R1R's, RS2's and ad08's

This happened earlier in the year, but better late than never.

I was evaluating tyre reviews in order to decide what rubber my Volks would get. I wanted track/road hybrid tyres, essentially one step down from semi slicks in terms of track performance.

For a long time I was going to go for Hankook RS2's as they had many good reviews and were a decent price.

Hankook RS2

However, it had come to my attention that UK distributors were finally going to bring over Yokohama's new ad08 tyre. I had seen lots of very positive reviews on the ad08's; one in particular stood out - tyre rack review - extreme performance summer tyres. 'Race tyre handling' in my eyes put them above the RE-11's as dry handling appeals to me more than wet (wet handling is the RE-11's trump card + we can't get them in the UK...).
So with many positive ad08 reviews and a price hike of the RS2's at the start of the year it was provisionally decided, my Volk's soles would be a set of Yoko ad08's.

Yokoham ad08

Toyo has always been very popular amongst drivers, in particular their R888 semi slick tyres which are used in UK Time Attack.
They had brought out their R1R track/road tyre which for some reason not many people had tried. As such I wanted to find some reviews on these to see if they were worth considering over the Yoko's.

However, when I saw the first picture of them I was shocked.
For a while now I was under the impression that I had Toyo T1R tyres (road tyre). Thinking about it I can't actually remember checking the make although I'm sure I carried this out (I know this does not make sense).
Seeing a picture of the R1R I recognised them immediately, those were my tyres!

Toyo R1R

My track day at Brands now started to make more sense. Yes, I will still admit the drivers around me were not exactly the fastest around, but when I've got FRSU, uprated brakes and Toyo R1R's on that's quite an upgrade.

I of course proceeded to go outside and double check my tyres and found the answer as to why I hadn't remembered the type. The only lettering I could see on the tyres was "Trampio R1R". You really had to inspect the entire wheel to find 'Toyo' which was in tiny tiny writing. 'Trampio' doesn't really stick in the mind as a tyre model so I must've combined the T and 1R to form T1R....

Having never heard of Toyo Trampio in the UK, it turns out this was the older name plate for Proxy and only available in Japan. This means I probably have one of the last remaining sets of Trampio R1R's around unless someone is stockpiling them ha ha.