Howdy,
On Fri, 27 Oct 2000 dg50@daimlerchrysler.com wrote:
> And by the way, Pollyanna Johnson is 100% correct when it comes to the STS
> tire rule. It's not only completely unenforceable, but the tire
> manufacturers have ALREADY altered treadwear ratings to comply with rules
> at least once. A marque club banned "treadwear 0" tires, and that SAME TIRE
> sprouted a "treadwear 50" stamp a few months later. Roger probably has
> details.
Illustrating why you don't rely on a treadwear rating as the sole means of
policing tires. Just like ST _doesn't_.
Perhaps the easiest way to get people to understand this is to toss the
treadwear rating restriction as a whole. Have an eligibility date and an
exclusion list. Pay someone to go through all manu specs for all tires a
bit before the eligibility date and add any tires to the exclusion list
that need to be added (note that other tires can be added as well, to
cover BFG release the G-Force R1 with a 600 treadwear rating).
My guess is that someday that person screws up and a tire with a 130
treadwear rating on the day of the eligibility cutoff isn't added to the
exclusion list. Now you've implicitly told competitors that its legal to
use the tire. At least with the "and no tire with less than 140
treadwear" in addition to the exclusion list, that tire is known to be
illegal ahead of time.
Sure, manufacturers can cheat. Just like now. And that's the point. Its
not a valid reason to ignore a demonstrated new demographic.
Myself, I fail to see the point _as a competitor_ for street tire classes.
But that sure as hell isn't the same thing as thinking that I should
require everyone to share my belief and trump up reasons to support that
effort.
Mark
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