Your Thoughts on Mandating 200+TW "Street Tires" in Improved Touring?

[Greg Amy]

Piss Off!

What if Hoosier offered a 200TW tire...?

[SLUF]

Even though I'm double dipping often from ITA to STU or even FP in my POS-325e, I'd think favorably on the proposal. That would "commonize" my tire selection for some other organizations as well.

[dickita15]

I think that it may be high time to put IT on street tires. There are other classes such as STL and Limited Prep Production, and Touring that offer much of what Improved Touring used to.

Solo has done the hard work here and my understanding is their rule set works. I am told they have 3 competitive tires. There is a provision to exclude a tire if it is a ringer.


By going to street tires it would be a dramatic cost savings money that could be invested in entry fees.


The IT7 guys I race with run 100tw Nittos and we are getting 5 – 6 weekends. I can only imagine 200tw would add more weekends. We also found that since going to harder tires brakes and bearings and such are lasting longer as well.


SCCA has too many classes that are very similar. Street Tires would differentiate IT.

[jwasilko]

I think that it may be high time to put IT on street tires. There are other classes such as STL and Limited Prep Production, and Touring that offer much of what Improved Touring used to.

Solo has done the hard work here and my understanding is their rule set works. I am told they have 3 competitive tires. There is a provision to exclude a tire if it is a ringer.


By going to street tires it would be a dramatic cost savings money that could be invested in entry fees.


The IT7 guys I race with run 100tw Nittos and we are getting 5 – 6 weekends. I can only imagine 200tw would add more weekends. We also found that since going to harder tires brakes and bearings and such are lasting longer as well.


SCCA has too many classes that are very similar. Street Tires would differentiate IT.

It's an idea with merit, though the lack of a good rain tire seemed to be an issue as we saw by the loss of two IT7 cars in the rain at Palmer.

Do 100-200TW race group and keep us away from the spec pinatas and maybe....

[Greg Amy]

It's an idea with merit, though the lack of a good rain tire seemed to be an issue as we saw by the loss of two IT7 cars in the rain at Palmer.

Those had nothing to do with rubber compound. Those were due to being cheap and not swapping to tires that had tread.

[jwasilko]

Those had nothing to do with rubber compound. Those were due to being cheap and not swapping to tires that had tread.

new NT01 don't have much tread. RA1 would be a good rain.

[Greg Amy]

new NT01 don't have much tread. RA1 would be a good rain.

Also note that many of them don't have functional wipers, let along window defrosters.

[dickita15]

It's an idea with merit, though the lack of a good rain tire seemed to be an issue as we saw by the loss of two IT7 cars in the rain at Palmer.

Do 100-200TW race group and keep us away from the spec pinatas and maybe....

Good point in that we would need to have a rain strategy. at Palmer i had rain tires in the trailer but honestly in the 3 year i had raced Palmer I had never seen that much water on the track.
that event also makes me happy i had a defroster and heater core. the two cars that crashed both had visibility problems and could not see the standing water.

[Rabbit07]

What if Hoosier offered a 200TW tire...?

I road race because I like going around corners fast. As fast as possible, that's a step backwards using 200 TW tires. If I liked driving fast on street tires I could do that on my way to work with a street car.

[Greg Amy]

I road race because I like going around corners fast.

You drive a Miata.

[Rabbit07]

You drive a Miata.

[dickita15]

I road race because I like going around corners fast. As fast as possible, that's a step backwards using 200 TW tires.

Chris, that's great, looking at your signature line you would still have 3 other categories to race in on DOTs. Plus a forth that i do not know what it is. why not have some differentiation between categories.

[Rabbit07]

Chris, that's great, looking at your signature line you would still have 3 other categories to race in on DOTs. Plus a forth that i do not know what it is. why not have some differentiation between categories.

Someone on the CRB or BOD thought it was a great idea to dump SS and replace it with Touring 4 and Bspec. Not sure we are further a head at this point.

I understand the differentiation of classes part. You could get me to the middle on that. The idea that this will save $ is ridiculous. We got here due to tire wars to compete in a DOT class. All you'd be doing is hitting the reset button and it would start all over again. No thanks

[jumbojimbo]

Someone on the CRB or BOD thought it was a great idea to dump SS and replace it with Touring 4 and Bspec. Not sure we are further a head at this point.

I understand the differentiation of classes part. You could get me to the middle on that. The idea that this will save $ is ridiculous. We got here due to tire wars to compete in a DOT class. All you'd be doing is hitting the reset button and it would start all over again. No thanks

You think going to 200 tires will start a DOT tire war in IT? Now that is funny.

[Greg Amy]

There are two primary reasons I see 200TW tires being useful to Improved Touring:

1) Category Distinction and Differentiation. What differentiates IT from other categories? Prep isn't massively different than LP Prod, and Touring is inching - leaping - its presence away from its Showroom Stock roots. IT tires are no different than Touring or Super Touring. IT doesn't have wings and splitters are limited. IT does not go to the org's biggest event of the year.

If asked to explain why run Improved Touring instead of any other class, what's your answer?

200TW tires would clearly differentiate the category in a significant way, something that is not done by any other category.

2) Attraction from other groups. There is a large and growing population of racers out there in series and with orgs that do not allow tires with a TW lower than 200. Limiting the class to 200 makes it attractive to them. Those orgs do that specifically for costs purposes. No one can legitimately argue that a $250 10-cycle tire can ever cost less, long- or short-term, than a $120 more-than-10-cycle tire. And while outliers can never be eliminated (really, you're going to shave your tires so low that they'll only last 2 sessions?) they can safely be ignored. Because outliers are not for whom we make decisions.

Improved Touring needs to make positive changes that will differentiate it from the existing crowd and make itself attractive to those not interested in chasing the Runoffs-of-the-Year. And this would be a really easy and cost-effective way to do it, one that would be quite easy to revert if it didn't work out.

And, really, 3) because those that actually want to spend the big money on consistently replacing fast tires probably don't really give a crap about Improved Touring anyway...

Food for thought.

[raffaelli]

There are two primary reasons I see 200TW tires being useful to Improved Touring:

1) Category Distinction and Differentiation. What differentiates IT from other categories? Prep isn't massively different than LP Prod, and Touring is inching - leaping - its presence away from its Showroom Stock roots. IT tires are no different than Touring or Super Touring. IT doesn't have wings and splitters are limited. IT does not go to the org's biggest event of the year.

If asked to explain why run Improved Touring instead of any other class, what's your answer?

200TW tires would clearly differentiate the category in a significant way, something that is not done by any other category.

2) Attraction from other groups. There is a large and growing population of racers out there in series and with orgs that do not allow tires with a TW lower than 200. Limiting the class to 200 makes it attractive to them. Those orgs do that specifically for costs purposes. No one can legitimately argue that a $250 10-cycle tire can ever cost less, long- or short-term, than a $120 more-than-10-cycle tire. And while outliers can never be eliminated (really, you're going to shave your tires so low that they'll only last 2 sessions?) they can safely be ignored. Because outliers are not for whom we make decisions.

Improved Touring needs to make positive changes that will differentiate it from the existing crowd and make itself attractive to those not interested in chasing the Runoffs-of-the-Year. And this would be a really easy and cost-effective way to do it, one that would be quite easy to revert if it didn't work out.

And, really, 3) because those that actually want to spend the big money on consistently replacing fast tires probably don't really give a crap about Improved Touring anyway...

Food for thought.

I was thinking no on this idea until Greg's post. I'd like to try it.

(even though it may make double dipping difficult)

[jjjanos]

200TW tires would clearly differentiate the category in a significant way, something that is not done by any other category.

And this matters why?

2) Attraction from other groups. There is a large and growing population of racers out there in series and with orgs that do not allow tires with a TW lower than 200. Limiting the class to 200 makes it attractive to them. Those orgs do that specifically for costs purposes. No one can legitimately argue that a $250 10-cycle tire can ever cost less, long- or short-term, than a $120 more-than-10-cycle tire. And while outliers can never be eliminated (really, you're going to shave your tires so low that they'll only last 2 sessions?) they can safely be ignored. Because outliers are not for whom we make decisions.

My apologies. I thought you were making a serious proposal. The tell was when you said racers won’t waste money to gain an advantage and we don’t create rules for outliers.

That is why we do not have the full range of blingy shocks that come with even a time-zone adjustment.
That’s why we do not have fuel testing because nobody is going to spend $75/gallons to win a race.
That is why we never worry about someone cheating because nobody would want to win that way.

ChumpAER guys are not skipping SCCA because of purple crack. They skip us because our rules are immense and restrictive. They can also turn any POS dog into a better car by doing loads of modifications to make it competitive in a new bracket.

Not going to shave tires? Pull the other leg! That is the one with bells on it; you will get to her the ding.

Showroom stock guys, back in the day, shaved their tires like it was a first date. Look around the paddock — the drivers may have changed, but they are just as stupid about gaining an unfair advantage as the old bona-fide SS drivers.

Improved Touring needs to make positive changes that will differentiate it from the existing crowd and make itself attractive to those not interested in chasing the Runoffs-of-the-Year. And this would be a really easy and cost-effective way to do it, one that would be quite easy to revert if it didn't work out.

You mean that I will need to spend a boatload of money on new wheels, a new final drive and suspension setup and reserve the right to say “Psych!” Thanks!

I appreciate the effort to do something for a category that probably received a death blow from Topeka siphoning away our entrants, but be realistic about how stupid drivers are when it comes to an advantage.

[kgobey]

This is what I meant by mandating 100TW + tires. There are viable and inexpensive solutions for us that are not 200TW. In fact the Maxxis 100TW option as far as we have been able to tell is a really great race tire, does not heat cycle out and a set now 2 years old is only getting replaced because the cords are showing!!!

HOOSIER RADIAL WET H2O Wet Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
TOYO PROXES RR Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HOOSIER R7 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HOOSIER A7 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HANKOOK VENTUS Z214 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HANKOOK VENTUS Z214 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
BFGOODRICH G-FORCE R1 S Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 B A

TOYO PROXES RA1 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 100 AA A
TOYO PROXES R888R Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 100 AA A
Nitto NT01
UTQG: 100
Maxxis Victra RC-1 DOT-approved R compound
UTQG: 100 A A

Maxxis Victra VR-1 Extreme Summer tire
UTQG 200 AA A
TOYO PROXES R1R Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
NEXEN N FERA SUR4G Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 A A
KUMHO ECSTA V720 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
HANKOOK VENTUS R-S4 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
BFGOODRICH G-FORCE RIVAL S 1.5 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A

[georgethefierce]

This is what I meant by mandating 100TW + tires. There are viable and inexpensive solutions for us that are not 200TW. In fact the Maxxis 100TW option as far as we have been able to tell is a really great race tire, does not heat cycle out and a set now 2 years old is only getting replaced because the cords are showing!!!

HOOSIER RADIAL WET H2O Wet Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
TOYO PROXES RR Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HOOSIER R7 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HOOSIER A7 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HANKOOK VENTUS Z214 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
HANKOOK VENTUS Z214 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 C A
BFGOODRICH G-FORCE R1 S Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 40 B A

TOYO PROXES RA1 Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 100 AA A
TOYO PROXES R888R Racetrack & Autocross Only
UTQG: 100 AA A
Maxxis Victra RC-1 DOT-approved R compound
UTQG: 100 A A

Maxxis Victra VR-1 Extreme Summer tire
UTQG 200 AA A
TOYO PROXES R1R Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
NEXEN N FERA SUR4G Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 A A
KUMHO ECSTA V720 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
HANKOOK VENTUS R-S4 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A
BFGOODRICH G-FORCE RIVAL S 1.5 Extreme Performance Summer
UTQG: 200 AA A

IT7 runs the Nitto NT01 which is a 100TW R...you can add that to your list.

[JeffGio]

What if Hoosier offered a 200TW tire...?

Maybe, hear it's in the works, but worry it'll be too good when shaved to nothing, and of course they will be overly proud of their tire.