Howdy,
On Wed, 17 Mar 1999 RacerRay52@aol.com wrote:
> Because one likes R-compound tires on stock
> category cars does not mean that it is impossible to
> write and enforce a rule against them. If it can be done
> on Street Touring cars it can be done on stock cars.
> It would also be no very difficult matter to enforce an
> exclusion list against any street tires that the sanctioning body
> deems inimical to the desire to keep costs down.
>
> "Why the heck do you think we've got R compound
> tires now anyway?" asks our grumpy friend. There could be
> several answers to that. Could one answer be something to do
> with corporate involvment in the sport and money?
Of COURSE it has everything to do with corporate involvment and money!
Are you saying that's a bad thing?
Write the rule that disallows R tires. If you base it on treadwear (and a
company cares enough), they'll blow it away by putting whatever treadwear
stamp on there that you want to see (just like they currently do with a
DOT stamp). Ah, but "bring on the exclusion list!" Well, that's great as
long as a company doesn't release a new tire just before a Pro or
whatever. "Okay, so lets use an allowed list!" Well that might actually
work, but gives tire manufacturers no incentive to be involved in our
sport. I'm sure all the folks who currently are getting help on tire
costs would love that.
And then we come back to the real point. Why are we going to all this
trouble? To keep costs down. My point is that that just plain doesn't
seem to make sense. My street tires got torn up a heck of a lot faster
than my R tires ever thought of being. And my street tires (goofy OEM ACR
sedan Eagle NCT-II's) cost _more_ than R tires.
Not to mention that very likely the best way to get stick from street
tires is to shave 'em, then put a few hundred miles on 'em to make them
look worn. Maybe you'll contend that that should be illegal, in which
case you force people to either waste a bunch of time driving around to
wear the tires down or to cheat.
And what's tire availability gonna do to classing? Suddenly the 14" wheel
cars are at a large disadvantage because they can't get GForce KD's (or
whatever) but the 15"er's can. Ok, so we change up the classes to class
appropriately. Whoops, now BFG has decided they wanna help the 14" guys
so they start selling the tire in a 14" size. Now the classes are screwed
up again.
The current system hasn't been shown by anyone to be significantly more
expensive than a street tire system and has a fair amount of annecdotal
eveidence that actually refutes that assumption. The current system also
is fairly stable and meshes with our current class structure. And no one
has yet described how you're gonna stop people from spending more money on
tires than the other guy anyway. If you disallow R tires, you just
require poeple to have a differenent type of tire for autox, you've done
absolutely nothing to ensure that most people's street tires are
competitive.
My grumpy statement this morning might have been a bit over the top, but
so far everyone I've seen who's a proponent of of street tires over R
tires has had the desire to bring costs down to level the playing field.
Well, sorry, but it just isn't gonna work. Heck its not even certain that
tire costs _would be less_, not to mention that you can't stop people from
spending money to go faster anyway with our current rule structure.
Should we disallow McKamey school graduates? After all, it costs you $200
or so to take the school, plus tire wear. Maybe everyone can't afford
that. How about disallowing testing. _I_ don't have access to a testing
lot, so why the heck should Daddio be able to test tires and suspension?
I stand by my original statement. If fairness is what you want, get a
neon or miata in stock or get a mod car. Those will remove more of the
expensive variables than any street tire rule ever thought of doing, with
_way_ less controversy.
Mark
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