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Sorry...any rains purchased this year will be of the old "stiffer" construction. Otherwise they would be a stepped improvement, and create a one year rain tire. Everyone stated it correctly, even with a Goodyear renewal outcome, 2016 is a new rain tire.

The Hoosier H2O's are fantastic.
When we race in a SRF/SM mixed group, the jelly beans are a lot faster.

I don't mind the SRF rains, but they're not physics-defying like some of the Hoosier stuff. I thought the Gen3 was a little bit easier to drive in the rain than the old car maybe because a quick slide didn't seem to have as much momentum and pendulum effect, though the 3rd and 4th gear inside wheelspin at higher rpm is a new trick the old one didn't have as much, maybe just due to less weight over the rearend

For your enjoyment/ridicule, from the august SCCA double regional at Gateway Motorsports Park in which it rained a bit and my second session with the Gen3 conversion was spent familiarizing myself with the concept of the aforementioned wheelspin and it'd been a few years since I'd done this track in bucketing rain and it has some cool secrets you only unlock if you drive around the last 3" at the edge of the track

Long video so check the description for stuff to fast forward to. Rain line at GMP asks for creativity and a little faith. For reference times were about 18-20 seconds off dry weather times.

https://youtu.be/cT2UHzg_Z8w

Just finished a miserable rain weekend at Summit Point. Two points of note. During the Sunday race I had a glitch that had me in the pit/paddock for 17 minutes mid-race. I got back on track but forgot to turn on my Rain Map. I didn't even notice that the Rain Map was off until 5-6 laps in. It did not seem necessary at all. It was very wet and misting, but not raining. I don't know for sure but the other guy on the front row killed me at the start, suggesting that he wasn't using the rain map at all.

Second, I can't wait for the Hoosiers. The GY rains were so slippery that I went out on dry tires Sunday on a very wet track, and still saw a marked improvement in lap times and controllability. Others who did the same saw lesser improvements, suggesting that the "new" GY rains vary quite a bit. Perhaps having them sit in a garage, and using them as weights for my popup canopy for two years dried them out.

I second the comments on the Goodyear rains being mischievous on GEN3 cars, especially if they've aged for three-plus years like mine.

At Lime Rock this past weekend it was a wet track for the Saturday race, just on the edge for needing the deep rain treads. I went for the rains and mounted my ancient Goodyears.

Um...oops.

With the rain map activated, the old Goodyears and the torque of the GEN3 as it comes up off the rain map combined to precipitate a first for me in all my years of racing at Lime Rock.

I spun steering through the baby kink on No Name Straight.

After exiting the Right Hander, I was just coming up to full throttle as I turned slightly left for the little kink and the rears violently broke loose and I did a full 360 for about 80 yards up the straight. Luckily I didn't hit anything.

So, I figure the next lap I'll ease on the throttle up to full as I make the little left turn on No Name. No dice. The car still got sideways and almost looped. So, I had to go through the little kink (a corner so insignificant, it has no name. "The No Name No Name Bend?") at half throttle for the rest of the race. That cost me more than a second a lap right there.

Before the race I predicted that GEN2 cars with less torque and 100 pounds more rear weight would dominate in the rain and I was right. John Steinmetz won with a GEN2 on rains. Despite several spins, Rich Whiel took second overall, and first in GEN3, way behind John. Mark Peyser and Bill Watts finished high with GEN2s, with Bill on Goodyear dries.

The new rain tire can't get here soon enough.

I can say with pretty high confidence from personal experience that Hoosier radial rains are less than ideal when they're aged out, left in the sun, frozen, thawed, frozen again, hit with hammers, used as planters for herbal home remedies, run over by trains, or set on fire. Not sure if that will transfer to whatever they give us in SRF, but I suspect they have not found a compound that can stand up to indifference

All that being said, I can't wait to be on the Hoosiers (RADIALS PRAISE 8lb 6oz BABY JESUS!) either

Bob that was the case as long as you were on new or fairly new rains. My experience was the same as yours as we were both on an old set of rains. I could not go from one corner to the next without a spin on the rains. After coming in and having Josh check to to see if I had a flat or something else wrong (all was normal) I went back out and spun some more and nearly spun a couple of more times. At this point I came into the paddock got out of the car and started to change back onto the dries (also well worn) as I did not want my season to end on a worse note than it had already been up to that point. Thats when George came over and finished the change while I got myself back in the car and belted in and all with a badly bruised left hand. Well I went out on the dries and spun no more, I finished the race albeit 11 laps down and my times were not to shabby compared to Mark and Bill.

enzo wrote:My experience was the same as yours as we were both on an old set of rains. I could not go from one corner to the next without a spin on the rains.

I'm pretty sure the rain map kept me from looping it even more.