Also if you ran the belted tires on asphalt of course it was a dog, anytime you use the completely wrong tires for the surface you're asking to be out to lunch.

I ran belted on indoor carpet prior to 702 closing. The wear was much better than the non belted, but they were definitely a little slower. Additionally the belted did not balloon (obviously), like the non belted.. for us, the cause of was the TDK sauce we were using..

This was - to the letter - reflected on our club track as well (seasonal temporary CRC black carpet installation). Non belted were slightly better traction initially but ballooned after half a dozen quali's and mains. The initial advantage was negligible in the grand scheme of things and longevity and consistency prevailed with the belted.

We run the grey belted at 360v2, Park Lane Raceway, 180 Raceway and Jersey RC Racing Promotions on black CRC carpet and they work just fine for USGT, FWD, GT ProSpec and TT02 Production. Non-belted work but will balloon up and have traction rolling issues. I have well over 15-20 runs on a bunch of grey belted tires. Depending on the class and grip level some cars will need glue on the fronts. ALL tracks here use SXT 3.0 sauce ONLY. You can clean them with SXT or use electronic cleaner sprayed on rag and wipe them.

I've also got a couple sets of the belted tyres. They're both at least one season old and wear is almost non existant.

Seems to be a correlation between the amount of wear and amount of grip.

We were bound by the rules that we could only run those tyres. So everyone had the same level of grip.

​​​​​​​I'm finding the xpress tyres working much better anyways. They hook up almost immediately out of the bag, they're more receptive to TDK (our mandated sauce), but I'm not sure about wear characteristics, though. I haven't run them long enough to reliably assess that behaviour.

Yah great if you can afford 2 sets per weekend, belted/grey rims work great on black carpet and last quite a while, unbelted iffy traction at best and wear out way too fast, I understand they are a consumable, but 1/2 raceday and junk, not too onboard with that.
The Sweep usgt spec tires and the Xpress tires are a much better option, it’s expensive enough to be competitive in this sport, shouldn’t need to spend $60 on top of entry every raceday.

Fwiw busman i found the tires didn't wear as bad up in Canada. I purchased 2 sets thinking I would need 1 set per day like I do locally but found the tires lasted me all weekend vs just 1 race day here locally.
edit. Did i just repeat myself or sound confusing af or only me?! Lol
D

You were fine, Yes they may last longer up there, Spray and all, I’ve used these for a while, Just not the same as they used to be, degraded compound maybe?

The updated Ride USGT addresses these issues and performs very similar to the Sweeps. The wear is much better than the prior version, especially on asphalt.

Hopefully the powers that be adopts this version. Ultimately they might have to as I can’t foresee Ride manufacturing a tire it has updated and is now considered it an old version

When were the Ride tires updated? And is there an easy distinction?

if the new updated tire isn't better than the sweep I'm not interested in it, we're moving forward in performance not backwards

agreed, I was shown a set that were used all weekend up there, unfortunately we don't spray and wear is problem, I'm getting 5-6 race days out of the sweeps and they are faster

OK, so you guys are running Sweep treaded tires and updated Ride tires in USGT. Our club would not allow that because without rules there is chaos!

But the operative word being “our”!
it’s like Biden, out of touch with reality! But, Hey! You just go ahead and burn those books, make rules and adhere to rules that benefit nobody, That’s a great way to feel better about yourself and diminish attendance from frustration.

But what do I know, after 40yrs in the hobby I woke up.

we have rules, you can run the crappy roar mandated tires that last one day, or you can run the sweep tire that lasts longer and has better traction,