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2013 Rules Consideration--Bump of +13 Point Tire Category


Greg G.

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Wow - I thought it was a great idea! Keep the cost low, and be more about the driver than the budget.

 

In fact that's exactly what I did this past weekend. Ran the whole event on a set of used R888s. (Strictly budget - I have 16 points to spend.)

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  • National Staff

You cannot get around folks with money, other than to just drive better than them and make up for any differences that the money made.

 

So, lets say you did only allow a driver to use one set of tires a weekend in TT. The guy with an abundance of money and a distaste for the rule will start with four sticker tires. He will then purchase a slot in HPDE4 or HPDE3 or a race group, etc. where he will use his practice tires (or if he has the bucks, a different set of stickers). Then, he will go out on the stickers in the first session and take it easy just to get a grid position. He will then run one session on Saturday and one on Sunday in the TT class he is interested in winning, and he won't do but a few laps on the Saturday session. He will have all of the other sessions in HPDE or race to have fun, practice, test, etc. There is no NASA Regional Director that is going to ban someone from paying for extra track time.

 

Now, the guy that can't afford extra run groups or extra tires has to buy a new set of stickers. He has no choice but to run them in all 8 sessions, because he is there to drive and to compete. They are down by 1-2 seconds by Sunday, and essentially worthless under this rule by Sunday afternoon. Alternatively, without a rule requiring one to use one set of tires, he has two or more sets of tires (one new set, and the others are old tires that are for practice and getting a grid position). He can then run his new set one session Sat, one on Sunday, and the do it again the next event. He potentially gets four event days out of the one new set of stickers instead of the one or two he gets under a rule like this.

 

No, this is something that is not going to happen under my watch. It is just a pain in the butt for the TT Directors to try to enforce, and it is well meaning, but poorly conceived, and with unintended consequences (sounds like Washington DC).

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  • 2 weeks later...

TTU, 1, 2, 3 don't care about tire compounds - just construction (ie DOT vs Non-DOT). For me I almost recommend someone that's fielding one of those cars to just read the car-classing area of the ST rules instead. It's got everything that affects just that group of car classing all nice, neat, and contained.

 

TTB-F will still differentiate between stuff like a Hoosier A and Toyo RA1 afaik. That'd be a radical shakeup for those classes to drop that anyway....

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  • National Staff

The one tire that we may have an issue with for TT3, TT2, TT1 and ST is the BFG 275. There are size concerns vs the other majors.

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  • National Staff
Unless it is faster than the comparably sized tires from other mfgs, why would there be an issue?

Who said it is not faster?

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anecdotal evidence, but if you kick them (which I assume is the R1), surely it isn't up to C91/A6/R1-S levels, is it? It would be good to publish dimension limits so that certain mfgs are not in for a surprise if considering new molds/products.

 

And by the way, why is the slick limit set at 10.5" instead of 275mm (this isn't drag racing, right)?

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The R1S 275 has size issues.

 

And, it is not just drag racing slicks that are measured in inches. Most of the stock cars and Production cars run on slicks measured in inches.

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How so? With the 255/18 hoho it was obvious, and after several years it was also obvious and proven it WAS faster then other 255's, then we did something about it. But I'm at a loss for the BFG.

 

If we're talking the 275/35/18's, section/tread

 

Hoho: 10.7/10.3

BFG: 10.9/10.8

Goodyear: 11.1/10.5 (monsters, have rubbing issues)

ToyoRR: 10.9/unknown

 

So, where's the problem exactly? Are we going by tread width such as the rules follow on certain slicks, if that's the case the new toyo will be out as well i'm sure which they'll be very happy about. The goodyear isn't 10.5, gotta look at them mounted, wider then that. If you look at BFG's "mounted" in pics they aren't much if any wider, one of the TT guys had pics up in one of those BFG threads which was informative. But back on the original point though, the 255 hoho was an obvious 1/2+ inch advantage and wasn't even classified as a 265 or at least something close. Banning based on 1 or 3 tenths of an inch is getting paranoid without generous results to back it up.

 

You also gotta consider that the 275 Toyo and BFG are spec tires, so are you really going to require those cars to mount 265 tires in order to compete/supersize if points don't match.

 

FWIW the regular R1 comes up as 10.9/11, seems backwards...

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Are we going by tread width such as the rules follow on certain slicks, if that's the case the new toyo will be out as well i'm sure which they'll be very happy about. The goodyear isn't 10.5, gotta look at them mounted, wider then that.

 

I agree the selective tire docking can open (or has opened) a can of worms. Is there a standard margin of error?

 

One thing I have noticed, as I have probably gotten and measured more various sizes from Hoosier in the last 4 yrs than most, is that even compared to their POSTED specs, what I measure out on them very frequently, is incorrect. You can get two different sizes (either different tread or dia) that both will claim "X" is the width, and when you measure them, they are not the same. This gets even more skewed when one has a larger section width, and typically slips on a wider wheel better than the other, and ends up having a nicer footprint than the other.

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I would like to chime in on this BFG tire issue. The 275 BFG R1 is not an overdog and should not even have been a 13 point tire. Here is my unscientific evidence why. In 2011 I ran a 275 Hoosier A6 and Rory ran a 255 A6 which we all know now is actually a 275. Our lap times at nationals in 2011 were within a second of each other. In 2012 I switched to the 275 BFG R1 and Rory switched to the 275 Hoosier R6. We were both considerably slower in 2012 but our lap times were still within a second of each other. This tells me that the 275 BFG R1 is slower than the 275 Hoosier A6 and is comparable in performance to the 275 Hoosier R6.

 

The 275 size is important because its the break point for the adjusted pw/wt. If you screw with the BFG's than you will be forcing some people to a different tire manufacturer. BFG offered a great contingency in 2012 and I hope they continue that in 2013. Lets not ruin this over some static tread width measurements because there is more to it than that. The 275 BFG R1 does not have a performance advantage like the 255 Hoosier previously did.

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So is anything going to change for the +13 tire category for next year? I would like to buy a 2nd set of rims and some A6s for next year but if a change is potentially coming I'll wait on it...but I don't want to be in limbo for too long and be left scrambling at the 11th hour. I haven't read the 40+ pages so apologies if this was intimated already.

 

Thanks.

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Stuck in limbo waiting to find out what tires to develop my new car for? Looks like I wont have much time to get it sorted for next year...Its not that big of a deal, but hopefully we get an update soon.

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