First impressions: Armstrong Blu Trac Race 200tw tires | Articles

Could a new low-buck tire be the silver bullet that so many of us seek? Could it deliver pace and laps but at a discounted rate? And could the new Armstrong Blu Trac Race deliver everything on that wish list?

First, though, a small reality check. GRM is one of the few independent outlets left doing instrumented tire testing in a controlled environment with controlled variables, and those tire tests take an exceptional amount of resources: For even a basic two-tire test, figure a minimum of two separate trips to the track and a full day on the test car.

And that’s assuming the weather and track stay consistent, the car doesn’t break, and the tires behave as expected. If any variables change, we pack up, go home and try another day.

Given that logistical complexity, we can’t fully test every new tire on the market. Instead, we sample far more tires in far more varied conditions, constantly evaluating new contenders for an official test performed to our standards.

These trips are more like the “testing” normal racers do–throwing some new tires on the car one track weekend and seeing how they feel, perhaps with a lap time comparison to their last event. But they’re not scientific, so we normally don’t publish their results.

The best way to see the full list of tires we’re actually sampling is to catch us in person at an event. Otherwise, tires we test generally fall into two categories: candidates for an official full test and candidates for the recycling pile.

Sometimes, though, a new tire lands squarely in between those extremes: a tire that, while not a top-shelf contender, may fill a gap in the market and be the right choice for some people. And one of those tires is the prototype Armstrong Blu Trac Race we sampled from Tire Streets.

Marketed as an Endurance 200, in theory this tire would compete against tires like the Hankook Ventus R-S4 or Falken Azenis RT-615K+–tires that, while not quite as fast as the Super 200s you’ll find topping time trials podiums, can deliver consistent laps all day long and wear like iron. Bonus points for being more reasonably priced than Super 200s, too.

We installed a set of 205/50R15 Blu Tracs on a friend’s Lemons-prepped Corolla, then visited the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park, our official test track, for an open track day.

Normally this car runs on the 195/60R14 Falken…