which is better?

 

I say but the cheapest tire you can. The difference is very marginal when doing HPDE. Practice and learn on the cheap tires (NT01). When a few tenths of a second count get the better tire. When you don't want any compromises get Hoosiers.

On a side note...I have not tested AO48s but I prefer R888s over Nt01s. Mainly cause the tires considerably wider....255 R888s are approximately 1/2 of an inch wider than 255 NT01s. That's a total of 2 inches of additional contact patch with out increasing the sidewall height. I'm of the old school train of thought. More rubber is gonna be faster and in my case it proved to be. I also think that the tire overall is far superior....however its also much more costly. I refuse to spend that much for AO48s.

I'm gonna eventually stuff 285s under the stock fenders