Road Atlanta - nail damage in new Cup2s. Advice?

[ScottD]

I was at the Chin event at Road Atlanta Oct 21st and 22nd. Running a fairly new set of Cup2 tires (3rd track day). At the 3pm session, I lost air pressure in my back left tire coming down the front straight. I slowed down and by the top of the hill at turn 3, the tire was completely flat(0 psi on the TPMS). Got off the track safely at an infield cut. No problem. Found a nail size hole in the center of the tread, but no nail! I can see the indention in the rubber around the hole from a nail head. Now what to do. Those Cup2s where wearing very good and had at least another full weekend left in them, or probably more with rotation. I run 305/30/19 squared. Should I replace all four tires with new? Or should I buy and put two new tires on the rear and use my best two existing tires up front? I know running a patched/plugged tire on a dedicated track car isn’t safe, so that’s not an option for me. These tires are around $500 each. I can afford a new set of 4, but don’t want to waste money unnecessarily.
What do you all think?

 

[JAJ]

I had exactly the same thing happen to me one weekend at The Ridge - saw a shiny thing on the tire, realized it was the head of a screw and that was end-of-life for that tire. It was old enough that I swapped all four, though.

In your case, depending on how many days you get from a set of tires, but if it's three days, here's something you can think about: Buy 3 new tires. Put 2 new on the front, one new on the rear, and run one more day with each of the three remaining used tires on the rear. At that point you'll have seven tires with three days on them and it's time for a new set of four.

 

[blacksheep-1]

I was at the Chin event at Road Atlanta Oct 21st and 22nd. Running a fairly new set of Cup2 tires (3rd track day). At the 3pm session, I lost air pressure in my back left tire coming down the front straight. I slowed down and by the top of the hill at turn 3, the tire was completely flat(0 psi on the TPMS). Got off the track safely at an infield cut. No problem. Found a nail size hole in the center of the tread, but no nail! I can see the indention in the rubber around the hole from a nail head. Now what to do. Those Cup2s where wearing very good and had at least another full weekend left in them, or probably more with rotation. I run 305/30/19 squared. Should I replace all four tires with new? Or should I buy and put two new tires on the rear and use my best two existing tires up front? I know running a patched/plugged tire on a dedicated track car isn’t safe, so that’s not an option for me. These tires are around $500 each. I can afford a new set of 4, but don’t want to waste money unnecessarily.
What do you all think?View attachment 90877

you should've stopped by and said hello.
IMO you can patch the tire and it will hold up if it is a small hole, no plugs though.
As long as you're not running banking it should be fine... again, IMO, your results may vary.
At Road America you could put it on the least abused end of the car, the right rear.
You are looking for the type of patch that pulls through the hole

 

[TMSBOSS]

I guess the answer would depend upon how many wheels you have. If you have extra wheel, up to an extra set, you can add tires to your rotation. Like BS1 mentioned, the tire with the least potential should go where it will see the least wear.
Be sure to have the tire in question inspected before patching. I got screwed, right front picked up small sheet metal screw at Autobahn and the sidewall was damaged. Zero options when that happens.

 

[ScottD]

I guess to add to the overall issue, although I run 305/30/19 squared, I don’t use spacers. So, my front wheels are different offset from the rear. So, in order to rotate tires from front to rear I have them remounted and balanced. So, in this situation to replace or move any tire from front to rear or rear to front is going to cost $50 per wheel to Mount and balance. Plus I could probably sell the existing 3 good (used) Cup2s for $100 each. Starts to make more sense to go with 4 new tires and be done with it. Back when I first bought the wheels and tires, my plan was to run a weekend HPDE, then rotate all right to left, run another HPDE weekend, then pay $200 and have the tires rotated front to back, then try to get 1 or 2 more weekends with a left to right rotation, then get a whole new set of 4. Four weekends HPDE might me optimistic, but I wanted to see if that would work.
Can’t get my head around mixing new tires with used tires and how that would work with wear and rotation. Seems like once I go down that path, I’m going to be throwing on a set of new 2 tires more often and always moving the oldest tires up to the front where they wear faster. Certainly don’t want new tires on the front and older ones on the rear. I just hate getting nails in my dedicated track tires. This is the 2nd time this has happened in the last 18 months. Very frustrating.

 

[blacksheep-1]

I guess to add to the overall issue, although I run 305/30/19 squared, I don’t use spacers. So, my front wheels are different offset from the rear. So, in order to rotate tires from front to rear I have them remounted and balanced. So, in this situation to replace or move any tire from front to rear or rear to front is going to cost $50 per wheel to Mount and balance. Plus I could probably sell the existing 3 good (used) Cup2s for $100 each. Starts to make more sense to go with 4 new tires and be done with it. Back when I first bought the wheels and tires, my plan was to run a weekend HPDE, then rotate all right to left, run another HPDE weekend, then pay $200 and have the tires rotated front to back, then try to get 1 or 2 more weekends with a left to right rotation, then get a whole new set of 4. Four weekends HPDE might me optimistic, but I wanted to see if that would work.
Can’t get my head around mixing new tires with used tires and how that would work with wear and rotation. Seems like once I go down that path, I’m going to be throwing on a set of new 2 tires more often and always moving the oldest tires up to the front where they wear faster. Certainly don’t want new tires on the front and older ones on the rear. I just hate getting nails in my dedicated track tires. This is the 2nd time this has happened in the last 18 months. Very frustrating.

Yep, mixing new with old is generally frowned upon, it can really mess with the handling, but you gotta do what you gotta do, I would pick the 2 best of the 3 tires left and use them as spares, then buy a new set maybe. If oyu get a chance, you should prolly work into a set of 18s because you have a lot more options there., especially if you plan to run take offs.