YLC vs Reds

Getting ready for our season (my first in a long time) up in the northeast and they just announced that my class (206/animal) has the choice between Bridgestone YLC or MG Red tires. From what I have heard, they’re fairly comparable but I am interested in any opinions from this community. I know the class ran YLC only last year and they just opened up the reds to our class

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It’s been a while since I ran YLCs but I would think the Reds would be faster. Having run them the last couple years they actually feel fairly soft for a “hard” compound tire. The Cs weren’t bad though either from what I recall.

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When our club went from YLCs to MG Reds, the YLC seemed to be just the tiniest bit faster in terms of pure speed but the Reds more consistent over its heat cycle and tire life. Both are good tires, I think.

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You’ll probably find the largest difference is in the sidewall construction. Both lateral and horizontal so depending on a bunch of things (weight, height, how you like your chassis to handle, how bumpy the track is) you might find one works a little better than you vs the other.

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Well at So cal at the track I run they host multiple clubs. The club I race in would run YLC for their 206 and another would run Evinco Blues(re labeled MG reds) and our club 206 classes would be about .5 sec faster. And it’s not a driver thing because both clubs get really good drivers and allot of drivers would race both clubs.

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That’s about as good of a comparison as you can get.

I’ve only run the Evinco Blue one time (SuperNats), and I know it’s supposed to be an MG Red rebranded, but for me it felt harder than the Red. That could’ve been down to the track and temperature though.

I think the consensus, at least under our tent, was that the Blue definitely felt “different” than the Red.

I’ll agree with the “feel” different also. I’ve ran MG yellow and Evinco Reds which are supposed to be the same but I know my mg yellows always generally looked better after a day of racing the. The Evinco Reds.

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On the same day? Are there multiple events for each club over the course of the year?

Actually I went back and looked at the posted times on Speedhive from last year. In many cases the Sr. Drivers on YLC are well over a second faster then the other clubs Sr. Drivers. And I’ll reaffirm that the drivers in both series’s are no slouches.

No not same day, but within a couple weeks of each other. For the most part LAKC is 2 weeks before Tri-C Karters. And almost always run the same configuration. And if anything Lakc would have a grippier track over LAKC because of shifter count and just the overall participation size, kart count for Friday-Saturday and then race Sunday.

Also yes, Tri-C Karters always runs Cal Speed Karting in Fontana and the same as LAKC

So what I’m hearing is run YLC’s until some brave soul manages some wins on Reds! I wish I had the money to just get both and see for myself, but I don’t. I’ll report back once the season gets going and see what’s out there

Thank you guys!

If it was me and I had to pick I would pick YLC. Unless and this is a big unless, you are trying to get multiple races on same set and how aggressive the track surface is. If it’s a smooth enough track and you can get 3 races off a set of YLC I would do that but if tire budget is tight and your looking for longevity vs fast times go with the reds. If most are running reds I would throw on YLC to out run them, but if your a better driver and way out front I would switch to reds to maybe get more laps out of them.

One of the local guys said he got 18 races out of a set of YLCs hahah, so…

I’d like to see what those 18 race old tires look like. Poor things.

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I’d concur that YLCs will out perform MG Reds, at least on Yamaha and 206 applications in my experience.

I personally prefered the old HZ vs the new HZi that was introduced last year…make sure what MG Red you’re using for comparison.

I have run them both a few years ago before we spec’d YLC’s. I always preferred the YLC’s over the Reds. However, I agree with James McMahon post. Sidewall difference is the biggest difference between the YLC’s and the Red’s. So depending on your class,weight, height you may prefer one over the other.

18 races thats to many for consistant times

Probably! It’s just at the club level here, poor young guys just trying to race. I just bought a new set of YLCs for the beginning of the year, I will report back with their life in my environment. I’m on a pretty tight budget myself so I will use them until my times start to noticeably fall off (hoping to be consistent enough to be able to notice it in my times, ha)