The tire rule was implemented to help save the teams money. The tires were very soft and had a ton of grip, therefore wearing out quickly, hurting the quality of the racing, and rubbering up racetracks. Teams were bolting on fresh rubber every time the car hit the track.
There was an interview with Kenny Jacobs in Sprint car and Midget were he talked about it. He basically said the smaller teams couldn't compete because the WoO teams went out with 4 fresh tires every time they hit the track. I know this is the wing side but that's what I remember as the argument for spec tires.
With that being said I don't see why you can't have a spec tire from two manufacturers to help with cost.
I always thought that was the tin tops and the Atlas Bucrons that caused all the fuss, they were super soft, I had a friend who was using them, and they asked him to quit, which he did.
OMG, that was the early 60s, I was in DC, serving my country, and working part time at a gas ⛽station in Virginia, just across from the pentagon, and shipping tires down here, cause we had plenty, no wonder no one knows what I'm talking about.
"Being old, isn't half as much fun, as getting there"! Ole Robert I!
Even at the local level, the top teams have new rear tires on every night. While I’d be a proponent of open competition on a tire rule, I’d be a bigger proponent of randomly testing tires at the local level.
Originally Posted by Midget98:
An open tire rule would stop all of this garbage. Let the teams run whatever they want and put a stop to the Hoosier bribe money that has done nothing substantial to improve the purse or point funds. It's not like these tire rules are saving the racers any money. Hoosier doesn't have some magic bank account full of money that they write checks to the sanctioning bodies and tracks from. This is kickback money from the dollars racers spend on their product. Get some open competition back in the marketplace and stop the monopoly that Hoosier has become. If their product is better than their competitor's, they will have nothing to worry about. Also, if there is a supposed tire shortage as they are saying, then another tire provider should help alleviate the problem.
Every time I bring up opening the tire rule back up there are a lot of people saying it won’t work blah blah blah
Originally Posted by deadhorse30:
The tire rule was implemented to help save the teams money. The tires were very soft and had a ton of grip, therefore wearing out quickly, hurting the quality of the racing, and rubbering up racetracks. Teams were bolting on fresh rubber every time the car hit the track.
There was an interview with Kenny Jacobs in Sprint car and Midget were he talked about it. He basically said the smaller teams couldn't compete because the WoO teams went out with 4 fresh tires every time they hit the track. I know this is the wing side but that's what I remember as the argument for spec tires.
With that being said I don't see why you can't have a spec tire from two manufacturers to help with cost.
The simple solution to this is have a 1 RR per event rule. You run the same RR tire in qualifying, heat, and feature. If you pick one that's too soft, you won't make it to the end. No need to worry about doping, grooving, siping, brand, or anything else. Mark or scan the tire before going out to qualify and check after heats and feature. All of this talk about saving money always makes me laugh. $50k+ engines with $10k+ rebuilds several times per season, $400k+ haulers with multiple spare cars stacked up top, and we're worried about saving some tire money? Hoosier has literally bought their tire monopoly by openly bribing tracks and sanctioning bodies. I have no proof, but it wouldn' surprise me one bit if there was kickback money that wasn't seen or publicized too. No single supplier, spec compound, or doping rule was ever needed to fix the tire problem you described above. A simple one per night rule would have fixed it immediately.
I remember a former Lawrenceburg champion who ran a Goodyear on the RR and Hoosier on the left rear and had American Racers on the front. almost every race.
Originally Posted by kinser:
Every time I bring up opening the tire rule back up there are a lot of people saying it won’t work blah blah blah. Interesting fact: Leary won Paragon last Sunday on an American Racer
Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
That he won on American racers. The NWO has had a hoosier rule for about five years now. But he did open it up to all compounds due to tire shortages
Your are correct, a buddy of mine that owns the 5 car told me that and I text him and asked him again and he said that he was mistaken on that.
