Recent Comment from Hoosier on FF Tires

Sorry for starting a new thread but it seemed the best way to go.

I was having an email discussion with Jeff Speer of Hoosier about wear patterns on my tires. When we were done I figured I'd ask if Hoosier was considering making another batch of the cantilever soft tire for 2024. Here's what he wrote, short and simple:

"We will discuss the long term life of this FF rear tire this Fall and will find out if we continue to build or not based on management's decision. Ideally, I would like to see a batch of (120) to solidify the future of this tire size."
(Quoted with permission from Jeff.)

On one hand, this is good news because many CModders were thinking the 2023 batch we'll be getting in August was it, done. But now they're considering the tire into the future.

On the other hand, the Fall could be mid-December and that is leaving things late in the year to find out.

But the last written reference I've seen from the SEB on tire plans referenced the 2025 season as when the rules would change. If 2025 still holds, then it's not so bad. However it leaves 2024 hanging and if Hoosier doesn't make a run of tires and discussions of alternatives are still ongoing, there won't be a CMod at Nationals in 2024 unless a few people have some used but decent tires available.

Discussion please ...

from what i understand - 120 tires is significantly more than all of CMod purchased for the last few years combined. I wasn't told a number, but was told the total number of cantileaver tires purchased for the last couple years was well under 100 units, I said how far under, and was told "significantly under 100".

I'll just cut to the chase and say from my perspective, the class isn't large enough to support its own tire.

FMod isn't large enough to support it's own specialty tire - that's why our 19.5" diameter tire was discontinued. Luckily the 18" tire we use now is also used by FSAE so we'll continue to have that tire into the future.


lastly - I just picked an arbitrary date of 2025 for the proposal. Once the class comes to a general consensus we can figure out the timeline.

As I noted in a previous thread, National Solo (Pro/Tour/Nat) CM participation has not recovered post-2020. This has led to a low to non-existent demand for the "qualifying" compound (R25/20) FF/CM rear. The last batch of (100?) R25 FF/CM rears were made in Aug 21 and was not depleted until earlier this year; there is simply no demand for this tire...

In Jul/2020, Continental, Hoosier's owner, took control of the business: Press Release

Quote:

---

Hanover, July 6, 2020. Technology company Continental is combining its global activities in the special-purpose tire segment. Effective July 1, the business areas of Commercial Specialty Tires, Two Wheel Tires and Hoosier Racing Tire are combined in a new “Specialty Tires” business unit. As a result, from now on the entire Continental specialty tire business will be developed, manufactured and distributed worldwide under the umbrella of the new unit: From tires for material handling, the agricultural, port, and construction sectors, to bicycle and motorcycle tires and tires for racing.

---

Given the above, I'm actually surprised that the Aug/21 run of the R25 FF/CM tire was even approved. I believe it was Hoosier giving the CM community a chance to prove (by purchase) that there was demand to continue. The CM community failed to consume this low volume tire so the (correct business) decision was made to discontinue after all the Aug/21 tires were sold.

I applaud Hoosier, R&S, and Jim Garry for their efforts to get a run of R20 FF/CM rears scheduled, made, and shipped in time for the 50th Solo Nationals, but I truly believe this is the FINAL production for these tires. Again, the demand does not exist for this tire.

As said previously, I HOPE THAT I AM PROVEN WRONG (and 120 R20 FF/CM rears can be sold), but that is not a sustainable path for the class. By their comments, the MAC/SEB feels the same; we need to look beyond the 50th and start planning out what is next (which is being discussed in numerous places). I'm just happy that nothing is currently locked down for the 2024 as it's going to take a while to get consensus as to "what's next"...

I created a timeline of what happened to the old R-25 rear Cantileaver tire. I was told the batch that Hoosier made was 2019 in late Aug. and if Hoosier made 120 tires like Hoosier said, then you can imagine that those tires lasted until after the 2022 National's because there was no rear tires for the 2023 season. Now the 2020 was in there and when I bought tires to take to the 2019 National's tires, they lasted the whole 2020 season without a 2020 National's.

I agree that the class isn't large enough to support its own tire. In my opinion, this isn't a tire problem, what we really have here is a Compound problem. If the MAC and SEB allow us to use the FC 13x8 and 13x6 rims it keeps us in the soft tires we can use:

1. 13x5.5 rims front and rear (any tires you want to use)
2. 13x8 and 13x5.5 Use the FC tires on the right rims
3. 13x8 and 13x6 and the other 2 option to keep the door open to keep the cars FF type cars

Now I'm all about going to the FC rims, the 13x8 and 13x6 so then we can have an option to have a softer compound tire and there are some different tire manufacturers with soft compounds also. It also gives us rain tires ( currently we don't have rain tires for the FF ) That to me is the future of CM going forward.

I'm with Jim about getting this resolved before the 2024 season ( somewhere in Dec ) because I know of 6 people that I've talked to about the compound problem and if it's still up in the air, they may go to another class or get out all together. It's very sad to have this happen to what was once one of the most stable classed cars in all of SCCA.

Ben

For the record, we had more than 60 tires ordered but Hoosier stepped back from their initial plan to build as many as we ordered and instead capped it at 60. Many of us were asked to reduce our planned buy so that others could get a set.

As someone looking to start running my car again next season, I'm going to throw in my $0.02,

I fully support a transition to the FC wheel and tire setup. If Conti/Hossier have a minimum number of sets that they have to hit in order to continue production of the rears, then it's going to always be a concern hanging over the class. A switch to the continental tire should put this to bed, so long as the numbers that they are currently selling appear to support production for the foreseeable future.

I believe that this needs to go to the MAC ASAP so we can have a solution ready for next season. This will of course result in a small change to our PAX numbers, but I don't believe that it will be anything significant.

Having this path forward allows us some time to acquire FC rear wheels over the winter, and be ready to go come spring 2024. The nice thing about the bias ply construction of the FC tires is that we won't have to make any major setup changes to our cars in order to accommodate them. From what I read, moving to radial tires requires much more camber and can require some additional hardware on older cars in order to allow for it.

It isn't being overly optimistic to think that CM can provide enough sales to make the tire worthwhile to Hoosier to produce.

We took a harder hit than most classes because of the pandemic. That is clear.

Our 2023 Nationals numbers are low by at least 4, perhaps more, because people got locked out when the registration cut off was reached in four hours. Hopefully those folks are all on the wait list as historically a hundred or more registrants usually drop out in situations like this.

There are two NER members building CM cars. There is a Finger Lakes Region member building a CM car. And Ben had several CM owners lined up to purchase tires back in May who pulled out at the last moment. But those are FF car owners who had the interest. Don't know why they decided against purchasing tires this time. No reason to think they won't buy tires in the future.

There's also na94 from the last post who is planning on running his car again. Josh from NER is repairing his car this year. And Corey, who bought my previous car, told me he hopes to be out in 2024.

I believe Hoosier would be wise to commit to continuing to supply the soft cantilever FF tire. In the beginning they could run a batch every other year. Given a two year cycle, CM would buy out such a run of tires. And perhaps in the future we'd be able to support an annual batch.

Please don't give up on your class. These are great cars and great people.