136 replies to this topic

[Jim Boemler]

Is it realistic to completely break with National on this? It's one thing to allow the RA1 for a while, but it seems like you're at least considering going with a different tire long-term. We discussed this back when the class first went National, and decided that using the same tires for Regional and National was the only course that made sense. I do agree that the situation is different now, though. Back then, many drivers aspired to go on to the Runoffs, and it seems that most have since been disabused of that notion.

It seems there's a pretty straightforward case to be made for following National, at least as an option. Can someone step up and make a serious case for NOT doing so?

[Keith Novak]

I agree and disagree to various degrees on a number of points. For a better compromise, I propose Hoosier or Toyo for rains starting 1st race. Pretty much all the points to every arguement only hold water during dry conditions. Don't prevent people from running what they have, but don't prevent people from running the new tire during the season when we most frequently use rains and few will brave the weather regardless of the tire.

Get the old toyos shaved down and use them up, sell them, or use them for whatever you want. If the Hoo Hoos are better in the wet, wets last longer than drys, the beginning of the season is traditionally wet, it's one set of tires and and in the kind of conditions we've seen driving is a much bigger factor than tires.

I'd also request keep the 888 legal so that if the new tires are faster and you'd rather burn up whatever you have under a tarp until you can use the new tires, bring what you got and run what you brung. It rains a lot early season so we don't always get to use the drys as much as we want. We might lose a weekend due to work or family and use them less. Then we're still in the extra tires or lack of parity situation.

[Randy Thieme]

Pretty much all the points to every arguement only hold water during dry conditions.

No pun intended Keith?

[William Bonsell]

I thnk it's important that we allow Toyos at least through 2012 season. I think this is more about when and if (or how) we allow Hoosiers in Regional.

-bw

Yes, allow Toyos for the entire 2012, but also make Hoosiers an alternate choice as well. The Hoosier is a substantially better rain tire and might bring out racers who might otherwise sit out a weekend if rain is in the forecast. Also, if we don't allow Hoosiers from the get go for 2012, then some racers might be stuck with having to purchase new Toyos (Terrell comes to mind) and that might add to the early season costs in a negative way. Personally, if I would buy a set of Hoosier rains first, shave down my RA-1 intermediates and keep the two fairly fresh sets of RA-1 drys. This should set me up pretty well for a good part of 2012. Now if I can just afford to race in 2012 being fully retired and trying to hide money from my WIFE....

Bill-

[Ken SM94]

Good piont Keith. I seems a lot of us are thiking of keeping it Toyo only for the first part of the season (at least) and allowing the Hoosier rains from the start would make it much easier for the guys running Nationals. I think it's a good comprimise that we could all live with.

I don't have a problem with the people using up the 888 rocks but they shouldn't be buying new ones.

Open tires rule are not an opton as far as I'm concerned.

[Randy Thieme]

Keith's idea does sound good to me too. If I understand, we can buy the Hoosiers for rains next year, shave our existing RA-1 rains to have a fast RA-1. If we have dry weather for September would let's us shave our rains now so we have fast tires then.

Bruce, Ken, Sean, Will,

When does it look like a decision might be made? In time to include September's race in our 2012 tire strategy?

[Kyle Keenan]

Great idea to allow the Hoosier rains all next year, I think that'd save us BIGTIME in costs for next season. I'm one of those guys with 2005 rains and was hoping we wouldnt have to purchase two different sets of rains to get through next year.

I'm not sold on any tire rules for next season, so i'm anxiously watching here. I do LOVE the idea above though.

[Bruce Wilson]

I love driving in the rain everywhere except for Portland, which I absolutely hate. So if the Hoosier rain changes how stupidly bad my car works in the wet at PIR, I'm Sold!!!

All of the serious National drivers will be at Infineon next week so we should have a fairly good concensus by then. Hopefully we can put it out for everyone to vote then. That will come via email. I'll post a list of emails I still don't have this weekend.

-bw

[William Bonsell]

I love driving in the rain everywhere except for Portland, which I absolutely hate. So if the Hoosier rain changes how stupidly bad my car works in the wet at PIR, I'm Sold!!!

All of the serious National drivers will be at Infineon next week so we should have a fairly good concensus by then. Hopefully we can put it out for everyone to vote then. That will come via email. I'll post a list of emails I still don't have this weekend.

-bw

Geez, I'm shocked someone else really hates PIR in the rain!! But I have heard fantastic reports from the 944 Cup guys about the performance of the Hoosiers compared to Toyo's ESPECIALLY in the rain...

[Kyle Keenan]

Geez, I'm shocked someone else really hates PIR in the rain!! But I have heard fantastic reports from the 944 Cup guys about the performance of the Hoosiers compared to Toyo's ESPECIALLY in the rain...

Is that why they kept going off during that first session at Pacific?

[Keith Novak]

No buying new 888s. (Who would want to?) My thinking is more if someone will wind up just a hair short on their good tires before the Hoosiers are allowed, they can find tires. I got a set from Bruce for that purpose at the end of last season. It rained and I never used them but if I did need them, I had something to use without buying a new set of rocks for one race.

[William Bonsell]

Is that why they kept going off during that first session at Pacific?

Hey Kyle....,good catch on that one, but, hey, you can't lift in T1 at Pacific....not even a tiny bit, especially in the rain. And well, going down into 3A in the rain can be dicey regardless of tires...Just ask Bockman and DeRegt, circa 2010....

Bill-

[Jim Boemler]

"Monkey see, ..."

[Terrell Garrett]

With any product during its life cycle you have the "innovators", the "early adopters", the "early majority", the "late majority" and the "laggards". For purposes of this discussion the "innovators" don't exist due to rules in place or being adopted. With the Hoosier product discussion I would place those who want to continue running RA-1's in the "late majority" category either because they have RA-1's they need to use up or they want to buy new ones because they are a safe, known commodity. Anyone still running the 888's is a "laggard" (sorry Randy). Those such as myself who want the Hoosiers for the September race (not realistic) are the "early adopters" who are willing to take the risk.

In Portland we do not know how the Hoosiers will behave and what if any setup changes will be necessary. We also do not know optimum tire pressures in different conditions. The "early adopters" are the group that willingly learns these answers sometimes to their detriment. In our situation it is better for all if those risks can be minimized. Allowing the Hoosiers as well as the RA-1's from the start next year allows drivers to use the Hoosiers in practice and learn about them while using the known commodity RA-1's in the race if they choose.

It does not make sense to me to introduce the Hoosiers mid-season. From what I understand Toyo doesn't want to make the RA-1 anymore and certainly since SCCA is adopting the Hoosier Toyo won't have a lot of incentive to keep us in tires until mid-summer. If we are to make a change mid-season let's make it to get rid of the RA-1's. By then everyone will have used up their current inventory and those "early adopters" will have learned the secrets of the Hoosiers which I am sure they will share with others to some extent. The "late majority" will be comfortable with moving to Hoosiers as the kinks will have already been worked out.

As far as the "laggards" that might still want to run the 888's I don't have a lot of sympathy. They should be disallowed next year except in practice sessions which I do not believe have tire restrictions anyways (even if there are restrictions I don't think anyone would be so crappy as to try and get somebody disqualified for running 888's in a practice session).

The Hoosiers are known to be a good tire and probably a faster tire for Portland than the RA-1. This is not like the 888 which was questionable at best in comparison to the RA-1. Let's get this change over with and move forward.

[Jim Boemler]

Question: what's the point in making a slow tire illegal?

[Keith Novak]

I agree with you on wanting to start using the new tires early and figure them out as soon as possible, not get halfway through the season before trying them out. I definately won't be running nationals since they're more expensive, a smaller field, and it would mean trying out completely new tires.

I don't agree with your laggard arguement. It assumes people *want* to use 888s. I don't want to use them at all and have run RA1s all year. I *want* to use the new tires. I understand it's a tight class with fierce competition, plus the backlog of tires people have. If the consensus though is that we can't use the new tires for half a season, I'm asking that until the time we can, help people limit their expense on soon-to-be obsolete tires. If for example Rose Cup is the last weekend we can use Toyos and I'd have to buy 2 new sets to race, I'm skipping Rose Cup. I'll spend the money on test days using Hoosiers.

If the vote is for no 888s, who do I talk to about allowing them for STL? Another set of rims and renting a storage unit nearby until June would cost me less than a set of RA1s shipped to my house, and I get to use the rims indefinately.

[Randy Thieme]

I take offense at any post so long and complicated I can't respond from my smart phone. Damn laggard's too lazy to boot up the grandpa box (desktop machine) to get on the Net.

Running the 888's was simply a matter of burning up what I had. More a matter of being a cheap packrat than anything else. As for allowing them in 2012 they were not going to be allowed anyways and that shouldn't change. No 888's period regardless of new, old, shaved, unshaved or just a bikini wax.

As for speed differences between the Hoosiers and Toyo's it may not be my place to speak from the back of the pack but - watch out.

(1) There's already been one post suggesting the Hoosier may not be faster on tracks with long straights. I don't know what qualifies as a long straight but PIR might just fall into that category, especially when we run without chicane.

(2) Hoosier's literature warns the tire is not the best choice for drivers who like to throw their car into the corner. Their literature states it rewards smooth. I'm reading between the lines which suggests either the Hoosier has a lower slip angle at max grip than the RA-1, or the cross over into the twilight zone happens fast once you exceed that angle. The lower slip angle for max grip was one of the differences between the 888's and RA-1. If you hated the 888's I'm just saying.

As for what's allowed in practice personally I think the rules should be the same as qualifying and race. Part of keeping costs down is stopping the arms race. One way to at least slow down the arms racee is no experimentation during practice. Otherwise people will try an otherwise illegal part during practice, find out it gains 2/10's, and then next thing we know there's a push for a rule change to make the part legal next year which forces everyone to spend money buying that part. What we need, and I'm totally serious here, is a three year rule freeze without exception.

Regardless of how the Hoosier turns out let's agree to be happy with it. Do we really need a bunch of people bitch'in about the tire and forcing yet another tire change for 2013? Three tire changes in three years is enough already. If it's fast be happy your lap times are now faster. If its slow they say it's best to learn on crappy tires. So good or bad be happy and eat your peas.

[Alberto]

(2) Hoosier's literature warns the tire is not the best choice for drivers who like to throw their car into the corner. Their literature states it rewards smooth. I'm reading between the lines which suggests either the Hoosier has a lower slip angle at max grip than the RA-1, or the cross over into the twilight zone happens fast once you exceed that angle. The lower slip angle for max grip was one of the differences between the 888's and RA-1. If you hated the 888's I'm just saying.

<snip>

Regardless of how the Hoosier turns out let's agree to be happy with it. Do we really need a bunch of people bitch'in about the tire and forcing yet another tire change for 2013? Three tire changes in three years is enough already. If it's fast be happy your lap times are now faster. If its slow they say it's best to learn on crappy tires. So good or bad be happy and eat your peas.

#2 is one of the big things I'm concerned about as well.

[Jim Graffy]

My vote is to allow both the Toyo and Hoosier for Oregon Region for 2012. The mid season switch does not make sense to me. I started 2011 purchasing 2 sets of new RA-1s and phased them in through the season. They are now getting to the end of their service life, so they probably won't make it to mid 2012.

As far as STL is concerned, one could argue that it is open DOT tire. STL is a GCR Regional only class, and there is no GCR SM spec tire rule for Regionals. I posed this question last year to the Oregon Region Deputy Executive Steward, but got no answer. So I would propose that we be proactive and word our Supps to clearly state that the Oregon Region SM Spec tire rule for Regionals does not apply to SM cars running in STL. This will provide a place for folks to burn up their old tires or provide a place for folks to play the tire game.

Jim

[Jim Boemler]

#2 is one of the big things I'm concerned about as well.

All tires reward smooth.