Pontiac GTO Race Tires - Don't Turn The Page

These tires like to have a lot of heat in them in order to perform well. Out of the box, we could tell the difference between the street tires and the race tires. These tires had copious grip. We put our in-house racing driver, Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords editor Evan Smith, behind the wheel for a few laps to hear his impressions as well.

"I can't believe how much grip the GTO has," he relates. "You push it into a corner and it's endless. The tires communicate very well with the driver to tell you when they're going to let go, but those limits are so far that I only came close to them a few times. I know that I could get the car to go even quicker because I wasn't even close to the limits of the tires. I would honestly expect it to shave off another second or two if I really started to push it."

Talk about confidence-inspiring, the full race tires can make anyone look like a hero, while the NT05 tires were a little less responsive by comparisson and induced more white-knuckle corners.

Around The Cones
While our GTO may not see too much opencourse use, we still find time to hit the autocross once a month. As our second theater for testing, we were excited to see just how far we could push the car on a short circuit like the sub-60-second autocross. Making up a few seconds here is exponentially better than a few seconds on a longer course, such as Gainesville's test track.

With the NT05s resting at 35psi hot, we made our first hit on the track. The layout was fast ... very fast, and we were topping third gear, close to 90-95 mph. Again, the NT05 showed us very controlled and responsive feedback through the high-speed corners and quick transition.

As our confidence grew for the tires, we began to push the GTO into more aggressive right-on-the-edge situations and we were rewarded with a 49.602, an impressive mark for the street tire cars that were on hand. Most C6 Corvettes were hovering in the 50- to 53-second range and our GTO bested them. After the first session was over, we swapped to the AZA wheels and NT01 tires.

Wouldn't you know it, our first pass was marginally better than the previous NT05 run with a 49.590. Once we had some heat in them, however, times really dropped to a 48.53, more than a second difference! On our final pass of the day, we made we got a best of 48.465.

Again, on a short autocross like this, a 1.14 second gain is impressive. Our times were consistent and the car felt very controlled. Just as Evan expressed, we honestly felt like the race tires could have gone even further with more time behind the wheel. We consistently shaved more time off each pass.

Conclusion
After several days of racing, we were satisfied with the results. We learned that having a dedicated racing tire was still the way to go to reap the best numbers, but running a sticky street tire like the NT05 may be enough to satisfy the budget conscious or those looking to just go out and have some fun.

Whatever your intent may be, these new Nitto tires prove that the company is listening to customer demands, as the street tires and the race tires have extended the limit of grip. Tire technology is steadily moving forward bringing the possibility of 1g lateral grip in a mildly modified Pontiac closer to a reality.