You bring up an interesting point. My understanding is that there was
a large discussion about Mr. Earle's tire regulations at this past
months VMC meeting. As far as I have been able to ascertain, HMSA is
about the only group around with this restriction. As far as VARA
running on "low profile, gumballs" this is yet again another
misconception/exageration (You guys must think we're a real bunch of
yahoos!). Our tire rule (for production cars only) is that you have to
run a DOT approved treaded tire of not less than 60 series aspect
ratio (This includes the Yokohama A008RS series of tires which are DOT
approved treaded tires). There were two motivating factors for making
this change. First was that suitable 70 series are becoming very hard
to find for many production race cars. Also when available they are
extremely expensive. By changing to the 60 series DOT tire we are able
to find suitable QUALITY tires for racing in almost any size for
almost any car at a reasonablr price. This seems to have made everyone
in our club very happy. Ask Sterling Moss how much he liked HMSA's
tire regulations when they made him buy new tires for his 23B on the
first day of qualifying at Monterey last year. I don't have a personal
problem with the rule, for very old cars I think it makes alot of
sense, but for our club it just didn't make sense.
Casey Annis
Apparent defender of VARA
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