available stateside.

Edit: make that $257 dollars shipping. Their web site didn't give an accurate quote. Still cheaper than a set of DMacks.

People have been having a really hard time getting tires out of Burak for the last several months to a year...

I have a set of new Lassas that I'll be using in a week at Ojibwe Forests Rally, but I had to piece them together from a couple different guys who wrecked their cars (and haven't finished new builds) before they could use them.

DMack makes a 14", and the new guy importing them I think has gotten in at least some in 14". BUt it seems like a loosing battle. I'm planning on moving over to 15" eventually.

Which ones did you go for?

The RB3 looks like a decent gravel pattern, but the RB1 is actually more interesting to me, because it looks like the best mud option I've seen in a 14.

Most of my use is grass RallyCross, so I went with the RB1. On a 2WD car, I think cutting through the grass and loam with a more aggressive tread pattern could be the ticket in the conditions I see most often.

I have a pair of 14" DMack mediums (more like the RB3/Pirelli/Michelin/etc pattern) and a pair of Hankook R201s for when the surface gets to be smoother at bigger events with lots of runs. The semi-improved roads used in stage rally probably favor the Maxsport RB3 over the RB1 unless it gets soggy.

I have a pair of Silverstone muds, and those have a lot of void space separating tall chunky tread blocks. They'll round off in a hurry in dry conditions, though. The RB1 looks to split the difference.

Yeah, I bought mine over a year ago last summer.

Any 2014 news on the 14-inch tire front?

The Maxsport RB1's are not sturdy enough for RallyCross use. I've debeaded them twice, and gotten slow leaks in two others. The sidewalls are very soft, like a street tire, which doesn't cut it on a FWD car that steers and powers on the same end. Rocky Mountain Motorsports carries a Black Rocket brand (Scandinavian retreads), but the review says they are also soft-sidewalled.

The DMack sizing isn't optimal, but it looks like they are the only game in town. I'd rather have the 175/65-14 than the DMack 175/70-14 for acceleration.

Does anyone carry 14-inch Yokohamas, Silverstones, Pirellis, etc., right now? UK Shipping is a monster.