Best Autocross Tires for the ND MX-5

A dedicated 200-treadwear (200TW) set is the single upgrade that transforms an ND on an autocross course. If you’re a daily driver headed to your first event, you don’t need one yet: start at the tires overview, because a forgiving street tire teaches car control faster than race rubber does. For sustained lapping, see track tires instead. The fastest autocross tire is frequently a mediocre track tire, because the two disciplines stress rubber in opposite ways.

What autocross asks of a tire

An autocross run is a single pass from a standing start. Runs last 40–60 seconds and you get three or four of them at a typical event. That shapes the priorities:

• Cold and first-run grip matter most. You get one or two warm-up corners, not an out-lap. A tire that needs heat to switch on costs you the opening of the run, where most of the course lives.
• Peak grip beats endurance. The tire only has to be at its best for under a minute. Falling off after a few minutes is a track liability and a non-issue here.
• Life is counted in runs, not miles. 200TW tires shed peak grip as they accumulate heat cycles, independent of tread depth. Autocrossers track tire life in runs for that reason (see heat cycling below).
• Wet performance barely matters. Events run rain or shine, but you’re not chasing tenths in standing water, and these compounds are poor there regardless.

The short version

For a single fast run from cold, the Bridgestone RE-71RS is the benchmark, with the Yokohama A052 matching it on outright grip. The Falken RT660 and its 2025 RT660+ revision give up little pace for meaningfully better longevity, consistency, and price, which is why most ND autocrossers run them. Budget buyers drop to the Nankang line and accept slower warm-up.

Tire	Cold / first run	Peak grip	Autocross life	Price	Best for
Bridgestone RE-71RS	Best, magic first lap	Highest	Good for a peak tire	$$$	The fastest single run
Falken RT660 / RT660+	Strong, warms fast	Just behind	~200 runs; cycles out before wearing out	$$	Most ND autocrossers
Yokohama Advan A052	In within a run	Ties the RE-71RS	Short; needs camber	$$$	Max grip, frequent replacement
Nankang NS-2R	Slow to warm	Below the top three	Durable, streetable	$	Budget and heavy practice

Price tiers are relative within the ND market: $ budget, $$ mainstream, $$$ premium.

Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS: the cold-grip and peak benchmark

• ND sizes: 205/50R16 and 245/40R17 (the AST size). It isn’t made in 225/45R16. · Price: $$$
• Cold and warm-up: Best in class. On stone-cold tires the RE-71RS turned a first lap more than a second quicker than the Falken’s best lap in Grassroots Motorsports’ head-to-head. For a one-run-cold format, that is the decisive advantage. The one caveat is ambient temperature: it’s a summer compound that reviewers call nearly unusable in genuinely cold weather, which is a cold-weather limit, not cold-tire bite.
• Peak grip: The highest of the mainstream 200TW tires, edged only by the A052. In GRM’s 2026 test it set the quickest lap of the group at 1:25.84, versus 1:26.26 for the RT660+ and 1:26.61 for the original RT660.
• Life: It heat-cycles down before it wears out, like every 200TW tire, but it holds up well: one owner logged 113 autocross laps plus fifteen 20-minute track sessions without cording. Street miles burn cycles for no benefit, so keep it off your commute.
• Lineage: The RE-71RS replaced the RE-71R, reaching North America in April 2022 with a claimed 5% wear gain and 0.6 s/lap, not the 30% the forums sometimes repeat. A successor, the RE-71RZ, was announced in 2025, so expect the RS to phase out over time.
• Best for: The owner chasing the fastest single run who replaces tires on a schedule.

Falken Azenis RT660 / RT660+: the value all-rounder most ND owners run

• ND sizes: 245/40R17. At 16 inches it offers 215/45R16 and 225/50R16; it skips the popular 205/50R16 and 225/45R16, so owners set on those sizes go RE-71RS or A052. · Price: $$
• Cold and warm-up: Better than its reputation. The common claim that it needs more heat than the RE-71RS doesn’t hold up; testers find it fast on the first cold lap, putting power down from the start line. Its real weakness is heat-soak: at full tread it loses about half a second mid-session once it gets too hot.
• Peak grip: A hair behind the RE-71RS and A052, close enough that driver and setup decide it.
• It gets faster as it wears. GRM’s quickest RT660 times have always come once tread drops below 4/32”, and the full-tread vagueness and heat-soak diminish past the halfway point.
• Life: The durability champion. A GRM set reached over 200 autocross runs with the wear bars barely touched. It heat-cycles out before it wears out.
• Graining quirk: The center rib can shed after a single autocross if the tire isn’t heat-cycled in first. A proper break-in cycle isn’t optional on this tire.
• The RT660+ (2025): A structural revision, not a new compound. Falken dropped one nylon cap-ply belt for a larger contact patch and better heat management, cut weight, tightened manufacturing tolerances to fix the tread-splice and graining issues, and went to 8/32” tread for longer life. It becomes the SCCA Solo spec tire and costs about the same as the RT660.
• Best for: Most ND autocrossers. Best blend of speed, durability, consistency, and value, and it tolerates the drive to the event.

Yokohama Advan A052: the grip leader, short life

• ND sizes: 205/50R16, 225/45R16, and 245/40R17, the widest 16-inch coverage of the top tires. · Price: $$$
• Cold and warm-up: Comes in fast. Owners say one run is all it needs, which suits a cold autocross format.
• Peak grip: Among the highest available, often called the king of the Super 200s. On GRM’s skidpad it ran about 0.1 s/lap quicker than the RE-71RS.
• Life: The weak point. It wears fast and eats its shoulders without enough camber. Run autocross-only with proper alignment, owners still report well over a hundred runs per set, but cost-per-run is high and street miles accelerate the decline.
• Best for: Competitors maximizing grip for a handful of important runs who accept frequent replacement.

Nankang: the budget options, and a class trap to avoid

The Nankang line is where cost-per-run wins, but the model names matter, because two of them aren’t legal where most ND owners compete.

• NS-2R (Sportnex NS-2R): The streetable budget pick. It’s slower to warm than the RT660, roughly three-quarters of a lap versus half a lap, which is its main autocross weakness, but it’s durable and cheap; an ND owner ran a 20–25 minute session in 100°F-plus Texas heat without it going greasy. Check the treadwear of the exact compound you buy: Nankang sells it in 180 and 120 treadwear versions, and a sub-200 rating is illegal in C Street and A Street Touring.
• CR-S (Sportnex CR-S): Nankang’s competition-grade Super 200, the one trade press now cross-shops against the RE-71RS and RT660. If you want a budget tire that’s genuinely competitive rather than just legal, this is the one to research in your size.
• AR-1: A 100-treadwear DOT R-compound, not a 200TW street tire. It’s quick and heat-tolerant, but the sub-200 rating makes it illegal in Street and Street Touring. It belongs to owners in Street Prepared and the other categories that allow R-comps; don’t buy it for CS or AST.

Heat cycling: why a 200TW set’s life is counted in runs

A 200TW tire loses peak grip as it ages, and the clock is heat cycles, not tread depth. Each time the rubber is worked hard and then cools, the compound cures a little further and hardens; a harder tire conforms less to the surface and gives less grip and feedback, even with tread to spare. The effect is strongest on R-comps. A street-biased 200TW tire may take 50 to 100 cycles to harden, and many owners wear it out first.

Break it in first. The first hard heat the rubber sees sets how the rest of its life goes. Run one gentle session at no more than about 85% effort, then let the tires rest off the car for at least 24 hours so the broken molecular bonds relink. Skipping this costs grip and life permanently, and on the RT660 it’s the difference between a tire that lasts and one that sheds its center rib in a single event.

Or pay for it. Many vendors heat-cycle a set before shipping: the tire is spun against rollers and brought to 170–180°F under a pyrometer, then rested 24 hours, which happens in transit. It runs about $15 to $30 per tire and the set arrives ready to compete.

Keep it off the street. Street miles don’t get the tire hot enough to count as a clean heat cycle, but they do wear it, and one hot moment on the road can cycle it for nothing. Competitive autocrossers keep a separate street set or trailer the car so the good rubber only sees the course.

Shaving: it cuts squirm but slows warm-up

Shaving tread depth, commonly down to about 4/32”, reduces the tread-block flex (squirm) that hurts a fresh full-depth tire’s response and builds heat. The catch for autocross is that a shaved tire takes longer to come up to temperature, a disadvantage on a cool day with a light car and a single driver, which describes an ND autocross run almost exactly. Shaving pays off more for track and heavier cars; for autocross it’s situational, and the RT660’s habit of getting faster below 4/32” means you can often just drive into the same window. Commercial shaving runs about $55 a tire.

Picking a size for autocross

• 245/40R17 on a 17×9 is the one size every top tire offers and the fitment national-level ND autocrossers favor. It’s the largest setup A Street Touring allows, up to a 255 mm section width on a 9-inch wheel, so 245/40R17 sits inside the rule rather than at a hard “245 max.” It needs a fender roll front and rear and can rub the liner at full lock on a lowered car. See wheel & tire fitment.
• 15-inch (205/50R15, 225/45R15) has the deepest and cheapest 200TW selection, which is why it stays popular for autocross. The catch is brakes: a US-market 2.0L ND won’t clear 15s without a front-brake swap or compact calipers.
• 16-inch is the affordable middle, but the selection forks by brand. The RE-71RS and A052 come in 205/50R16; the RT660 doesn’t, offering 215/45R16 and 225/50R16 instead. Confirm your tire exists in your size before you commit to a wheel.
• Check your class before grip. For most competitors the class dictates allowed tire and wheel size more than grip does, so settle classing first. Street and Street Touring both require a 200-treadwear minimum.

Getting the most from a 200TW autocross set

• Set pressures by tire temps. A light ND with camber wants less air than generic charts suggest; ND drivers on RE-71RS report hot pressures in the high 20s to low 30s. Start in the mid 30s cold and air down while watching temps, per the track tire pressures method.
• Reset between runs. Bleed to the same target before every run so each one starts equal; tires cool down between cars at an autocross.
• Add camber before you remove air. If tuning keeps pushing you under the minimum safe pressure floor, the fix is more negative camber, not less pressure.
• Log runs per set. Knowing your run count tells you when grip is about to fall off instead of getting surprised mid-season.

Related

• Tires overview & chooser
• Track tires: why the fastest autocross tire is often a poor track tire
• Track tire pressures: cold-set targets and using tire temps to dial camber
• Autocross classing · Alignment · Wheel & tire fitment · Your first autocross